Verbal Diarrhoea

The daily journey to work should have taken me no longer than ten minutes. But I’d left the house late and now I found myself sitting in traffic.

Sitting there, hands clenching the steering wheel, lips chapped and attempting to sing along to The Postal Service, I noticed her running by. And instantly I hated her. I hated her and everything she represented. I hated her freedom. I hated the fact that it was nearly 8 in the morning and she wasn’t rushing off to an office with fluorescent lighting. Her fingers would not be gliding effortlessly across a keyboard, in an effort to update the latest database. I hated the fact that she had the luxury of spending her mornings exercising, her legs pounding away rhythmically. I imagined experiencing the exertion of my lungs, the cold air on my face and I hated her. I hated her pert ass and blonde ponytail swinging to and fro.

And as sat there thinking up a list of imaginary wrongs incurred by the young woman, I had what others would refer to as an “epiphany”. I realized that a few months ago my opinion of the woman would have been different. I would have looked at her in complete and utter awe. I would have admired her willpower. The discipline that it took to wake up at the crack of dawn and run anything further than a block, was beyond my comprehension. And this feeling of awe would soon be followed by one of dejection. I’d never be capable of any of this.

And now … Now all those things I’ve admired in other runners; all those things that I always I assumed I was incapable of doing, are easy. I’ve finally reached a place where I can run 8km comfortably. I’ve finally reached a place where running is actually enjoyable. I’ve finally reached the point where I can bite down and tell myself, “You’re not done yet. Dig deep. Find your inner strength.”

And as this realization hit me, I couldn’t help but smile.

Fifty imaginary points if you can correctly identify this building.

*

It was her eyes that drew my attention. There was nothing spectacular about them. It wasn’t their shape or colour that startled me but rather their vacant expression – as if they’d seen it all and nothing would surprise her.

Drug addict!

Even to my ears the words sounded harsh and final. Those two words, that simple, singular thought, expressed something about me that I couldn’t quite accept. I’d judged her and written her off as a worthless fraction of society. Determined to change my impression of her, I scrutinized her. If she noticed my staring, she didn’t show it.

Maybe she’s just tired? Look, she has bags under her eyes. Her clothes are clean and there are no smudges of dirt on her face.  

Quickly my eyes darted to her arms in search of needle tracks or better yet, a collapsed vein. The long sleeved jacket she was wearing and the fact that I hadn’t been blessed with x-ray vision prevented me from getting a good look at her arms. Not willing to give up at playing Columbo just yet, I tried to look at her groceries. She didn’t have any but I watched the guy standing beside her, the guy I assumed was her boyfriend, slowly sign a cash slip and handing her a packet of Pampers.

See? She just had a baby. She’s probably had countless sleepless nights. She’s not a drug addict. She’s just tired. Her boyfriend doesn’t really look like her type though. He just looks too … vibrant.              

Once they’d left, I looked over at my friend and asked, “Did you notice the girl standing in front of you at the checkout till?”

“The one with the brown jacket?”

I was taken aback by his reply. Of all the things I’d noted, the colour of her jacket wasn’t one of them.

“I don’t know. Blonde hair. Was there something weird about her?”

“Drug addict. I’ve seen her before. She asks people to buy her things – baby food, porridge,* nappies** … and then she returns the items for cash.”

 * Porridge – cereal.  

**Nappies – I think Americans refer to them as diapers.

I found a boy who had a dream
Making everyone smile
He was sunshine
I fell over my feet
Oxygen – Colbie Caillat

Hi

Remember me? I used to blog on a daily basis until I was appointed as the new Project Manager. Now my blog has descended into a dumping ground of funny comics and links, much like Juan’s blog, SWL.

I used to the girl who spent an hour chatting to a boy named Adam about geological explorations in South America only to find out that his actual name is Nick. Oh wait, that was Friday. Not my finest moment.

Anyway, I was planning to write a blog post of all my weekend moments of dipshittery (and trust me there were plenty) but I’m just not feeling it. Soooo I bring you the following instead …

Red, orange and gold – shades of autumn floating towards the ground.

And as I sit there, my car insolating me from the infamous South-Easter, I can’t help but wonder if anyone has ever attempted to capture this moment on paper.

I think of Ellie in Spain and how she manages to carefully capture her thoughts on paper. I could never do that. My thoughts are always veering erratically from one topic to the next. There’s no rhyme or reason.

I think of Ernest Hemmingway’s book, “A Moveable Feast”* and how after reading a few chapters I stated with conviction that I’d love to be poor. After noticing the all too apparent cynicism on Cazz’s face I modified that statement to, “Experimentally poor. Not really poor.”

I think about how it really would be nice to spend one’s days watching the seasons change.

And I think about all of this before the robot** has a chance to change.

* Quote from A Moveable Feast: “Creation’s probably overrated. After all, God made the world in only six days and rested on the seventh.”

** Robot is a South African colloquialism for traffic light.

A hand, black and callused slapped the bonnet of my car. Not once but twice. With each slap the metal bounced back, resilient against the assault.

“Lady, I’m going to scratch your car.” The vowels flat, the warning effective.

Exhaling, I allowed the metal bucket to cut in front of me, all the time cursing the existence of taxi drivers. Not for the first time I found myself fantasizing about taking a baseball bat to the hood of the taxi. With each strike, with each invigorating release of anger, the metal crumples and the driver shrieks. The yelp is high pitched and entertaining. 

*

Photo taken at Dungeons, SA. Looking at this picture gives me the chills. Can you imagine how awesome it must feel to ride that wave? The sheer exhiliration of it all. Picture available from MagicSeaweed.

I’m not sure how many of you have had the luxury of feasting your eyes and wrapping your tongue around the lovely Megan Gate’s prose. And no, prose is not code for nipples, you dirty little pervert.

Seriously though this woman has me completely floored. So much so that I’ve spent the better part of last week (when I should be diligently plugging away at my thesis) scouring the net for other pieces of her work. Add to this Mo Stoneskin’s captivating tales and Peter’s kaalvoet gedigte sonder fensie leestekens of woorde wat rym, and then we have a heady combination which leaves me feeling completely overwhelmed. Overwhelmed to such an extent that I now hesitate to even pick up a pen.

To say that I’ve been working on this tale for a while now would be an awful distortion of the truth. Saying that would lead YOU to believe that I’ve actively been rewriting various intricate phrases when what I’ve really been doing is waiting. I’ve been waiting for the words to find me. Waiting for the words to reveal themselves to me; as conspicuous as an unclothed Venus stepping out of a shell. I’ve been gnawing over words that would most accurately depict the large cement outcrop that I found myself sitting on. Unfortunately the only words that have the audacity to spring forth are: round, grey, hard and smooth. Words which to my mind are as deplorably bland and unappetizing as Weetbix. So instead of placating you with a rather pathetic attempt to bring forth the colourful scene that unfolded before my eyes as I sat in front of my hotel in Naples, I will skip right ahead to when I first spotted the Arab.

I was sitting a large cement outcrop with a dozen or so Italians; deeply engrossed in my thoughts, the past and my writing. I was only slightly aware of warm rays of sunshine on my skin when he walked by. He was approximately 3 meters to the left of me and even though he was strolling away from me, his peepers were clearly trained on me – head turned a complete 180 in order to get a better view. To the trained eye I might have appeared completely oblivious to his existence. The truth is … I guess I’ve just become accustomed to people staring.

Five minutes later there he was again. This time however he wasn’t alone. It seems that I managed to attract a rather small crowd. Before me stood an 80 year old, white woman, a middle-aged, black woman whom I took to be her minder and the Arab. Now since my Italian is rather basic (read: Sid can only say, “Fuck off you bastard delinquent), I can only assume from the way the way they were caressing their faces that they were saying, “Dear God, child you have the skin of an Amazonian goddess. So smooth, so flawless!!! And that hue. If I were forced to name it I’d go with caramel? No, no, no, butter pecan brown suits you better. Where ever do you come from? And why haven’t you graced the covers of Elle???”