Below are selected posts from my previous blog, for those of you who haven’t been reading me previously.
The Missing Sandwich – Found on the Sunday Times
18 06 2007
Kottu was featured in the Sunday Times and was I suprised to get a call telling me that the picture featured in the article was a link to my blog! Hurrah for me!!! Was a nice surprise on a rotten Sunday morning that really made my day. Thank you Sunday Times and thank you muchest Kottu! I
THE PHOENIX RISES
Why I went red…. Not in the face, ofcourse. One sunny day, I decided to dye my entire head of hair blood red. Now the popular view is that I did it as a gimmick for “On-Stage” which it utter hogwash! My performance was not a gimmick, it was just me being me. I’ve begun to identify with The Phoenix (Jean Grey’s alter ego or “ID”) For all you non X-Men buffs, she is a powerful mutant with flaming red hair who was presumed dead until she rose again, controlled by her even more powerful inner conscience) I had gone through almost 2 years of nothing but let downs and pain and heartaches. So I decided that I needed to change my fate. My life. My outlook.Henley’s poem comes to mind – “I am that captain of my fate…. I am the master of my soul…” I guess we all need to let the inner strength take charge once in a way so all that holds weakness and pain has time to rest and regenerate for when things are broken again. And they will. But for now, I am relying on the stronger side of me. That was the reason for the red hair. I am re-born. Risen from the ashes of what was once me. I am newer, stronger, more resilient. Or at least I was. You see, when you are surrounded by too many dodo birds (who were supposed to have gone extinct) they don’t really get the symbolic act of someone who didn’t just change her hair colour but who changed her world. So now the front half of my hair is back to dark brown and blends into the reds at the back. Ya, its still a cool look, but that wasn’t the point. I miss waking up in the morning and seeing a shock of red hair that framed the face of something I was happy to look at in the mirror after a long time. Someone who was going to take on the day with attitude and rise above everything that got her down. I don’t see that girl anymore & that’s sad. I know I’m intensely into the symbolism thing so surprise! surprise! since the red hair went, so did part of the confidence and the gung-ho attitude. Things seem a little shakier. Knees are wobblier. Soul is fragile. Or getting there. All over again. Too soon to go back there again. Way too soon.
WHEN LOVE DIES Down into the earth he went, my brother, my lover, my child… 2 years today. Honestly? It feels like one. And then I search my feelings to realize that I am numb. What can I say about a man-child who left us all too soon. How can I begin to comprehend the myriad of emotions that I have been through (which everyone who hasn’t a fucking clue has assured me is a complete normal pattern when you lose a loved one). Well he wasn’t just a loved one damn it! He was my Mirantha. The innocent little devilment of a boy who didn’t hesitate to give me a black eye when we were 7, just because I turned off his computer screen seconds before he won the game he was playing. You see, I wanted him to play with me and not with a computer screen. He was the only one who came and played with my dolls and let me play with his Thunder Cats. For no reason but that we were the youngest in the family and everyone else had moved on beyond that stuff. I think we came close to a Barbie Doll – Thunder Cat gang-bang. And not in the way it sounds. It was fun. He was the angel, the first boy to hold me tight until I fell asleep. We were 11. It was a water-bed and we just cuddled and talked until I fell asleep in his arms. He was my co-host on the imaginary radio show we created. All our shows were taped. I can’t for the life of me remember what happened to those tapes. Would have been a great comfort in the dark days that followed. And finally, he was the idiot, the fool who took a risk just after his 26th birthday on his bike and died. 26th February 2005. Still kinda angry about it I guess. There are still days when I get a sudden flash of a memory. A chat over a cup of coffee. Playing tricks on the neighbours. Drawing cartoon strips. Writing love letters to my best friends who he was insanely in-like with. Making a fort with what we found in the barren plains of Weerawila. Simple things. Playing UNO. Believing in magic and superheroes. Gazing into his big grey/green eyes and listening wrapped about his adventures. Doing our homework together. Going to school together and fending off all the girls who wanted him. They couldn’t have him you see. He was being protected for the perfect girl. And then he had to go die on her birthday. The last memories? Going to the airport and waiting for his parents to come home with his body. (They all lived abroad at the time). Watching while other happy families laughed and embraced because they were united with their loved ones. Then watching my family come through. It felt cold. I remember that. Very cold. We all stood there crying for what I’m sure must have lasted over an hour. I remember his body. They had frozen his body with his eyes open. I stood at the bottom of the wooden box they packed him in. I saw those beautiful eyes frozen and I froze. I think the pain was too great to do something as simple as cry just then. I remember a lot more but I just realized that I can’t go on. I’m not numb anymore.
“TAILS” OF TERROR
I’ve always had a passion to get a big bad dog. I am essentially a Mastiff & Labrador person because I was brought up with them, but having a short stubby snouted mean-ass dog seemed like an all-new adventure. So last Christmas I was blessed with the gift of MoCuishle (Mucks for short), a stunningly ugly, and in that sense beautiful, brindle boxer puppy. She is adorable as can be and seems to be getting along with Stitch like a house on fire.
My biggest problem is the fact that Rotts, Dobs, Boxers and the lot of them have their tails cut. I think this is the biggest injustice in the world. As humans we need all our body parts to function properly. Like we use our hands and legs, dogs need their tails for a sense of balance. What’s more, their tails are part of their spine.
I’ve been reading up a bit and realized that their tails were initially cut so that they would be more efficient hunters. Their tails seemed to get trapped in bushes and whatnot in the forest, which became cumbersome for the hunter who needed them to be faster. Besides that, (which I don’t agree with anyway) there is no other functional need to cut a dogs tail. Unless people have thick forest growing in their back yards and plan for their dogs to be hunting out vermin, I think this tail cutting business needs to stop. Research has shown that when a dog’s tails is cut, the dog in concern is more likely to suffer from hip dysplasia and other spine related problems as they grow older. I guess I’ll have to buck up for that when it happens to Mucks.
People just sit back and accept things sometimes because it is easier than to question an injustice or irregularity. Take Sri Lankans wearing socks and shoes for instance. We live in a tropical country and we should be in sandals all the time. Instead we wear socks and shoes, a tradition handed down to us from people from a cold climate. I guess it’s the same with dogs.
All I can say is that every time Mucks is happy and she wags her stub, it breaks my heart. I see her longingly gazing at Stitch’s long luscious tail. Ofcourse the little vixen that she also bites and pulls on his tale, hoping to tug it out!
This is a solemn promise to you my beautiful, ugly Mucks, I may not be able to grow your tail back, but your puppies will never have the same done to them.
P.s. For those who don’t know, MoCuishle is an ancient Gaelic word, meaning My Darling, My Blood
LANTERNS IN THE STORM
Is my family meant to go through tragedy after tragedy for the rest of our lives? Starting 3 years ago, we’ve lost so many people. Mt grandmother called a few moments ago to tell me of yet another death in the family and I am left to wonder why. Death maybe inevitable, but when they fall as rapidly as dominoes in a row in my family alone, I have to ask questions.
Its always the ones that resonate the brightest lights and managed to keep burning during the darkest storms in our lives. I’m left to wonder if heaven is having a power outage & my family has been picked to keep it alight. Grim humour. I know. But its better than some crap like “its always the good that go”.
Aunty Cassie passed away just moments ago in Australia and in just a moment I remember how much she did for everyone around her and so little for herself. She never married. Her parents passed away and she was left to take care of 8 brothers and sisters. So she dropped out of school in her teens and started working. When my dad’s father died and had no way to support themselves, she also took his entire family as well. And she cooked and worked and fed them. And its always been like that with her. Even when people could buy their own clothes, she would insist on sewing them herself. As a little girl I had a wardrobe full of her creations, beautifully embroidered masterpieces. I was a brat on my 7th birthday and insisted on Snow White theme. Without checking with anyone, she just surprised me with a frothy white dress with detailed embroidery of Snow white and the 7 dwarves on the skirt. It was and probably still is the best piece of clothing I have ever had.
So Aunty Cass, thank you for being Snow White to all us dwarves in your family. As small and dwarfish as you were, you still towered over us all with your love & generosity.
Dimented Dependant
I know someone who has severe dependency issues. Always thought she was just a clinger and a manic obsessive when it came to the people she loves. Just relized that its only part of the story. She feels ashamed to admit it one some level becasue this is all a new realisation to her, but at least she has.
She was looking back on the last 10 years of her life (sounding a bit like Gabrielle singing “10 Years” now) & realized that every friendship or relationship she has been in where she really loved someone, she has depended on them for her happiness.
Depended for a smile, for a shoulder, for a hug, for everything good.
This does not mean she has people around her for what I can get out of them. But maybe depending on someone else for the positives in your life is just as bad as using someone huh?
She was feeling pretty empty these past few days and then realized that it was because she wasn’t really depending on anyone to make her happy right now. One would think that’s a good thing, but to her it’s like being left out of this whole big wonderful thing called love. Its not that she is unloved. Its just that when she has no one to pick up the phone and call out of the blue for a walk on the beach, she feels just that. Unloved.
Its sad because so many people call her and spend time with her. But she has always needed this one person. Not neccesarily a lover, or even a friend. But someone she has a deep connection with and fondness for with whom she can shoot the shit or get into deeper things that no one else could be privvy to.
That may not necessarily be a healthy thing for anyone and I have been trying my hardest to make her realize that she is fine without this unhelthy sense of dependency. But phoo! She’s a hard nut to crack and I guess when you get into the habit of certain things its hard to let go.
We need to learn to be ablaze on our own and not need anyone with a match-stick around to do it for us.
Mummy Phobia
I’m afraid. To be a mum. I’m scared out of my wits actually. I see so many wonderful mothers around me and even more terrible ones. People say things like, there’s no such thing as a bad mother. I beg to defer. Not being a mom myself, I guess I have no right to comment. But I’m just speaking out as to why I don’t think I’ll ever have what it takes to be one.
The strange thing is that I am instinctively motherly. With puppies. And even with my friends. But when it comes right down to it, I keep remembering the old saying – the best thing about kids is being able to give them back to their parents.
Insults are welcome, because this is very much a chicken’s confession. I have a short temper, I am impatient, I am so many things that I know I cannot change about myself. Becasue I have tried. Too many times to count, actually.
I love babies. I think I can handle them very well in fact. And I love teens. Its the inbetween areas that I am more than sure I am going to be a faliure at. And those times in a child’s life are when its most important to have a loving, patient mother who will teach them right from wrong. Who will nurture. And then be wise enough to let them live out their own nature. All that takes loads of balls. And I ain’t got ‘em. At least not for motherhood.
Is there anyone out there who want their kids only for the ‘tween times? Coz I’m sure I’ll ace the places before and after.
Duck Soup for the Writers Soul
21 05 2007
This group of us ad people used to meet for Sunday booze and lunch quite regularly and missing it, we resumed it again yesterday. The conversations get very heated or we just shoot the shit, all depending what we have been going through during the previous week. The conversation turned to the subject of what it is to be a writer yesterday and varied people (writers ofcourse) gave their opinions to a new blogger and experienced writer who was in search of his soul. (for more, please go to thekillromeoproject.wordpress.com) You see, he writes for money. Not for the passion of writing. The thought of Shakespeare or even Agatha Christie makes him want to barf.
All this time, he thought to be a true writer was to have passion for the craft and a love reading the greats from Shakespeare to Austen and so on. Hopefully everyone else’s mouthsful gave him a newer perspective. The conclusion was that to write, one must first have the talent to do it. And he has it in bucket loads. That makes him a writer. Tha passion is something that he must discover for himself. And in his search, if he never finds it, it still doesn’t mean that he is not a writer, becasue he is. Because he is talented.
On the topic of reading the greats like Will Shakes and John Donne and all the rest before our time. Not everyone’s into that and he doesn’t have to be. At least he is bold enough to admit it unlike so many people I know who love to say they are influenced by or are moved by the greats just to come across as someone they are not. For me Shakespeare & co., taught me more about life and people than I have ever learned anywhere else. Yes, I love the writing too. Loads infact. But as an advertising writer one needs to know people and why they do what they do and why they feel what they feel. If we’re gonna be soap salesmen, we need to do it with honesty so that we can strike a chord in the soul. From a writer’s soul to a consumers. That’s what works for me.
Anyways, I love wiritng. But its not the only thing I wanna do from the moment I wake up. But I love doing it and it is why I changed professions, to do what I love to. But my love for writing doesnot make me a writer. It just makes me want to write and do it better. thekilromoeproject is already a bloody good writer, and passion or no passion, I can only aspire to his talent.
Jesus Wasn’t My Saviour
28 05 2007
Darth Maximus was. In my search for the 3 day weekend to find meaning in my life, it hits me late Friday night anyway. Let me tell you a story. A couple of years ago when my life was at its lowest point I just picked up the Sunday Observer and went through the classifieds I wanted to play with some puppies to feel better so I went straight to the kennel notices & went to a house on the pretense of buying a puppy. There was a litter of glossy black Labrador puppies that I visited and in the midst of playing with them, one of the pack wanted nothing to do with me. He grabbed an old dead leaf, ran off, hid under his kennel and glared at me while chewing on it. I fell in love. I took him home. Months later things just got worse and worse. I was literally all alone in the world except for my beloved Max. I had decided to die. Everything was planned out to perfection and no one would know until it was too late. Every one reaches their limit. People may say that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. But I had more than my share. I won’t go into the details because that’s not necessary. Everyone has a limit they reach before breaking point and I was way beyond mine. That’s all I need to say. Max knew I was dying inside bit by bit. He grew more and more attached and protective of me day by day. But even he knew I was slipping away. When no one else knew, he did. I think he felt he needed to do something drastic. Unconditional love makes one do the extreme. The day before my perfect suicide, Max died. Just like that. A beautiful 7 month black angel. All I could do was hold onto his dead body in the middle of a road and scream at the injustice. When things couldn’t get any worse, just 24 hours before I was destined to end it all… Jesus died to erase the sins of the world. Max died to erase the pain in my soul. Darth Maximus died in my place and I am alive because of him today. This post is a tribute to my saviour. My first child and my salvation from my pain. My salvation from everyone who hurt me. My salvation from myself. You soar in my soul baby. Mummy will never forget you.
Multiple Menopauses
5 06 2007
What do you do when you’re saddled with an addled boss? Seven decades is plenty long to have lived and 4 of them spent in a business she seems to know nothing about doesn’t really help at all. Maybe I’m being too harsh. In her heyday, she ran the biggest advertising empire this country had. There are very few people in the industry who haven’t worked at least a few months in her company. The thing is she ran it by breezing in with 3 packets of Gold Leaf and puffed away in her lair and only opened her doors to blindly sign checks. Under the able hands of the people she hired, the company automatically flourished. She smiled and took the credit and proudly ran a newspaper ad of herself in a skimpy number saying “I did it MY WAY!” Fast-forward a few decades and here I am. She is impossible to work with, has no idea of what is being said to her and misinterprets everything, causing a lot of trouble for everyone around. When business is bad, she tends to bring the general mood of the office down and makes business worse. When things are good, she makes them bad by bringing down the morale saying we don’t do enough. If you have an opinion about something, you are asked to shut up, and her 4 glorious decades are brought up and you have to sit and listen for an hour as to how she knows it all and you are nothing but a lowly turd who knows nothing. We used to wait impatiently for her annual pilgrimage to Vegas. Things run smoothly, the overall productivity is high. Our spirits soar. And then she returns like an unwelcome wave of humidity, pissed off about how well things have happened without her and turns everything on their heads. We now wait even more impatiently when she will say adieu for the last time, run off to the
Las Vegas of the sky and brandish her unnecessary iron no more. Tick-tock…. Tick-tock…..Tick-tock….
The Divine Secrets of the “No No” Sisterhood
11 06 2007
What is it about my mother that made it impossible for her to use the word “yes”? I just realized that this trait is common in her mother and many other females in the family as well. To every question asked, it was a “no”. Every request made was replied with a “no”. There were times when I was about to ask her something and her mirror-practiced, articlulate eye-lock already implied what she was going to say; “NO!” Eventually I stopped asking and went on to do things my own way. Not that this helped either, because when mother-dearest found out I got nothing short of a loud, firm, authoratative “NO! NO!”
Authority. Did I just hit the nail on the head there? Was it a sense of authority she needed to feel? I wonder…
If this “No No” sisterhood prevailed for generations, being continuously said “NO” to would make anyone feel powerless. The only way to regain what is lost, is to then keep the chain-link of “No’s” going into the next generation.
If its power you ladies seek, then power to you. I, on the other hand have chosen a path I’d like to call “Ya Ya”!!!
Falling for Fiction
13 06 2007
Many women today say they are disillusioned with their lives. When you envision the life ahead of you as a little girl (as most women, myself included do) it generally tends to turn out nothing like you expected. Thus the disillusionment.
Women rarely dream of success. Their hopes for the future centre around realizing their dreams. That’s where I grant you is ONE area in which men may have the upper hand. You see, most men don’t sit back and wonder why Juliet or the likes never walked into their lives, for instance. They’ll just wish they made more money or something practical like that. Us ladies, on the other hand can still pick up Wuthering Heights and sigh at Heathcliff’s arrogant, passionate love for Kathy. We can go all dreamy reading about how the quiet, sexy Mr. Darcy fell for the unlikely Lizzy. I am only elaborating my point in a romantic sense here, but face it ladies, we’re a species who’ve fall for fiction!
I don’t ever mean that in a negative way though. I like that we’re the sensitive breed. I love that we never stop dreaming even in the bleakest of times. But I have to also admit that we should have learnt to discern between fiction and the real blessings we have today. Because we’re not looking, sometimes we don’t see them, I think.
Freedom of Screech!
18 06 2007
When you want to scream – let it out. There are times in everyone’s life when silence doesn’t cut it. When putting it nicely and explaining things don’t work. You try and you try and you try but you hit a brick wall and sometimes it really hurts.
Freedom of speech doesn’t quite cut it when you’re hurting and the words don’t come out right. Sometimes screaming it all out, making a scene and having a big fight does help because you get it all out. Some people are just not made to sit and have quiet little conversations about issues. I actually hate conversations that are laced with undertones of lice… meant to say lies, but lice works just fine. You see when people don’t quite say what’s on their minds and keep going round the issue or avoididng it completely – it makes me go nuts. When I’m hurt, like a mother bear defending her young, my cuteness wares off, I protect my feelings and I go nuts!
I am not afraid to say that I’m probably a little psychotic in that sense. Its not that I love making scenes. In fact I hate it. But when you have no choice and you’ve tried every other option – I need to explode. My blog descriptor don’t say ‘insane in the membrane’ for nothing.
Sometimes or most times, people may not understand what you are doing or even get pissed off with you. Those people either don’t know you well enough or don’t care about you. Fuck them! Seriously. If you can’t be your completely psycho self around people you trust, then where’s your outlet? Around people to whom your feelings won’t make a difference? Where’s the point it that? At least I know I’m not sitting back and feeling sorry for myself about things. I’m letting it all out. Its good for me. A good scream calls back all that’s empty within me.
So here’s to all the pent-up emotions, frustrations, anger, pain and everything inside. Open up to the new amendment that I am hereby establishing : The Freedom of Screech!
good stuff!
these posts are nice reads!