happier new year!

i'm containing an internal tempest of mixed emotions; the external appearance of sanity is caused by the eye of the storm - numbness is my saviour.

i feel like 2006 took something vital away from me last year - i feel like my inner child has been beaten and locked in a cupboard, and although i've now let him out again it's going to take a while before i can regain his trust.

i think that's me taking feeling sorry for myself to a whole new level :P

tgtbt is going through what i've been dealing with for years now - it's really hard to come back to cape town, see wonderful things, and then have to leave again. keeping perspective isn't easy, especially when it's impossible to know what the future's got in store. it's taken six years for me to start seeing positive results; if my patience isn't a mark of insanity i don't know what is.

back to the journal.

30th dec: we spent the afternoon hunting for white zinc sunblock. up and down sea point we walked, and eventually had to accept the fact that only one store stocked it, and not in the desired colour. so i settled for greens and black.

SxS had to go in to nando's, and we ran into some old friends of mine who'd apparently been looking for me. chances?

we met up with protoplasm that night and went to fiction, which is quite a nice place. we met a couple of girls there, more on that later.

vortex:

the drive there was alright, and we arrived around noon. we found aeroplane and his friends, and we pitched our tent with theirs. it's so much easier to do that with hours of sunshine to spare :)

last year i had an issue with my shorts splitting - this year it happened in the first couple of hours, so i changed *before* hitting the dancefloor. still annoying, but not as embarrassing.

tgtbt's mother and brother arrived, so in the evening we had a whole family mission going - that was really nice. i'm a bit disappointed that my sister's SO wasn't interested, or she'd have come too, and i've pretty much given up on my mother coming (i've been trying for years).

about an hour or so before the countdown (a time for mass communication) i sent an sms to one of the girls from the night before: in order to alleviate the tremendous pressure of bringing in the new year on a sensual note; i thought to send now, as opposed to during the eleventh hour when i shall be "celluarly naked" or "sans signal" [or just otherwise indisposed], a virtual kiss to usher in 2007. Happy new year!

i supposed it could be considered effective as i went on a date with her on the 2nd, more on that later. i think my sms was beaten by the guy who sent protoplasm an sms saying that the wishes from the year before hadn't helped, so if he could be sent petrol vouchers, porn and other useful things he'd appreciate it. the political one was quite good too: the last of the saddam t-shirts are still available! they're a bit tight around the neck, but they hang well!

ushering in the new year? superbly done. a bunch of friends all being silly, unbelievably solid music (i'm convinced that the track played after the countdown was from the disc i bought last week), and fireworks. we spent a couple of hours on the dancefloor, stomping our hearts out and grinning like idiots ^_^

my mommy told me to wear sunscreen, so in the morning i commissioned some work from aeroplane - he zinc'ed my head and neck with bright green, and i did the rest of my body and eyes with dark green and black. i couldn't touch anything or anyone until after i'd gotten home and showered - a day later - but some of the reactions were amusing as hell.

i'm only upset about the fact that i don't really know how to talk to little children. i was at a loss when a couple of kids began screaming "alien! alien!" whenever they saw me, and i couldn't hold up during the interrogation:
"do aliens like bubblegum?"
"do aliens like seaweed?"
"do aliens swim?"

one little boy asked me how i got so green, and i felt totally unimaginative after i told him. we're not really supposed to need training for this sort of thing, are we?

in the evening we sat up on a hill and watched an absolutely stunning sunset. i wish my camera could have caught even an inkling of the depth of beauty that surrounded us; simply awe-inspiring.

i slept the 2nd night away, waking up at the crack of dawn to warm up to some really good sets. tgtbt rocked up around 7am, for one last session before going back to the states. it was heartbreaking to see her face as she left.

post-vortex:

we left the site around 9am, and arrived home about an hour later. after an hour attempting to clean myself up - not much luck there - we went off to new york bagels for breakfast. afterwards i went to the waterfront, to say hi to some of my mom's friends and change money, and from there i went with protoplasm to the beach.

we were planning on napping, but the full-contact rugby behind us and the assholes flinging sand about next to us kept me agitated. we went to cafe vespa for a drink (which hit me REALLY hard), and then i went home to eat before going out with the girl from the 30th.

i don't date well, and i was exhausted (hell, i'm still exhausted). i was surprised to discover on our way into town that she's only 18, i'd been certain she was 22+ when i met her. i suppose it helps that she's taller than me :P

we had a pleasant drink at relish, which has a really great view of the mountains, before i dropped her at home and returned to bed. it was pleasant, but for me highly awkward and irritating because aside from my general state of wooziness after a tiring few days, i *know* that anything i say regarding myself comes out incredibly stupidly.
i keep skirting round what it is that i actually do, and although i have other things to talk about there're things which have (to me) obvious missing pieces. if i think that what i'm saying sounds like a load of crap, then surely she couldn't have missed it?

yesterday:

after SxS left for johannesburg, my mother and i went shopping, and i found some nice gifts. we ate at kauai, which is always good, and then went up to my aunt's place for coffee. i passed out on the couch when i got home, and then got a ride to shadowslight's to watch the hogfather and jesus christ: vampire killer with the gang. it was really nice seeing everyone, even if it wasn't for very long.

short holidays really do suck. although not as much as no holidays.

the pizza was great, although it made me feel quite ill until just before i went to bed.

today:

sleeping, reading, television. i've got things to do, but i'm comfortably spaced-out at the moment. now to continue doing not-much.