unfocusing

 today was... awkward. not bad, but a little weird.

first, we all got out of bed half an hour late - gd had disabled her alarm because she's been relying on mine, i'd disabled my alarm for last week's jewish holidays and forgotten to reactivate it, but the last couple of days was woken by a different alarm that i subsequently disabled yesterday.

i know i got some stuff done before i left for work, but it didn't feel like it. i called to wish my brother a happy birthday, which he's spending trying to organize an inverter because his broke down and johannesburg doesn't have much electricity 🤷‍♂️

my work day began with a message from the product guy to say that what the report i put together shows is unpalatable. during and after my team daily, i spent some time putting together advice for my team, and over the course of the day shared it with a bunch of people in an attempt to raise general awareness. everything else (that wasn't a bunch of random distractions*) was preparing for the big meeting, the meeting itself, and then reporting the results of the meeting to various people. but the results of the meeting are, essentially, do some more research, and if i find that the real source is what we think it should be then i have a plan of action...

* including a kickoff to my employer's hackathon, and a video was shown where i recognized a woman i studied with in my first degree. she appears to have worked for my employer for many years, but left within the last few, and hasn't updated her linkedin profile. very strange.

mr smear got off the bus at the wrong stop, so he arrived home later than i did. very sweetly, he thought that he was saving money by only taking a single bus home, so i explained (again) that a chain of buses and light rails is one trip. i hope he internalizes that.

after he did a little music practice and helped gd in the kitchen (gd had a big day today, she went to the dentist entirely by herself for the first time in ages), we did an mma session. he complained about his post-rollerblading soreness (ow! my tailbone!) but with only minor coercion his was a reasonably good re-entry after more than a month (which was also after a break). the post-training stretching in particular did me some good.

we showered, ate a delicious gluten-free pesto spaghetti while watching more infinity train, spoke to my mom, got mr smear into bed, and ended his evening on the sour note of me asking him multiple times to stop making the evening end on a sour note before having to yell at him.

that sucks.

anyway, it was more performative than emotional and the rest of the evening's been pretty relaxing. i'm a bit nervous about tomorrow's work, but i'm absolutely done for the day and i'm considering going to bed early tonight.

...

oh, yes:

ginger rum

 i didn't get any real work done last night. i did manage to get a lot of busywork done, upgrading my macbook and installing and configuring useful apps, and the macos upgrade was a great opportunity for me to lie down and catch forty winks.

and then i completed the installation and went to bed. i mostly slept through the night.

...

right until around 4am, when i woke up from an odd dream about having to have mr smear's bar mitzvah in a mosque, and then leaving over a large boulder next to a platform with a gap between them; i woke up in the act of trying to catch him just as he stepped off into the abyss while i was telling him that he needs to be conscious in his life.

...

at least the video for our kibbutz cousin's 70th birthday came out well. in general the morning went alright, i got some more onboarding work done before leaving for the office.

i was decidedly anxious going to work, feeling overwhelmed. i started my morning warming up in the sun on the balcony again; by the time i came inside i was overheating - as was my equipment - because it was a much hotter morning than we've had for a while. i had a few meetings, which went alright, and then i put together an update to my new boss/client informing him of my progress and of the issues i've encountered. i was a bit anxious about pulling the trigger, but i knew it was the right thing to do and hoped that it wouldn't be unwelcome.

the rest of the morning was studying / reviewing documents, and then i had an unpleasant experience with granola (i thought it was just granola, but then i had a couple of bites and realized it had dairy chocolate chips in it, and then i had the taste in my mouth while getting rid of the stuff without making a mess), and then i came home for lunch.

gd and mr smear were busy cleaning the apartment (we've realized we need him to be good at cleaning because that might be the best he can hope for, career-wise), so i ate quickly and scrambled back to the office, barely making my second meeting with one of my bulgarian teammates.

TWO... HOURS... LATER...

that was a hardcore intro to getting our environments set up and working with a whole suite of new tooling, and by the time we were done i felt much less stress overall, but also i felt like my brains were bleeding out my ears.

fortunately, i managed to write all the good stuff down.

i took a tea break on one of the balconies with an amazing view of the rush hour traffic, called gd to show her, and the two of us decided it would be hilarious to send my terrified-of-heights brother a video.

i hope he took the video in good humor 😈

i spent the next hour tidying up my notes, practicing what i'd learned and bringing some of it into team-friendlier tools, and then joined everyone upstairs for happy hour. happy hour was pleasant, nice people and good chit-chat, and i had a very nice rum and ginger beer that had more of an effect on me than i'd anticipated.

 interrupted my new boss/client and one of my teammates to say goodbye, and i got a really good vibe from them both :)

now that i've come home, unloaded the day's stories on my wife, heard some good news about a cousin who might be able to help us with mr smear, and seen my son's lego helicopter that he built without instructions, and unloaded the day's stories here, i'm about to sit down for dinner, and then go to the monthly comic-book meetup to recommend the complete ballad of halo jones.

pains in the neck

 wednesday was rough. i was fine in the morning - i took mr smear on an "outing" to pick up a parcel, which was nice* - and i was fine until i got into the office. but at some point something in my neck / shoulder spasmed and started pushing on a control nerve, which immediately triggered a painful headache, dizziness and nausea.

* he made a point of carrying something heavy because his new "resolution" is to not be lazy. that last all of a day, and then the next day he made a new "resolution" to be lazy again 🤣

and then i had to navigate two arguments with coworkers, mostly in a position of having to calm them down.

after a while i realized that i was on the verge of fainting, and i packed up and wobbled my way home.

i felt a it better after lying down and stretching and massaging my neck for a couple of hours, though i managed to bruise myself rather severely. i spent the afternoon / evening learning the hard way that my lead's warnings about never modifying git submodules directly were bang on the money.

...

yesterday was better, though i was still sore (as well as bruised) and my neck was threatening to go bad for its entirety. a coworker leant me a small but surprisingly powerful massage tool that i tried a couple of times, but that literally made my eyeballs bounce in my head and made me start feeling nauseous...

i started the day trying to read a canticle for leibowitz, which starts off well enough but i was still too sleepy to get very far.

on the way to the office, gd and mr smear joined me for a mission to the appliance store where we ordered a replacement oven (even with delivery it's cheaper than a repair attempt) and picked up a blender to boot. which i carried to work in the unexpected dribbles of rain that started when i left the building and only stopped once i found cover again.

it was a long and intense day, beginning with me moderating squabbles between my teammates and trying to keep everyone with eyes on the prize in spite of personal differences towards approaches. there were lots of feelings.

i warned everyone that we needed to rip the bandaid of our old tooling as soon as possible, and for my sins they complied. we're running into a lot of teething troubles, but rather sooner than later ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

my interview with one of the investors was postponed, which turned out to be a good thing because i spent most of my work hours running between people to give them assistance. or cheerlead. or commiserate, such as when my lead got irritated by a linter i'd introduced and somehow managed to deep-six hours of his work.

anyway.

we received some nice passover gifts from the company.

lipgirl had put me onto a midi controller (the akai mpk mini mk2), and i really wanted to pick it up before the weekend. at 19.45pm, i had just sat down to dinner when the seller contacted me to say he'd be at azrieli at 20.15pm, so i ate too quickly and scrambled to get there on time. in spite of the evening bus schedules and regular protests, i arrived with a few minutes to spare...

... and then had to hang around for another half an hour before he showed up :/

but he was cool, and i was happy to have paid about half price for a piece of equipment that looks really good and is in really good condition.

on my way to catch a bus home i walked past an old grocery store cashier who's always very kind (she's taken a shine to mr smear) and waved to wish her a chag sameach, and she called out for help - she's injured her leg, and was having trouble carrying heavy groceries to her bus stop. i gave her a hand, but as we arrived she suddenly realized she hadn't swiped her card when she left, so i quickly ran back to take care of that.

so it was with a good vibe that i caught an unfamiliar bus, with the driver making sure that i got to the right stop. and then i came home, chatted with my mom**, showered, put my son to bed, opened the gift bottle of gin and tried to continue watching redline. gd got bored, and wasn't interested in akira, so we ended up watching some of nightcrawler before going to bed.

** oh! my brother's oldest got married yesterday. none of us were invited :P

...

today: i think i must have spent about three hours trying to figure out how to connect the midi controller, create the requisite accounts, install the basic software packages... i'm sure there's a whole bunch of stuff we've yet to learn, but by the time we left the apartment for a gift-shopping run i'd at least managed to get mr smear able to play with samples in cubase elements, and he was making pretty cool noises.

[gd shatters a bowl in the kitchen]

we walked down to ibn gvirol, where gd got additional holes punched in her belts, we picked up a bottle of cognac as a gift for the seder, tried and failed to find someone to cut a new house key for us, gave up waiting for laffot, scarfed down sandwiches at cafe eva (and found black salt!), made it back to our local hardware store in time to pick up dehumidifying slabs, and have spent a cozy afternoon doing not much.

mr smear just got through his homework for the day without a fuss, and he did it well, and now we're settling in to skip shul and watch prince of egypt instead.

...

i just finished watching dave smith and douglas murray on joe rogan, which i found deeply disappointing. if nothing else, murray could have talked about the outrageous efforts israelis make to avoid civilian casualties, but either way he wasn't on form, and his manner rendered him less than effective. looking at the comments, he didn't convince anyone of anything.

entrances and exits

 friday afternoon is coming to a close. [as of me beginning to write this] we're waiting for the challah dough to rise, which for the first time i helped (inspired by the big family cooking showdown. some of the contestants made me feel that if they can do it, so can i). mr smear has just put together the most gorgeous pixel art sprites (he was originally going to try his hand and making harry potter, but got distracted), because we now want to make some kind of 8-bit harry potter game. we're still reading prisoner of azkaban, and he's now understanding just how different the book is from the movies. i had to explain to him why they're so different, and that it's okay, and i think he gets it.

i was also inspired to read the first book to gd, because she has difficulties reading for long enough periods of time. so far, she's also beginning to understand the difference and is really enjoying it.

my only issue with this arrangement is that i find it incredibly difficult to read out loud without reading myself to sleep. every goddamned time.

wednesday:

wednesday's workday began with an argument with my boss, and there was a lot of back-and-forth before we reached the conclusions that a) i need to tone down my enthusiasm, because every time i broke through a wall and thought i was almost done i reported that i was almost done and b) i needed to split my ticket every time a new required sidequest entered the arena and c) i needed to write more tests.

in any event, i finally managed to get the task complete by the afternoon. like, for reals. and it looks really good.

i did that while organizing a spa voucher birthday present for my mother, who spent her day on her feet volunteering (as usual) with the DA for the south african elections.

yesterday:

the morning started off rough, but mr smear had a good day in spite of it and was actually able to let go of it when he got home and remembered. the afternoon with him was positive.

it was my mother's birthday. mr smear made a really nice card, and by the time she got the voucher she was feeling the results of the previous day's on-her-feet-ness and the gift was even more relevant :)

on the way to work, i accompanied gd to the bank to pick up her new credit card, which went pretty smoothly.

i was on-call, and had an annoying task first thing. i left the office around lunchtime to have breakfast at home, and gd and i watched my cousin's funeral together on zoom. we now know that our original suspicions were incorrect, and that he got through his surgery and was recovering well. then he got up to go to the bathroom and collapsed, and that was the end of him.

at least he didn't suffer, but was a devastating blow to his immediate family, and to the rest of us.

in a way, it's kind of brought a lot of the cousins together (also literally, in a whatsapp group), and it's a little weird to be in a group with both my brother and my big sister. (it's funny how little things like cheating an inheritance can split a family)

the funeral notwithstanding, i found it very hard to concentrate. all day.

this morning:

i had a long chat with our kibbutz cousin, she's really having a hard time, especially as a travel agent in the current circumstances. they have about 25 displaced families on their kibbutz, so there are things about the war that are front-and-center for them which we aren't always thinking about down in our little tel aviv bubble...

i took a really big step this morning, and decided to just go ahead and post the videos i've put together on the war on the west so far. on tiktok, and on youtube. am i doing this right? i don't know if i'm doing this right, but i have to do something.

i'm really nervous about putting myself out there like this.

mr smear had a pretty good day at school, in spite of the fact that another kid showed him something scary and apparently he's now learned to stay away from the dark stuff (which is what i've been explicitly suggesting for days now). overall, i have to say he's doing okay. we're doing okay.

who knows?

 a not-unpleasant start to the week. aside from waking up in pain halfway through the night and having to sleep on the couch again, and mr smear's ridiculous relating of rinsing toothpaste to post-nasal drip on the way to school, i had a pleasant morning, got a few things done, and left for work.

my fellow montreal coworker's wife gave birth this morning ^_^

the network issues i was dreading were resolved - for me at least - though one of my coworkers is still stuck with them. my morning was spent in mechanical turkish fashion, make a change, stare for five minutes, make a change, stare for five minutes, but eventually it seemed good enough to push. i had a good lunch with the team, but it was interrupted by a call from gd informing me that she's hurt and couldn't take mr smear to his first mma class in months...

so i had a coffee, then scrambled to pick up mr smear, take him to his class, and work from there. on the way, i saw a picture from kc's husband showing him in the hospital with their newborn third daughter! her sister just gave birth a few months ago, so these are positively exciting times for the family.

i had just enough time to get a big, urgent thing done, and it helped that i had the presence of mind to put in earphones the moment the other parents began trooping in.

mr smear was not impressed by his training partner, because he apparently hadn't been taking it seriously. i re-explained to him why he's there and that we trust his trainers, and i was inspired to take a gamble and use that conversation to lead into informing him that he's going to the pesach vacation training camp whether he likes it or not.

having buttered him up with a big bag of chips along the way, of course ;)

he took it well, which was a huge relief. we had an enjoyable ride home, and then i got some more work done until i just couldn't concentrate any more.

mr smear did his homework (?!?), and then we had some time before dinner so we got into doors: paradox that i'd picked up on epic free games (when it was free). what a great game!

we resumed watching minions: the rise of gru, then it was brush-teeth-and-bedtime. i was going to continue reading the prisoner of azkaban, but we somehow got into a riveting conversation about different cultures and ideologies and i blew his mind describing certain japanese characteristics (he was upset by their idea of obligation, which was great because i could explain to him that they'd be upset by his).

...

i'm disturbed by the new prison-tech scam. but i was already disturbed by america's modern slavery program anyway. it's really sad and disappointing.

...

the news about us (mostly) pulling out of gaza - which i heard of because my brother updated me - is probably going to garner a lot of dissenting opinions. from what i can tell so far, we're not done, just changing tactics, and it's anyone's guess what implications this is going to have regionally and globally.

shelter

thursday:

yak-shaving day at work. not a complete waste of a day, but i didn't make much progress on what i was supposed to be doing. it was basically me trying to fix yet another problem that shouldn't have been, caused by my coworker's generally shit attitude towards getting their tasks complete with no regard to safety, stability or maintainability. "i'm gonna do this and let some other schmuck deal with the fallout". well, this schmuck's not going to be around much longer, good luck with your steaming piles of crap. as i type this, i realize that dog owners who don't pick up after their dogs is the perfect metaphor.

mr smear went to school in the morning, it helps everyone. i'm grateful that i'm able to work from home so that i can drop him off and pick him up, because gd's a mess and she needs the support.

mr smear's friend came over in the afternoon, and we introduced him to the powerpuff girls over gd's quesadilla dinner.

we all had to go down to the shelter together, where mr smear decided to pull out michael jackson's signature crotch grab with no context whatsoever. it's something that bothers us anyway, but it's even less funny when other people see it.

i finally completed a play-through of crying suns, which is just brilliant. unfortunately, i was so tired by the time i hit the ending sequence that i think i may have skipped some of it by accident :P

yesterday:

we started off the day with grocery shopping, where we encountered an american with his family trying to get potassium iodide in case iran nukes us. jesus christ.

"security council": a video call with a bunch of ze germans after the first rocket attack and before the one where a building was hit, it was great catching up and seeing each other's faces

followed by long chats with sailor and my brother. then kiddush with my mom on zoom (as usual) followed by dinner (we're continuing a re-watch of hunter x hunter)

before going to bed last night, i learned about silica. this is the concept i dreamed of building when i was younger, and it's blowing my mind that it's been brought to life by a single person - martin “dram” melichárek is my hero.

today:

today's been a bit tense so far, but not because of the war - although i do have a sickly feeling from having to respond to disinformation on an instagram feed of someone i know. we've only been down to the shelter once today, and that was because gd forgot to update her alerts app so that it doesn't alarm for other areas of tel aviv... gd and i have been having a bit of a day for a variety of stupid reasons.

on the other hand, mr smear and i spent a good few hours playing inscryption. it's outstanding! i didn't even understand that it's a rogue-like until my second death, the narrative and mechanics are really interesting.

we've just picked up mr smear's friend, whose mother's come down with some nasty flu/cold/covid... i hope we don't end up with it...

the climb

 last night was really nice, in spite of a sudden wave of nausea almost making us turn back on our way to dinner. we all had a good time (even if mr smear needed extra time to warm up), and there was even some food for us :)

this morning was a slow morning (as it should have been), with me up first and getting quite invested in monster boy, then mr smear woke up and we explored cities: skylines. i love the fact that we've got access to a fresh take on the simcity franchise.

we called my brother for his birthday, and i chatted with him for a while - he's really not in a good place... stuck in johannesburg, with an increasing lack of infrastructure and protections and apparently income too...

i took mr smear out for a walk, and we ended up at the sportec. i wanted to show him the climbing wall but he refused, and when pushed he admitted that it's because he's afraid of heights. so i explained to him that climbing is a sure-fire way to cure his fear, and he agreed to give it a try.

i feel like we both leveled up today. him, for facing his fear and getting the hang of "letting go" (both literally and figuratively), and me for being patient and undemanding and just focusing on him gaining confidence.

we had a great time, and we've agreed to make it a regular thing ^_^

then we came home and watched the original ghostbusters. he was a bit scared for some of it, and there were a couple of sexually inappropriate moments, but overall we all enjoyed watching it together. then we played some pinball heroes, q-bert (the reboot is pretty sweet), and he's now diving into the gigantosaurus game.

gd's really not feeling well, but otherwise it's been a Very Good Day indeed.

farewells

since sunday's trip up platteklip, my legs have been as sore or more than my attempt on the elliptical. so i'm feeling like an old man and i'm satisfied with myself simultaneously :P

the "saying goodbye" phase of this visit is both depressing and comforting! my head's spinning with all the last-minute information, such as a job offer and connections i've received which would cushion my fall if i had to leave montreal, the rediscovered family and some exposed familial skeletons that have fallen out the closet; on my way here i was consumed by thoughts of mail-order husbandry, on my way there it'll be by thoughts of french and work and backup plans.

monday:

getting lost in obs treated me to an excellent vegan sandwich and good coffee. protoplasm's workshop is very cool indeed, i know he's not in full swing and profitable yet but it's great to see that he's on his way :)

he completely blew my mind when he informed me that he was recovering from food poisoning - which he'd gotten before the party on saturday! he was horribly sick and had to be so in chemical toilets, but he wouldn't leave or say anything because he didn't want to ruin our fun! that's insane, even if he did manage to enjoy himself and the music in spite of how he was feeling. i will never be more impressed by a designated driver in my life.

neil gaiman's commencement speech which i watched on airplane's insistence - okay, he didn't have to insist too much - is brilliant and funny and validating; he's saying what i've been saying for years but in a much better way and with more authority :)

my mum and i went to say goodbye to my niece and her husband, my sister's husband and kids and the new sisters-in-law, then returned home for dinner with my aunt and uncle puberty. i then headed off to visit an old friend i haven't seen in years, met his wife and glimpsed his daughter before settling in to chat until it felt pretty late.

---yesterday:

i went to the cape quarter early to look for a specific piece of jewelry for shadowslight's mother's birthday, and walked in to a store manned (or womanned) by a girl i went to school with and who claims only recognized me because of facebook. it's funny, she wasn't good-looking at all as a teenager and has become quite attractive; we chatted for a while and then i left to meet my mother for coffee and be introduced to two of her co-workers.

there's something deeply entertaining about hearing my mother referred to as "battle-axe" :D

i filled the car with petrol and returned it, then walked to the comic / game store to spend some time with another old friend before hyperviper picked me up and we went to the wellness center for lunch. i thought we were going to eat together, but he disappeared and i ate alone. the food was really good, anyway, and i ran into a guy i knew from the dance crew who i'd seen on saturday night.

i went to rick's for a couple of drinks with hyperviper, who then drove me back to sea point to have coffee with my brother. i walked hom from there along main road, my mother picked me up and we went to the golf course (metropolitan is gorgeous) for shadowslight's mom's birthday party. i was introduced to a woman who's apparently my first cousin once removed, who was very excited to meet family she likes. i jumped in on a conversation about psychology not knowing that the woman speaking holds a chair in a psychology department; i told her about my zombies thesis and she was so excited she invited me to teach a seminar. hah!

after a great dinner and more alcohol, we went home and my sister picked me up and we went to call-a-pizza. the pizza was delicious and the music was great (though i expected to purchase more than one disc, but whatever), and we talked about a couple of things that really upset me.

1. my niece's new husband did and does things that are deeply disturbing, and unfortunately my niece is so stubborn that nobody can advise her. all we can do is hope for the best, or at least that if she gets hurt that it's not too badly, and support her as much as we can. i really, really hope that our fears aren't realized and that they're happy together.

2. my brother's behaviour has been even worse than i thought.

in other news, my sister's had some interesting paranormal experiences since her mother's passing that are inexplicable, i don't know how much is coincidence and charlatanism or how much is for real, but if it's the former nobody will ever be able to prove it and if it's the latter it would destabilize my world view. fortunately for me i don't need to worry too much about that right now.

protoplasm rocked up and we went to rafiki's for drinks after deciding that heartache & vine wasn't the place to be. amongst the other topics of discussion he proposed a stupidly simple way to get around the infuriatingly silly laws about working for compensation without a permit*, so if things get interesting i might have an option to earn.

* working for entities outside the country, that is

---today:

languishing in bed, enjoying my last proper sleep until i get back to montreal. walking to my niece's mother-in-law's salon for a pedicure after which i barely recognize my feet, they're not so hippie anymore. getting a cheap (R45) haircut at adelphi center (not very professional, but decent enough) and then lunch at xiang yuan (what an insanely dodgy place!). i shaved my beard for the immigration officials, showered and am now about to make a couple of calls and pack my bags.

aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

infinite rest - part ii

[... continued]

---yesterday:

the virtual breakup continued. i went to my brother's place for coffee with him and his elder son - the one i don't like - who in addition to appearing to have matured somewhat (which i would hope for from someone who's just made the dean's list when finishing his law degree) actually apologized for the shit he gave me during my matric year and admitted that i hadn't hurt him*.

* this was important for me. the only time i ever completely lost my rag with him i picked him up by his armpits and held him in the air against the wall until he agreed to leave off. he then convinced his little brother that i'd kicked him, and many years later this had turned into a "real" memory that he recalled when we saw each other.

---my brother took me to nü for breakfast, and later in the day i'd hear that my sister is feeling decidedly betrayed because we're spending time together. i'm conflicted, because on the one hand i know she's right and on the other, well, i don't know. i certainly don't trust my brother and i still think he's an asshole, but i'm also pretty sure that he simply doesn't know any better and i'm trying to figure out if i should be shutting him out, or if there could possibly be something worth rescuing. i really don't know if there's an answer, but he is my brother even if i have mixed feelings about him. the only thing i'm sure of is that i wouldn't invite him to my wedding if i got married, that sort of thing, but i'm not sure how that translates to one-on-one interactions if at all.

my sister's currently trying to get the rest of the family to stop attempting to reconcile them; i do feel that it's my duty to stand up for her regardless of my relationship with my brother, what he did to her and her family is totally unforgivable and the rest of our family needs to know not only that but also that he's still keeping inheritance money from our younger sister who's apparently been clean for a couple of years now and will never be capable of taking care of herself.
apparently he doesn't have a clue where she is or how she's doing, though. does that make it better or worse?

---i underwent an emergency beard trim with clippers, then picked up a bottle of rum and headed out to clifton for volleyball. the weather was strange, cloudy with a bit of sun peeking through, big rolling waves and a slight breeze that couldn't make up its mind as to where it wanted to go. the large group on the beach was comprised of a wide variety of people all connected through the years, who were only too welcoming when i arrived :)

in spite of the rum, which did make things a little more hardcore, i played really well despite not having seen a volleyball since 2008; the main difference from the last time being that here, instead of struggling to teach my team-mates about team-work, i was joining a bunch of people who understand the game and we were all having fun and playing decently.

the only bummer was a bit of knee-on-knee action when one of the sailors and i both went for the ball at the same time...

i went into the atlantic twice, and both times it really wasn't as tough as it's been the past few trips. i was concerned that maybe it was just an age thing, because i still fondly recall swimming out to the boats with hyperviper and staying immersed for ages, and the past few visits i've barely been able to walk three feet in without exiting in pain from the cold!
so that was a relieving experience :)

springer arrived with her family in tow, and even though we couldn't see the sun setting we all stayed way past it sitting in a big circle talking, even the threat of rain couldn't detract from the perfectly pleasant sea air and being surrounded by lights in the darkness.

when it eventually did start raining, we all packed up and hurried up the stairs back to our cars to mission off to dizzy's in camps bay. it wasn't just dark and raining, there were odd swirls of mist floating eerily across the road's surface. it was a surreal drive that i thoroughly enjoyed!

how odd running into my niece's new sister-in-law again! the cheeseless pizza was decent, the company was great and the pool was surprisingly decent. when we arrived the guy who had the table beat our first challenger in a way that made me sure that he was bad or that he was a hustler, and either way i wanted the next shot. i discovered that the latter was the case, i made him sweat visibly and was *so* close to winning... but i screwed up a critical shot near the end and gave the game away :(
the rest of the games were a lot of fun and by the time we left we really didn't care that we'd never had the table to ourselves.

i drove home just fine, but i was halfway back when i realized that not only might i fail a breathalyser test but that i'd left my driver's license at home. whoops! :$

---today:

the virtual breakup is now definitely done. this posting is done. i have found my clif builder bars, which my mother had tidied away - out of sight, out of mind, and now it's clear that i over-bought.

the weather is beautiful and i'm really looking forward to the weekend!

post-parties

for the second morning in a row, cape town is blanketed in mist and the fog horn is sounding. i've always loved this, ever since i was little, it's like the world is wrapped in a cool blanket and we're all being sung a lullaby :)

---friday:

i woke up from dreams of adventure, vengeance and personal justice that made me ashamed. they involved my father, he had cronies, and although i felt that they deserved what they got i was not happy to be in any way involved.

we got up early, dressed nicely and went to the cemetery for the unveiling of my aunt's father's tombstone. it's really not a pleasant place to see loved ones for the first time in years... my other two aunts, uncle puberty and i visited my grandparents' graves, my late uncle's and my late great uncle's. it got emotional.

---i was introduced to a man i'd apparently met at kc's brother's barmitzvah in 2010, but i couldn't remember him at all. though he remembered me well, which made me uncomfortable as hell :(

we saw him again as he crossed to the other side of the cemetery (where my father's buried, we felt no need to visit that side), and my mother drove off with her sisters leaving me with her car.
i was still recovering from the festival - meaning i was feeling a little slow - and was focused on not getting lost on my way home, as i've never been familiar with that area; that doesn't excuse the fact that there was an old woman in the parking lot who'd been waiting for the man in question for half an hour and who was terrified to be waiting alone, and instead of staying with her (i had nothing better to do, really) i told her to rather wait in the shade of the buildings.
i was right in the sense that there are security guards there and less heat, but once i'd driven far enough to be unsure of my way back i became certain that i shouldn't have left and spent the whole drive home beating myself up about it. even if she had nothing to fear, she *thought* she had something to fear and i shouldn't have left her alone :(

---i spent the afternoon getting in touch with most of the people i'd met over new year's, applied for a job in the states with an old friend of biggles who i hope still remembers me from way back when, did some shopping and tried to post using a browser that keeps hanging. this computer is totally screwed! it took me too long to figure out that i should type things up using notepad if i want to retain my sanity...

we went to my aunt for drinks with her boyfriend, wp, tgtbt, their little brother, godmother and yang. the new boyfriend seems like a good guy, and he gave me some interesting advice when he heard about my immigration issues.

a simple misunderstanding had everyone thinking that wp was defending the assailants in the killing of a man holidaying with his family that had taken place at midnight on new year's - phrasing is everything :(

---from there we went to dinner with my brother; after all he's done i always feel uncomfortable about seeing him, but it really wasn't so bad. it's weird that although i no longer care much for him we still have a lot in common, and the table conversations were interesting. especially considering that i would have thought them wholly inappropriate in light of the rest of the family there, our uncle and cousins who are a bit on the square side and our cousins' teenage kid...

... that kid is freakishly wise and educated for his age. he's also a really good kid, and talking to him makes me proud!

...

the apartment - which freaked me out once upon a time when our father died and we saw it for the first time - still looks like a recreation of our home before my mother and i left it. the name on the apartment listing downstairs? it's my initial followed by our family name. wtf?!

---my mother was exhausted even though a couple of us were deeply engaged in a discussion about the magic of software development and the failings of industrialized education, so we cut that short and returned home.

where i began my suffering: ingrown hairs on my throat. i'd forgotten why i abhor shaving with a razor so much! it's been three days and the situation hasn't improved much, i'm now seriously considering laser hair removal. i was considering it before, to be fair, but because the last time i actually had to deal with this was so long ago it wasn't really a priority :P

---saturday:

i was too tired for anything, really, so i went to bed. i woke up to post, spoke to sq instead, then met with dirk diggler and we had breakfast at the new health food place. the quinoa porridge i ate for breakfast really wasn't bad, we had tons of stuff to talk about and i'm well impressed that he's got his shit together even if it's not in a way i would ever consider practical.

we shared a supremely uncomfortable moment talking about mistakes of the past and how they shape us. just thinking about it now, even, is pretty overwhelming...

...

i got into my car and found a cigarette butt on the floor - i couldn't figure out where that came from, and my hackles rose as i remembered the break in i had in 2000 before i left where the thieves had enough time to smoke while they worked. when i got out the car i found a cigarette box stuffed into the door handle, and understood that some asshole had simply stuffed the butt through the tiny gap i left for air circulation.

wtf?! why would somebody do that???

...

i went shopping for vegan food to toss on the braai. i started at woolworths: nothing. checkers: nothing, and the guy i asked for assistance looked at me like i was properly mad. i ran into some cousins, one of whom tried to explain to me how to make some vegan dish or other - not helpful - and then finally found myself at the spar.

win! they had a freezer fully stocked with fry's, which has a range of products that all taste pretty damn good!

the directions hyperviper sent me were really easy to follow and i soon arrived at his home in plattekloof. he's got himself a proper, middle-class home out there and i can't say i wasn't impressed :)
he told me that we'd be joined by a dutch friend of his, for some reason i thought he meant "dutchman" (a derogatory term for dutchman, which would have been funny coming from an afrikaner) but the guy and his wife are actually visiting from the netherlands. we all had a great afternoon, the food was good (even the skeptical carnivores tried the vegan sausages and were pleasantly surprised), we talked and laughed non-stop and chilled with our feet in the pool until it was time to go home.

stuck behind brackenfell and bellville cars all the way home, then failing to find parking anywhere near my mom's apartment because in addition to the minstrels locking up town the cape to rio race had just started: i was a little frustrated. i parked in a terrible spot just so that i could get the frozen goods home quickly, and fortunately when my mother returned someone had just left a space so she held it until i could bring the car around...

after dinner i crashed, and when i woke up a couple of hours later i decided that a trance party with yang was not on the cards for me. i joined my mother in watching jeff dunham's very special christmas special, posted a little and went to bed.

---yesterday:

t'was a day of nothing. i posted, i began reading david foster wallace - infinite jest (tgtbt's recommendation), had coffee with my mother and godmother when she came to visit, and went to my sister's for a braai with her ex-sisters-in-law, a couple of our cousins and my niece's in-laws.

i went with my nephew to pick up a couple of things from their local spar, and he wanted to take a plastic bag that we really didn't need. when i called him on it, he asked the cashier if she wouldn't mind taking me off his hands because he'd had enough... how very disrespectful!

the evening was excellent, swimming, eating way too much, talking non-stop and compulsively playing with the two insanely cute boxers.

now that i'm awake, we're off to paarl to visit my second mum. i've been looking forward to seeing her!

rocked out - part i

right, i'm entirely unmotivated to do anything at the moment. including post. or read. or watch something. it might be related to the headache and exhaustion i've been nursing that may or may not be indications that i received a minor concussion yesterday during sparring.

---monday night:

i finally tried out the stanley parable demo, which is as clever as it is uninteresting to me. it has left me with absolutely no idea what the game is conceptually and so i'm uninterested in spending cash to find out. if it's that hard to present, why not simply make it free and then charge in-game to continue after a certain amount of gameplay?

things got exceptionally meta when my battery died as i approached the "exit the demo" area for the second time, when i plugged in my computer and continued it stop-started for a bit and then locked up. i can't tell if that's a bug or intentional, which i guess sums up the experience quite well.

---it was late enough for me to call my apartment insurance company, but they weren't answering their phones and they don't call back internationally. i sent a desperate email, which got a response about two days later to say that they'd already cancelled the insurance. thanks for letting me know!

now to repeat the experience for my life insurance :(
[oooh! great idea! FML-insurance :) ]

---tuesday:

i was unable to wake up, even for the dentist when i was already in his chair. he explained to me, looking very awkward and uncomfortable the entire time, that the army filling appears to have caused a crack and that any pressure on the connected cusp is transferred to the nerve that's already walled in by (calcium?). he need to bring out the giant model tooth and my x-rays before i kind-of got what he was saying. as a last-ditch effort to avoid root canal surgery, he tried drilling through the cusp to add a buffer filling. i can't say that i understand the logic but he's the dentist, so i gave the okay as i didn't want to uproot the entire nerve.

it only took about two days to be absolutely certain that that didn't work, and now i'm scheduled for the root canal on monday. i'm looking forward to it like... like root canal surgery. i'm now on antibiotics because it's supposed to reduce the nerve inflammation and make the procedure less traumatic, which means that the celebratory weekend (my birthday and sagirl visiting) will not include any drinking :(

and to think that the cause for all this was to correct a minor irritation at not being able to floss properly.

fuck.

---i went home and rested the anesthetic off, spoke to aota (who sounded better than she had on the weekend) and made sure that i'll still be covered for the dental work, then called up yang's contact to verify that he'd received my resume. i got through to his answering machine, and pushed through my discomfort to leave an introductory message. fortunately i received a positive response later on, so that's cool.

i headed downtown for my french chat session, which was good, and then came home to get ready for training. i had time for a quick chat with my mother, who informed me that in the face of his mother's passing my brother's managed to be a complete asshole to his siblings *again*.

*sigh*

---it's SNOWTIME! (said like a mangalore)
properly snowing ^_^

---i was surprised to arrive at the gym to find too many shoes at the entrance, but then i walked in on gsp teaching the class and it turned out i was the only person who didn't know we had a surprise guest instructor coming in. getting personal advice from the dude was way cooler than awkwardly getting out of his way when he's training :P

badger and i were partnered for impact training, which was fun, and we followed that up with excellent sparring drills. i was hurting and tired by the time i got home and i actually needed a cup of tea just to have the energy to make dinner. eating it took forever. during that forever i met a cute girl online and we exchanged numbers, but i think my lack of interest in sms conversations offended her somehow because since saying good night she hasn't answered the phone or responded...

once upon a time's incessantly surprising stories and twists on fairy tales is captivating and wonderful. i'm thoroughly enjoying it!

---wednesday:

i slept really badly, my body was sore and i was overheating. after two nights of that i'm thinking i need to invest in a thinner duvet, last night i struggled with the heat and when i finally got up to crack the window at -10 degrees outside i discovered that it was still open from a few nights before :S

...

waking up in the morning, all three times, was really tough. i trudged through the slush to the gym to meet vfmp to drill jiu-jitsu and sparring, which was pretty good. then i noticed a cute blonde girl sitting on the edge of the octagon, and when we were done - *ahem*, when *i* was done because i couldn't breathe anymore - we walked past and i realized that she was the first girl i sent a message to when i began with online dating! i knew she was into kickboxing, but what are the chances of her training in the same gym as me for the past seven months without our paths crossing?

my gods, she's even sexier in real life. she never responded to that email, though, and i wouldn't dream of harassing her during training. i probably wouldn't have anything to say even if she wasn't.

anyway, i finished my workout with punching bags, weights and the elliptical machine. the last of those is MEAN, man, it's been two days and my legs are still really hurting. i thought i was taking it easy by only doing ten minutes, but i guess ramping up the level to 17 (out of 20) on my first attempt was a bit ambitious.

...

i was soooo tired when i got home, i forced myself to eat lunch and then went back downtown for a good coffee chat. then i went back to the gym.

...

muay thai? i was powered out but we had a good drilling session.
boxing? my body was feeling weak and by the end i was very glad that the beast didn't rock up for our scheduled sparring. i assured the guy i was partnered with that i'd happily spar with him the following evening.

the shower when i got home ended too quickly! i tend to forget that in addition to it being a nice apartment, reasonably priced, close to metro and close to the gym, one of the biggest reasons to put up with the occasional shit is the hot massage-power shower at the end of a cold day of high exertion :)

quick chugging of vitamins, minerals and protein and i hurried out to the pub to meet kgb. i was soooo tired, i love the pub but i had no appetite for the greasy fries i ordered and was surprised when i realized that i'd finished my pint of guinness. it amused me that the one thing that really got my attention was arguing the nature of reality, the technical stuff we'd met to discuss was interesting but kgb didn't have an actual plan, just a super-high-level ideal with nothing to implement and i had to sell my idea because he didn't really get it at first.

i returned home hawking up lung butter and worrying about swollen glands: i don't think it was my glands anymore, i now think it was just very tender muscles :P

i had to do the dishes just to make a protein shake and i was feeling so very lazy. that feeling hasn't gone away yet :P
it was around then that i knew for certain that my tooth was definitely screwed up.

---thursday:

another sweaty night, but better. i got up early and stepped out into a gorgeous, uplifting bright blue and white -9 degrees. i had my first coffee while just listening and trying to understand my study partner's french.

i visited the dentist to make the appointment and was sent off to the pharmacy to begin taking the antibiotics immediately. gods, i hate taking antibiotics and i hate the fact that i've had to take so many courses the last couple of years :(

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