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!

infinite rest - part i

it's friday! it's a beautiful day, and i'm pretty sure that after posting this i'm going to head into town and try to get some gift shopping done. and perhaps a little drinking with friends if they're around.

a quick summary of the past week before the details:

1. it's been an extremely relaxed week, the weather was mostly cloudy and cool so it was very indoors and reading or napping or vegging out in front of the telly. which, mind, had so little to offer that it was mostly set to classic music videos. i did see the fifth element again. at some stage i'm going to try to count how many times i've watched it.

2. except when it was outdoors, on monday my mother took me and my london cousins out to our friend's farm and me to visit my second mum in paarl. yesterday i joined my new friends, "the sailors", and springer and crew on the beach for an incredible afternoon / evening of volleyball followed by pizza and good pool.

3. sq and i are definitely not happening. it started with her sending me cooler-than-lukewarm messages, escalated to very unpleasant miscommunications with no sense of humour, and then calmed down with friendly explanations of why this can't work. it's been three days of this, actually, and it's felt like a very real breakup.

oh, well - better virtually than pushing on to a real date and having that fail.

---monday:

the whole day i was tired and perpetually needed to pee. i don't know what that was about. we picked up my cousins and drove through to spice route, which is a beautiful farm with a magical view of the valley; their coffee is terrific, their variety of chocolate is great, their beers are top notch and the brewery-visit experience very cool, their pizzeria is excellent even though they were struggling as they'd hit capacity, and their preserves store had some very interesting items. we then moved on to fairview, but only to drop off my cousins before heading out to paarl.

my second mum's looking good, i hear she wasn't doing so well when my mother last saw her. we didn't talk too much but it was nice to just spend time with her, her family seems nice (it's the first time i've met them, really) and it amused me that i had no problem understanding all the afrikaans even if i wasn't totally comfortable speaking it.

i don't know why her niece's husband kept referring to us as "so-called whites" (the quotations are his), that was kind of awkward.

by the time we were ready to leave the skies had opened up and it was pouring with rain, we were soaked by the time we'd gotten the cousins in the car and the drive back felt cosy and protected and involved a lot of chatter and just the right amount of chocolate tasting.

a braindead evening ensued. i was suffering from restless leg syndrome and it hasn't really let up since.

---tuesday:

in spite of the sore legs and feet i got a good night's sleep, had good dreams and woke up feeling right! i went to the dentist to have my sore post-incompetence tooth sorted out, but after much detective work we couldn't figure out which tooth was actually giving me grief so we decided it was better to leave it :S

i was intrigued when i went in to find a young dentist who's good-looking and looks like a serious sportsman; doesn't quite match the stereotypical dentist in my head. after i left i was informed that he was my niece's first serious boyfriend, which i found quite amusing.

i milled around the health store downstairs, finding a couple of things i wanted but getting stuck at the fridge: what the hell does "flexitarian friendly" mean?!?! after much discussion and googling we all decided that it was a particularly bad marketing idea, the products are vegan and the company's not doing itself any favours by not labelling them as such.

i had a powerhouse wrap (sans cheese) for breakfast at nü, then spent the day on the couch reading infinite jest or napping. when i read the preface, which states that nobody could read this book unaffected, i thought "challenge accepted!"
i failed, this book really is crazy and crazy good! i just got through reading a footnote that's so large conceptually and such brazen use of mise en abyme that i'm having trouble wrapping my mind around it.

i bought the first harry potter book in french, but i'm going to need a lot more focus than i'm currently capable of in order to get through it...

in the evening i took my mom out for chinese, the place is great and the food was good, and i was ready for bed by the time we got home.

---wednesday:

horrible dreams of sweating sewerage and being chased by a hippo with a grudge. then waking up to a breakup message. i remedied the morning with a day of doing very little, eventually heading out to mr price to try to buy shorts to replace the ones i destroyed over new year's... i was severely disappointed by their lack of cool :(

i was thinking of heading to town, but found myself taking a walk on the promenade instead. what interesting timing! as i walked past the mini-golf wondering about the variety of people playing on a random overcast afternoon i recognized the sailors that i met at the festival! we went to newport deli for drinks and tapas, i tagged along to town to meet a couple of friends of theirs and we went through to cavendish to meet a sister, eat dinner and watch 47 ronin.

the movie is beautiful, but it's long and a lot less action-packed than the trailer suggests. we were all looking for a fun ride, and about halfway through we were doing the wave with yawns. to make me uncomfortable i'd developed a rather nasty bellyache that made me pretty bleak.

at least overall i enjoyed the evening in spite of that!

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