the ex-coworker at the wedding

 my beard's just hit itchy phase. i'm tired. after sending mr smear off to school this morning, and making a tech support call for an issue with the new electric hob, i caught a bus to ace and traded in the thing gd didn't want after she assured me she wanted it for a perfectly-sized laundry basket, two more small trash cans and a welcome mat.

gd suggested that we leave one of the toilet brushes that come free with the bins behind the concrete block for whoever keeps pooping there.

i had just enough time for a coffee before leaving to pick up the car and drive north to the wedding.

there was a lot of traffic. i needed to pee pretty badly for the last twenty minutes.

the place was right next to kfar ha'ro'eh, where the yeshiva i lived in for four and a half months in 1996 is.

the wedding was really nice, the ceremony itself very sweet. while there were two *yecch* unavoidable hugs with people i don't like (the HR woman and one of the team leads that didn't want me on her team), and my relationship with my old boss is freaking weird, it was great seeing everyone and i'm glad i went.

the food was good, too, and i made an effort to drink responsibly (one drink, which i put down halfway through because i wasn't able to get out of a shot), and i'm pretty sure i was fine for the drive home.

i have since snacked too much.

aside from helping gd with the challah-peño, i've done very little of value. i think this is good.

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.

purchase

monday:

it was a long work day, with lots of tedium. then i rushed from the office to the school for our last parents' meeting with mr smear's current teacher. some of the report was very good! and some was very... not so good. nothing we weren't already familiar with, though.

gd and i finished re-watching district 9. freaking disturbing, and brilliant.

yesterday:

also a long work day, but less repetitive. one very successful rework of something that has been causing us problems since before i joined the company more than a year ago.

a relatively successful, but somewhat weird, shopping experience after work. h&m doesn't stock men's trousers over size 36, which makes me... too fat to shop at h&m. then we hit renuar, where my suspicions were confirmed by an assistant that their sizes are ten more than the actual size, so a 38 from anywhere else is a 48 at renuar. wtf?

we also picked up shoes for a reluctant mr smear - we'll see soon enough if he's actually willing to wear them - and a pair of sandals for me which seem to be a good fit.

the good part about the shopping was being able to use the gift vouchers i'd been given by my employer! i'd earmarked them for other stuff, but i do feel we made good use of them.

bedtime last night was mostly fine, right until saying goodnight when mr smear threw a tantrum because it was too late for reading him a story and he just would not accept that. that was a sad way to end the day.

now:

i've been uncomfortable for the last while, but i kinda anticipated that. i went to bed soon after mr smear, feeling a bit tired and a bit antsy.

shell shock

 i'm exhausted, highly stressed, partially relieved, generally confused.

1. my mom got covid last week - which is really sucky timing and is possibly my fault. i'd been over the symptoms for a couple of days before she arrived, but still... fortunately she managed to make the wedding on wednesday (she did an antigen test before we left), but we got her pcr result the next day and it was positive. also fortunate: that she just had a scratchy throat and was really tired for a few days, but nothing more serious.

2. the wedding was beautiful and great fun, but the friday night with the family after the wedding was particularly special: my cousin has barely spoken in his thirty years on this planet, and it seems like he was saving all his words for his speech. it was long, non-stop entertainment, hilarious and touching and brilliant.

3. on sunday gd and i stood for seven hours in misrad hapnim in an attempt to get her status updated. mrs professor quirrel demonstrated to me, in our first interaction of the day, that she's not malicious: she's literally too stupid to do her job or understand the consequences of her incompetence. fortunately, her manager took so long to get a response to her that she "had to leave", and we were passed on to her coworker who is competent and pleasant to deal with. gd now has extended permission to remain in the country and we have an appointment to update her status (and mr smear's, i was mistaken last week thinking that him getting an id number was sufficient) in about three weeks' time.

4. i'm really, really struggling with insurance and insurance brokers. in both countries. jesus. we have no medical insurance because... because the insurance people are making getting cover a lot more complicated than it should be (we started the process of getting insurance a week before the 12th, when my south african cover ended, and it's now two weeks later and they're asking us when we want the cover for).

5. we're really struggling with teachers' strikes and summer holiday planning. at least we've managed to get mr smear registered for summer school and aftercare, finally, but the rest is so damned confused and i'm outta bandwidth and gd doesn't understand hebrew.

6. my personal banker is a complete moron, and/or the banking system is broken.

7. our financial situation is a mess. we're really stretched thin.

8. work has been really intense, it's nice to earn a good salary but they're paying me to not have any kind of work/life balance (during "crunch" periods, at least) and of course, we have my first "crunch" in forever while my mother's visiting.

right, back to work.

sshhhhh... he's napping

sunday 15th:

a pretty good sleep, coffee and brunch with my uncle on a perfect misty including a lovely stroll on the promenade and followed by a great walk in the green point park

invoicing, shopping, relaxing
the great washing machine failure

slowly ending the weekend with books and a little gaming

monday 16th:

Getting Stuff Done (mostly making appointments), certified copy magic (the police do it quickly for free), autumnal green, one more thing (before SARS demands biometrics), a long time leaving, washing attempt one, the bank (a bad time to whisper codes in french), noticing mr smear needed a bath, the pharmacy, a quick supermarket run, desperately hungry on the way home, dropping pringles on the way to washing attempt two, working into the night but i think i (or my network connection) irritated the woman doing the remote installation

tuesday 17th:

4am working until night terror time, exhaustion and frustration starting the day

waking up to a busy mr smear, who was turning both ways, the rush to the fascia release specialist, who happens to be our neighbour who was brought into the building by the woman who left our apartment a few months ago, who we were referred to by the chiropractor who we were referred to by the abdominal specialist; at the same time gd was advised to take up pilates days after we found a pilates physiotherapist next door when we accidentally got out on the wrong floor of a building

the raw vegan experience: family unfriendly, active-wear wearers, and although the food was delicious it was - as always - misrepresented. a slice of bread with a pile of food on top is not a sandwich

the rush to the therapist - with a quick stop to drop something off at the tax consultant and make an idiot move her car after she'd blocked off the sidewalk - an encouraging session and mr smear's first proper encounter with dogs (he loved it)

coming straight home, being woken (groggy) to let the technicians in; two days without a washing machine and it turns out it was a faulty socket, an afternoon with an inexplicably unhappy mr smear and gd's agonizing recovery

indian pickup lies enraging me

wednesday 18th:

mr smear crying a lot, but it's never clear if it's for real

meeting the bull (our landlord), a very different experience dealing directly with him, furniture shopping and praying nobody got TB, or fleas, buying a high chair
not just a landlord but an MMA man, work, getting soaked taking clothes to mom's dryer, a little GoT

thursday 19th:

big waves, a sour start to the morning, a disturbing computer issue, pre-breakfast second-hand furniture: the sacrifice of dealing with dishonest, bigoted, creepy people; the delivery (scraped floors and two missing nails from the hinges), rearranging and angry lunch and being tired and exchanging rugs and mr smear on my shoulders for the first time and more rearranging and a big shopping and mom's visit and a little work and protoplasm's visit and a little more work before crashing

friday 20th:

remembering how to stand at work, an emergency egg-run and not wanting to live anywhere else, trying to work, a pharmacy run, prepping for dinner, finding parking with my mother, a lovely friday night dinner with krybabie and co, upsetting his wife about her daughter's resemblance to his sisters, managing to get mr smear home without waking him but needing to change him on arrival

saturday 21st:

tired and busy, returning the borrowed dining room set and rushing lunch unnecessarily and late coffee at my aunt's

sunday 22nd:

a good night's sleep and a restful morning
promenade coffee and oversized sparkling water
john carpenter's cigarette burns
a successful waterfront mission, having my mom over for dinner
GoT, putting everyone to bed and preparing for customs handling on all the stuff pg's been storing for me these past few years

monday 23rd:

becoming frustrated at some ungodly hour when mr smear refused to be put in his crib; my original plan was to be awake all night but that's not looking like such a good idea until we get all our basic needs squared away

hyper emotional wedding video viewing

getting shit done (and enjoying an entertaining cup of coffee) while wait for gd's physio, finding the tailor, the closed restaurant resulting in a spar lunch

the chewbacca excitement and resulting bad-fit disappointment, the positive return experience from takealot (later cancelled), the i'm-not-giving-any-more-details-over-the-phone call from my new bank

backgammon reintroduced
woman down
a long night compiling

tuesday 24th:

not an easy night, waking up to a gd without internet access, the baby centre and baby brain, mr smear's vaccine, newport deli breakfast
therapy and loving dogs
a walk to the doctor
passing out for a quick rest then getting stuff done
getting mr smear to sleep while picking up documents from my mom
GoT and a great dinner
money delays and amusement
pleasant work, foot massage

wednesday 25th:

2am bedtime together, probably not a good idea

pampers pants: a couple of minor incidents followed by a wet bed and a soiled stroller later, we now know what we now know that plenty of other parents have already said online. pampers SUCKS. they have products with micro-beads, gels that leak, badly sized tabs, and dangerous chemicals in certain products that literally burn infants. how do they get away with this? the hot coffee thing?

early up (with difficulty), the chiropractor (though i'm almost certain the relief won't last), formally opening a new bank account

nap time, an outing for diapers but forgetting the diapers, interviewing a maid, the walk / run and return outside for forgotten diapers (again)

dinner interrupted by a major diaper leak which escalated into an unproductively traumatic night

thursday 26th:

waking up hot and bothered
a nap
bank card pickup
turning around in woodstock
lunch downstairs, a quick walk
work, feeling sick, time out from work, dinner and a walkthrough, passing out on the couch,

friday 27th:

transferring to the bed at 2am and a few difficult wakeups with mr smear

waking up with a jolly mr smear just before the maid arrived
running late to the physio again
coming home to a clean apartment and the latest data from nutritionfacts.org

mr smear's first orange, the tailor, coffee, and the fish

the salary fee: my employer chose to pay me as a service, for which paypal takes an enormous fee. according to the agent i spoke to, salaries are meant to go through as transfers to friends or family... fortunately i managed to get my new employer to redo the transfer. thanks, paypal, and thanks government controls for making this harder than it needs to be. at least i now know how effective direct visa transfers are, so next month will be better.

a nap, getting ready for shabbat dinner, and a lovely evening at my uncle's with my sister's and cousin's families

saturday 28th:

a decent night but mr smear waking up early; bringing him into our bed where he was quite chilled until i was ready to get up, when i discovered that he'd filled his diaper and for the first time in a while when it counted it hadn't leaked everywhere

a serious back spasm to start a beautiful saturday morning, a pleasant experience switching out my rentacheapie car
driving back into the mist
nap day + visiting mom
letdown stress
call-a-pizza (solid salad) and GoT and letdown and mr smear's nightmares

sunday 29th:

a rough start, but a good rescue and brunch with airplane; successful furniture shopping with my mom, a rush to prep for dinner
delicious kale soup and bagels, another diaper dis-ass-ter
GoT

monday 30th:

another day of difficulty getting up, then aggression followed by wallowing in depression
the adelphi stalker, hardware non-advice, more breastfeeding complications than a mere winged insect

where did the afternoon go? (as usual)
mom's birthday visit, sealing windows, dinner and GoT

trying to figure out what to do for work

tuesday 31st:

learning how visual studio's unit tests are simple and extremely useful debugging tools (no need to install / uninstall services and attach processes), actually being engaged and working through to 3am

(witnessing mr smear's cutest moment, turning over and ta-ta-talking in his sleep)

sleeping in a little after the maid arrived, quick shopping followed by a quick return followed by some relaxing breakfast business

the "quick" outing to the waterfront, then the cape quarter, then canal walk; finding half of what we were looking for, experiencing the full range of road insanity along the way, mom's visit, rushed dinner, mr smear's refusal to sleep and later cramps

wednesday 1st:

me&you mobile being extremely unprofessional, some more solid hours playing with visual studio unit tests, another 3am night

another busy morning (although considerably more sleep than the day before), the physio, the first preschool call, scheckter's raw - delicious, but not particularly filling and i think i offended the guy at our shared table with my derision of "juicers", back home to go out again, the doctor, the pork pill confession, money puzzles followed by a long work night

thursday 2nd:

calling it a night at 4am
no rest for the wicked, busy morning and a fun hour with the therapist: she seems to be losing it, but her dogs playing with mr smear was totally awesome
a couple of short naps that barely made a difference, an attempt to take a walk to enjoy an incredible sunset that was overtaken by concern for a man on a bench who looked like he was going to die there (but he was too mobile for the emergency services to "waste their time")

mom coming over for a quick visit, helping us put mr smear to bed and giving us a chance to eat dinner and watch GoT

a long night of hard work

friday 3rd:

3am to bed, early up to rush to the chiropractor; fantastic job, but immediately compromised by my having to hold mr smear for gd's treatment

hurrying home, urgent napping, a stressful afternoon working through what i would later realize was me getting sick, missing mom and rushing off to dinner alone, initial awkwardness, a really nice dinner, back to work

saturday 4th:

3am, sleeping like a log and waking up with a horrible sore throat and feeling utterly wasted; whatever illness i've been cooking having been brought to a boil

acupuncturist, plant (shared new parent table), the waterfront, home for a short nap, an attempt to go for a walk but the cold wind sending us to my mom's where i passed out for a while

pizza burn (jalapeño) and lots of ginger (ale)

sunday 5th:

early morning furniture shopping (win! in spite of the dodgy salesmen), baby shopping (win! in spite of the sick kids), terrible drivers and smokers are assholes (a new father under the no smoking sign in an enclosed space next to the baby city entrance and his daughter), a lovely lunch (and the quebec city couple at the table next to us), home for a breather and then off for a walk to enjoy the gorgeous afternoon, the kid's park, smoothies, bumping into the quebec city couple again, another short walk through a different, even cooler park

no energy for date night, a relaxed evening being inspired by the first half of michael moore's where to invade next and then suddenly feeling terrible again and crashing urgently

monday 6th:

mr smear having a decent night but me struggling with sinusitis, waking up to a beautiful morning soured by the realization that the asshole contractor still hasn't done anything about our floors

the good handyman, a slow morning trying to rest, reading a bit, struggling with mr smear (trying to clean an angry, writhing boy is impossible), a shopping mission ending stressed by human traffic, back home to try out our new drying setup - why does anyone use a tumble dryer?! we have a spindle and an electric clothes dryer and they're not only cheaper and better for the environment but they're a far sight more effective and convenient

some GoT and a big dinner and trying to nap before work

tuesday 7th:

but waking up at 1am unable to breathe, about half an hour trying to reset my sinuses and then three hours of work

sleeping in (thanks to the cleaning lady), the asshole contractor making us REALLY angry by leaving early after jerking us around for two weeks; getting him to come back (and being amazed that he's using sandpaper instead of a sander), heading off to the department of home affairs for a surprisingly pleasant encounter and a deep sigh of relief, truth coffee baby talk, mr smear cancelling our trip to the company gardens by passing out on the way

big shopping, settling into our apartment which is really beginning to feel like we're serious about it (even if money's still tight, we're definitely getting more comfortable and are starting to need less urgently)

gd's big dinner just for me, completing where to invade next? (warmly recommended, great documentary), and making some important advances in spite of a sinus headache

wednesday 8th:

on the whole, a pretty shitty day in spite of the lovely weather. the varnish job. mr smear's heavy allergies. the physio visit, the ultraviolet gym inspection. coming home to walk and not walking. sleeping on the floor by the crib. still not walking, the second varnish job and the "no you're not smoking cigarettes on my balcony". the walk cancelled due to sunshine and wind. mom's place stopover, rearrangement stress and mom visit (and pharmacy delivery), the relentless mr smear and an uncomfortable gd and finally getting to work on sore legs

thursday 9th:

around 3am, after realizing that i was on the verge of passing out, mr smear woke with a fever and it would take over an hour and a half to get him back to sleep

things we didn't learn in school: sealing rooms against cold and wind causes breathing problems and mold. extraction fans in bathrooms need to be running both while the bath or shower is taking place and for at least fifteen minutes after leaving the room.

scraping another section of the floor right after finally getting the damage repaired, a mansplaining note, a power nap, waiting for the contractor to fix another issue that he caused and not only did he not show, but the caretaker had the audacity to say to me that we're giving them problems - no more nice and polite, that snivelling drunkard will learn to watch his step with me

gd's first (from scratch) soup, the bananas of wrath, the apology nap, the long good night mr smear with my mom's assistance, the superette run and getting mr smear into bed, dinner and GoT

friday 10th:

working hard but not getting very far, a couple of tough wakings but sleeping *really* well

my first cardio in over ten months: not bad, much needed, difficult to remember not to push too hard

a big lunch (gd's new soup), an afternoon spent absent-mindedly working and trying to take mr smear for a walk in the cold wind and struggling with him after his nap and GoT (okay, we finally know why the world was upset about the wedding) and managing bank accounts and credit cards and worrying about forex

saturday 11th:

a good night's sleep, introducing my wife to yakko, wakko and dot on a saturday morning. my gods, the animaniacs get even better as we get older!

ushering in 2014 - the wedding

we drove to suikerbossie, the weather was beautiful aside from a bit of wind which would die down after the ceremony. my niece looked amazing, as did her mother and siblings, and everything seemed grand!

the ceremony itself was nice, and we made it almost to the end without a hitch! it would have been nice if my idiot ex-brother-in-law hadn't argued with the rabbi over whether the wine was kosher and it would have been much nicer if he hadn't bumped my niece out from under the canopy and started a men's-only dance after the glass was broken. usually, even at religious weddings in israel, the newly-weds stay under the canopy and all the guests have an opportunity to come and congratulate them.

next on the piss-off-everyone list was the divider on the dance floor. there was lots of traditional dancing - not my thing but my ex-brother-in-law dragged me into it anyway - but after ten frustrating minutes the divider came down and the band showed that they could play really good music too. much better!

their rendition of smokie - living next door to alice saw all of the groom's relatives on the dance floor singing along loudly, i don't know what that was about but it was most amusing. on a related note, i'm not 100% sure how i feel about him (did he really not recognize me without the beard?!) but his sisters are very cool and we got along well.

nobody knows who the bright spark is who invited my ex-brother-in-law to make a speech, but i'm pretty sure that they're sorry they did. the man got up and spent a long time slurring stupid and stupidly inappropriate things. he managed to properly offend a lot of people. that was followed by a speech by the groom's uncle which consisted of family in-jokes and non-sequiturs, none of which seemed to have anything to do with the bride or groom.

my sister's speech was good, though she did a substantial amount of shaming and i was horrified when she told a story of me and my niece that i felt wholly out-of-place:
my brother is three years older than his niece, and when we returned to live in south africa he obviously felt a bit displaced by her. one day we were in the kitchen and the two of them were in the lounge, and he jumped on the opportunity afforded him, chucking a pillow on her head and sitting on it. when we heard the commotion we rushed in on the scene... our father immediately rescued her, put the pillow on his head and promptly sat on it himself.
i was upset partially because introducing one's baby brother as an attempted murderer isn't cool and partially because the details were fudged to make a good story - i remember the incident well and i'm absolutely certain that i never intended to actually hurt her. make her suffer a little, sure, but not actually cause any harm.

the best part of her speech was her warning to the groom to treat his bride right: "if you don't, i'm going to hop on my broomstick and fly right over there..."
nice one, sis, nice one :)

there was no rum, but the food was excellent and the decidedly talented band managed to cover songs i don't like in a way that got me on the dance floor anyway. we all had fun, a little too much sun, and my (relatively) new brother-in-law and i entertained ourselves and others with general silliness until suddenly it was 4pm and everyone realized that it was time to begin the new year's celebrations.

[continued...]

ending 2013 - part ii

[... continued]

sunday:

after a long while talking to sq i put myself to bed, enjoying deepest slumber. and crazy dreams of high adventure and war. i don't know if "enjoying" is the right word for the latter.

i woke up to a discussion with my mom that saw me entering rant mode; she questioned something in a way that irritated me and after getting defensive i looked it up and found that she was right. so that was an entirely unnecessary negative start to the day - fortunately it didn't continue in similar vein.

yang and i had some gift shopping we needed to do, so i picked him up from town and we headed to what used to be the sunday flea market. it's now the saddest little collection of uninteresting junk, we walked through utterly disappointed. fortunately, yang made a call and we learned about the gardens flea market so we headed there. still not amazing, but certainly closer to what we were looking for. i did see a few things i liked, and i found some cool t-shirts for myself, but i'm going to check out greenmarket square before making any final decisions.

we returned to godmother's best friend's house to relax by the pool with yin and yang and our cousins from london, and soon i received a call from airplane so i drove over to his place to spend a couple of hours with him and his girlfriend and a couple of ciders. it was really cool chilling with them, enjoying the view and the summer evening breeze on their balcony :)

i returned home wondering at how comfortable i am driving in cape town. i made a quick stop at home to get ready, then protoplasm rocked up to pick me up just as my mother returned home. we chatted for a short while, my mother telling us about some wedding drama*, and then went to town for visit.

* the groom was causing shit with the wedding because he wanted to put up a divider on the dance floor in order to pander to my niece's biological father's wishes. her biological father has never been there for her nor added much value and most of us don't like him; we were all horrified and angered by his interference.

---monday:

protoplasm and i went to fiction. fiction... is fiction! little has changed, though the music on sunday night only got really good towards the end. we spent most of the night drinking and enjoying the company of strangers, we had lots of laughs and a jolly good time. a notable moment was buying a round of rum; six rum shots and a beer for R120, which was a pleasure, but not as much of a pleasure as describing the importance of pirates in hamlet and having one of the girls joining me in the punchline: "everything... is better with pirates!"

after a good last dance protoplasm and i walked to the old shell select - it's tradition - where i picked up simba salt and vinegar to complete the nostalgia trip before returning home. i then chatted with sq for a couple of hours of sunrise and finally went to bed.

i dreamed crazy dreams until about 1pm and was woken up to go for a massage my mother had booked for me. usually i pass out at some point, but this time i was totally engaged in conversation the whole time. it intrigues me that over the years we've developed a rapport in spite of the fact that i only see the guy every few years.

afterwards, my mother and i did some quick shopping for the festival and i went to cape quarter to meet with sagirl. we ended up at cafe manhattan for a few drinks, the weather was perfect and after montreal's meeting being overtaken by shared nostalgia and introductions to her friend it was nice to discuss more current affairs! amusingly, we're sharing strikingly similar dating stories, though she's not able to physically meet the guy...

sq and i chatted one last time prior to new year's and then i took my mother out to postacino for dinner. my mother has a great relationship with the owner and it's always nice to arrive at the restaurant and be greeted so warmly :)
it's the first time i've eaten there as a vegan, and they don't have too many menu options available but were only too happy to do any of their pizzas without cheese. their "postacino" pizza without cheese was ridiculously delicious! so much so that in spite of my certainty that i'd need to box half of it there were barely any crumbs left.

i watched ronda rousey vs miesha tate, which is one of the most intense fights i've ever seen! not only in the attitudes of the combatants, but it actually freaked me out every time tate tried to take rousey down. like, holy shit!

i spent some time blogging and fighting mosquitoes before going to bed.

---tuesday:

i didn't get nearly enough sleep. my mother was the one who overslept, though. on the morning of the wedding which made for an interesting morning.

the strangest thing? the dreams that i woke up from, long dreams, were boring. i've never experienced that sensation in a dream before.

life goes on

de vrais mensonges might be a romantic comedy, but it's entertaining, amusing, and an excellent way to practice listening to french :)

i walked in to an apartment that's that much more home, and the news that pg and her mom will be travelling nepal come april and i won't see her for about a month and a half all told. that's gonna be tough.
having said that, it seems like we're almost settled on a wedding date before then (or should i say marriage date? there won't be a ceremony)... and i guess meeting her in amsterdam after her trip will make a decent honeymoon.

i feel the hours of this week flipping by like the sheets of a wall calendar in a movie montage.

all the sons and daughters - part ii

[... continued]

an afternoon at work in the office - .net and javascript lie!!! they don't delete cookies like they say they do. why can't i hide third party cookies from other third parties?!

veganisms: the long argument.
it was a beautiful morning, and pg and i went to our new local so that i could have another eblt. totally awesome.
late sleeping, again no inclination to get out of bed.

i spent the night / morning in fitful sleep, restlessly dreaming euphorically about solving the issue of the dark mistress' identity using meta-reflexive readings. it was a bit nuts.

---sunday:

ric and i walked and talked, then sat and talked, until rather late.
i didn't forget my umbrella! the long bus ride home seemed short because we talked the whole way.

the wedding was sweet: great place, the ceremony was simple and tasteful, the food was almost all good*, and while they didn't have whiskey they did have rum. the music was a bit bland, though, so i didn't really dance. at least it wasn't bad. it was nice to see the family, weird to see so many south africans. ric and i agreed that it would have been a lot less fun if we'd arrived alone.

* we missed the hors d'oeuvres, and the steak was tough.

the ride to the wedding was longer than we'd expected, but fortunately the event hall was right across from the stop so we arrived on time. the ride was mostly awkwardly quiet.
the veganism argument began online, just before i disconnected from the internet (until the next day). i won't lie, i found that stressful.
work was pleasant.
it was a late, rainy morning.

---saturday:

i didn't get much studying done. i suffered pizza dreams after grabbing a slice from ric's :/

i had a nap, then ric arrived. he's far too south-african polite, and it would take until after the wedding for him to chill out a little.

nystire visited and we had lunch at goocha and frozen yoghurt at tamara's. i was hesitant to tell pg about it because that's a description of our idea of a pretty good date. she was jealous. i owe her :P

---success and ethics

american warehouse conditions

being human

point 1:

on sunday morning, i walked out of the apartment on my way to the bus stop and was surprised to find anti-1 outside, apparently saying goodbye to someone. she walked most of the way to the stop with me, and i tried to talk to her but she was noticeably troubled. at first i thought she was embarrassed about me seeing her with the guy she'd said goodbye to, then she got really weird and i just couldn't figure her out. the only response i could make out from her mumbling was "not good" to my question on how things have been...
i was on my way to work, and pg was sleeping, so i didn't invite her up to my apartment... i told her i'd be back the next morning (because we were going straight to a wedding), and to give me a call. i felt bad when i continued walking to the bus stop, wondering as i passed etnachta if i shouldn't have invited her for coffee, but she'd already pulled a "no, no, it's alright" so i sent her an sms.

i didn't think about it much until sunday evening, when her brother called me to inform me that she's been psychologically unstable and had fled jerusalem on friday night, her phone having been disconnected, and the guy i'd seen her with had been told that she was going to hang out with me. which i hadn't known about.

this troubles me a lot. not in the least because she's an intelligent and, from what i know of her, successful girl. i can't stop speculating on what could possibly cause someone who "gets" this world from going over the edge. what could it be? generic life complexities? lack of fulfilment? family issues?

i really hope she's alright.

---
point 2:

on sunday evening, after a long and exhausting day at work, i arrived home to a wonderful surprise - pg had made a tray of meringues for me. this totally set the tone, and we left for the wedding in great spirits. i'd prepped the map (and was surprised to learn that my iphone's map is location aware, i thought i'd have to do something to enable that) and scribbled a backup and i pretty much knew where we were going.

what a bummer that, at the very last moment, pg noticed that i was taking the right highway (road 1) instead of the left (road 20) - i was certain it was the other way around and i hadn't even bothered to check the signs.

traffic was a bit nuts at that hour, and i immediately pulled over to the left lane... but i was so focused on integrating with the left highway that i didn't realize that i wasn't just going over the painted island, but that the physical curb-height island was right in front of me. i didn't see it until it was too late, and to much grinding and car-simulation bumping about i committed and went over it.

there's nothing worse than being forced to accept that i'm just a regular human, capable of remarkable idiocy. after the initial and immediate shock, the reality of what had happened, i looked in the rear-view mirror to see that the guy behind me had simply stopped. in the middle of the highway. i would have done the same thing. i wouldn't want to get close to someone driving that badly either.

so my ego was more bruised and battered than pg's mother's car - with it's ultra-low suspension - at least the car made it most of the way and i parked it neatly in the parking lot of a gas station so that we could inspect the damage, only to discover that it wouldn't start any more.

and the fact that it's due to be sold within the week... my timing couldn't be better.

after work last night i was going to go visit pg's mother and tell her that i will obviously be taking all costs upon myself, but was fortunate to run into her walking her dog on my way from the bus stop and so was spared some of the awkwardness. there was no argument over who was going to pay, and on the plus side the towing was covered by insurance and i've just been informed that there's no actual damage aside from undercarriage scratching... *breathes out deeply*

if that drops the price of the car, i've offered to pay in the difference. either way, i keep reliving that moment, mounting the island - it's painful and horrible :(

---
sunday:

one of ze germans gave me a ride to work after spotting me waiting for the bus, and there was a supremely awkward moment when he asked me what i was doing, i gave him the usual schpiel, and he said "okay, but can you not give me a general direction? what field is it?"
what harm could it have done? i told him.
"ah, you're working with mmf, huh?"

shit. so much for discretion. mmf was shocked when he heard, but once the cat's out of the bag...

---
sunday was technical fail day. things just weren't working, and i spent a lot of it frustrated. or feeling silly. and i was tired.

---
facebook surprised me by reactivating my online status in the chat, and i discovered that when a guy i went to school with began a conversation with me. i didn't mind talking to him - i quite respect him - but i was working and i didn't have too much time to concentrate. he asked where i was, and i told him. "oh! you're with so-and-so." i didn't say anything, i'd heard that the so-and-so was somewhere in israel but i don't even know where - i certainly haven't seen him anywhere. "yeah, he just gave me some money," he continued, and i found that strange and thought i'd just let it go. i asked instead how he's doing, and his response stumped me:
"poverty."

alrighty then. i'm only just starting to get my life sorted out (and still in a bit of debt, even if my bank numbers are finally in black again), i haven't seen this dude in years, and i automatically felt like i want to help and the whole thing just made me feel awful, and not a little guilty for living well.

i expressed my regret at the news, and pounced on a pause to disconnect, set up the new "limit availability to," and tried unsuccessfully to forget the incident. no dice.

---
lunch was argumentative: i need to chill with our secretary, and accept that her attitude is great for an israeli and kak for a westerner, and at least she's nice about it. she caught me on a point that really pisses me off, though. in israel, you can't be interested in more than one thing. so if i'm making the case for recycling: "you're such a saint! you should dedicate your life to recycling" is a more-or-less traditional response.

how am i a saint? like most people who are aware of what's going with our planet, i'm concerned about sustainability. i'm not making any great sacrifices, i'm living my comfortable, polluting, wasteful lifestyle just like everyone else. the difference is that i'm trying, with the little things, to minimize the damage i do in living that lifestyle. one doesn't need to become a monk to do that.

---
our orientation proposal has been accepted. next semester, i'm going to be teaching first years how to be happy (happier, at least) students. w00t!

---
google+ hangouts: i pulled a trick i learned from chatroulette, joining a hangout with a bunch of friends and holding up an offensive message to my webcam. i logged off as soon as i got a funny response; i must admit that's even funnier when it's people you know. also in the google+ news: circles as opposed to friends means that you can follow anyone's public posts, twitter-style. without obligating the followed to be a follower. not bad, google. not bad. now we just need circles within circles and we'll be mostly happy.

---
it's hard to argue new tariffs with the bus driver on a packed bus with people pushing and shoving from the curb during rush hour. i thought he was confused by the new setup, as a lot of them are. i discovered later he was right, though, and not only that but that it was to my benefit: glilot is covered by the "red" zone tickets, which means that my "cheap" student card takes me all the way to cinema city... and here i thought it ended in ramat aviv :P

---
yesterday:

i had to wake up twice, and *just* missing the bus meant an hour of transport hassles. perhaps it was to pay me back for getting a ride on sunday. i was a bit stuck in my thoughts of the day before, mostly about being disappointingly human but also about accepting the craziness around me.

i also levelled up on self-awareness.

mmf's first question when i walked in: "how do you spell personnel?"
"S-L-A-V-E," i offered.
my boss chimed in without missing a beat: "B-O-T-S." it took mmf a few more tries before we stopped offering alternatives and helped him out :P

we had a pleasant lunch, for a change. i managed to keep a lid on my emotions, even responding calmly when our secretary stated that what i didn't know was that there are scientists who don't think that global warming is a real problem. jesus, we're backwards here.

---
on seeing a religious family of half a dozen children, all i could think of was:
seriously, guys, i think we've been able to check the "be fruitful and multiply" box for a while now... either chill with the procreating, or have a properly violent world war, or get off this rock. this shit just isn't sustainable.

---
norman finklestein was amazing. the chat afterwards was fun, too :)

back to work: i learned that XMLConfiguration doesn't like being used in a logical fashion - at least i got it to work eventually, even if it was arse-backwards.

dinner: the frozen fish were impossible to separate, and we didn't want to defrost all of them. after much struggling we headed out to goocha, and had a great meal. i was *tired* afterwards, and wanted to go to bed, but *OH NO MARINGUES AND BEN & JERRY'S!* and then i passed out.

i woke up this morning with an unhappy stomache [i wonder why?] and ripped another disc before heading out to the bus. i was on time for it, too. i finished the second chapter of heart of darkness, napped a bit, and then rocked up here...

the first item on my priorities list took about ten minutes to secure. that makes me happy. now for the rest of them.

the down-wedding - part i

[post divided retroactively]

thursday:

could there have been any advantage to picking the wrong bus when i was already late? perhaps. i wasn't *really* in a hurry, and five minutes walking through and appreciating a city still half-asleep and beginning to stir at 10.45am was heart-warming. and almost tripping over a door, which in my experience is not a normal thing to find in the middle of the pavement, amused me.

a thought occurred: observing israelis talking on the phone, i'm beginning to suspect that a truly israeli cellular phone design would incorporate a phenomenally solid microphone and no earpiece. i think it's redundant here in enough cases to warrant some marketing consideration.

the place we met to study at is in a really nice little nook just off campus. the only people who showed up were myself and wordsworth, and a study group of three that primarily consists of reading notes because the other two hadn't been in class isn't particularly productive. the home-produced tea was delicious, our host's boyfriend crapping us out for putting our bare feet on their new couch was a bit weird.

quote of the day (completed in unison): huckleberry finn's plot was described as "a circular movement from a to b".
"the only movement i can think of that fits that description... "
"is a bowel movement"

i headed off to work, picking up a falafel on the way. this one was cheaper, larger, tastier, healthier and faster than western "fast food". the introduction of crap fast food into israel is a shame.

i had an argument with yogi about market research, which reminded me of nystire's link to let me google that for you. work was, to quote my boss, pretty blah. some jquery functionality that should be incredibly simple doesn't work. and that stinks.

i was totalled by the time i got up to leave, and i rested on the bus because i failed in my attempt to begin reading joseph conrad - heart of darkness. i had barely enough time to get ready before pg and i stepped out smartly dressed into the bright hot late afternoon sun... i had sweat patches on my back by the time we made it to the wedding shuttle.

as the years go by i find myself more and more estranged from certain people that i used to consider my friends. the bus ride had a few of those. it also took a long, long time to arrive. just before arriving, i discovered that i'd sat on chewing gum. in my nice black trousers. frack.

the wedding: substandard. beautiful venue, great food, but both the ceremony and the reception were a little too enthusiastically "traditional". highlights included contemplating the possible correlation between a shy bladder and an unhappy childhood, the sweets table, and the realization that i'd consumed far too much alcohol. fortunately [he says, sarcastically] the return shuttle only arrived at 2.30am so i had plenty of time to sober up for the relentless attack of the "oriental" music over the speakers in the bus. and not the bus driver's, either, but some ars relative of the bride who hijacked the microphone with his cellphone and maintained a stupid grin while refusing to lower the volume until the very end of our miserable journey. i really, *really* wanted to beat the snot out of him. judging by their reactions to the eventual raising of my voice, i think the austrians would have fully supported me.

pg was even more disappointed and irritated than i was after all of that, and tensions exploded on the way home and it took us a sleep before we could talk them down. *sigh*

---funny story: the guy whose book i reviewed? it turns out he's not just a friend of friends, he's the brother of one of them. it turns out that my assumption that he's "TheThinker" was correct (because it wasn't totally obvious</sarcasm>), and i'm amused that he strongly suspects me but wasn't entirely sure. i was certain he knew. either way, "Listen to me wannabe 'intellectual,'... I would recommend you therapy" after his assertion that he "[does] own a second degree in psychology" is just... well, if you want to read his book anyway, don't say you weren't warned.

[continued...]

silent nights

i'm excited. and feeling good. i was feeling exhausted and horrible until i left campus, but when i plugged in my earphones and pumped up the volume on my house collection my spirits rose and things have been smooth since. i had a good, productive day in the (new) office*, had a very positive chat with mmf on my way to the old office, and life feels like it's on track.

* aside from tax issues: the fact that i work two jobs means that both my employers have to pay more taxes for me, and i get paid less to boot. i'm "fortunate" enough to be earning below the next tax bracket, and if i earned more than that such a large percentage would go to tax that it would reduce the incentive to work more hours to zero. what an intelligent system we live with.

---thursday night:

this thing about letting people know how much petrol it takes to start a car... it's like the starfish story.

intimacy on the bus: i was standing reading from my iphone in the middle of the practically empty bus when a man walked in, stood on my left and put his arm across to the pole on my right, leaving me approximately an inch of breathing space. after glaring at him for a minute, i asked him to let me out and stood on his left. i don't think he got the hint.

i wrapped pg's birthday present while she got started with pitch black: a movie that you just *know* came out of an rpg. it's awesome.

---friday:

at midnight, i presented the gifts - a nordstrom snow globe (why are decent snow globes so hard to find? and the shipping made this expensive) and a cute snow-globe keyring with santa claus inside - then we ate cake, i drank whiskey, we watched one piece (my legs got super-stiff again, it's very frustrating) and then passed out.

we woke up comfortably, made good pancakes, argued about the value of judaism and then went on a shopping spree. i can't stand shopping, but i figure that only going once a year on a birthday trip is acceptable. it was tough, but i survived. in the last shop we went to i overheard some old lady talking about a "one piece" and wondered if the manga could be interpreted as some sort of fashion metaphor, where the king of pirates is... yeah, it's a bit much :P

i bought something for myself on the way; two pairs of strap-on pockets. only i forgot to try on both for size, and one of them's too small :S

we had japanese for lunch, which was pretty good - although both of us suspect it had something to do with our not feeling quite well for the remainder of the afternoon.

...

---saturday:

it's weird having constant munchies. and distracting. i spent saturday working. aside from a strange hassle accessing my apache server which resulted in my reinstalling it, only to discover that it was a problem with chrome redirecting my queries to www.localhost.com (good grief!). i was treated to the new version of internet explorer when the auto-updater kicked in. WOW. it's now chrome. it's like microsoft just gave up. yes, i know i'm behind the times, but still...

i took a long walk in the middle of the day to meet with a guy from the completion course so that he could hand-deliver a wedding invitation... i took the opportunity to shop for meat and beers for the evening. those beers turned out to be pretty heavy going on rollerblades, in addition to all the other gear i took with. the spot co-conspirator had found wasn't bad, until the huge function next door put on loud, crappy music* and not even our megaphone could save us.

* a pretentious, emotionally dyslexic child in rishikesh drove me nuts one day playing a song repeatedly on his cellphone, and when i heard it last night i immediately asked what it was.
justin bieber, i hate you.

the barbecue was alright, but i was upset that during the first round of poetry readings barely anybody volunteered and the march hare had joined us. he felt bad because he thought he'd ruined the party, and in the end it turned out that all that was missing was alcoholic lubrication. next time, i'm going to request that everyone starts drinking before they arrive.

the evening was mostly fun, although i was really tired and i'm glad that wr's cocktails weren't particularly strong. the most upsetting part of it all was the end, when i replaced the mat i'd brought and discovered that i hadn't taken out the meat. it had defrosted, so we gave it to some revellers close by and i felt silly.

on the way back home i went past the spot that we'd originally thought to sit at (that wasn't sanctioned by the authorities) and saw that nobody had a problem with barbecuing there, the lighting was better and everywhere was more or less quiet.

dammit :(

i was absolutely exhausted when i got home. pg and i had a number of miscommunications in a row and i went to bed broken and unhappy. at least things were better in the morning.

---today:

i got some work done before heading out... i'd planned on starting my antibiotics courses today, but the pharmacist hadn't put stickers on the pills and i appear to have lost the script. that's quite annoying.

first class was cool - i enjoyed the material and amused myself with the list of common misconceptions. one of the girls gave me a copy of the second gabriel knight game, and pg and i had lunch together before i left campus.

...

now i've got to get some work done.

marching on

[this post brought to you with much enthusiasm (bliss - funksick)]

yesterday:

boy, was i tired yesterday morning. i tried to pass my wallet when i thought the girl next to me was going to take longer than she did... my apologetic response involved quickly moving it out of her way and dropping it behind the driver's seat.

well, shit.

i was still wasted when i walked onto campus; i ran into waldo on the way to my first cup of coffee for a quick and practical chat, then crept into the first lesson. our well-hatted italian lecturer is really amusing: he's got a thing for sheinkin street :P

"universities rarely teach anything new" says he, in a course on british history.
"no shit," i think.

i had lunch with a couple of the girls, then paid wr a visit. we got philosophical (religion). after that a couple of the girls from my second class rocked up and i joined them. they've been complaining that our aforementioned hatter is too demanding and shouldn't expect us to be familiar with the classics... i feel differently. i don't think it's fair to them that the head of their programme didn't think it necessary for them to take the appropriate prep-courses, but it most certainly wouldn't be fair on any of the rest of us to force him to simply ignore all the history.

pg dragged me away from the debate and we sat outside eating doughnuts for a bit.

as life imitates art, i'm beginning to see the hatter as dante. i can totally imagine him stammering over a fantasy instead of talking to the poor girl.

i couldn't stop yawning the entire lesson. the days were catching up with me... one of the girls threw a pack of tissues at me when she saw me wipe my nose with the tail end of a strip of toilet paper i'd grabbed earlier. "sorry. i think i may have served too long" :P

---we got our papers back for the seminar mid-term. ho-ly - shit! i was shocked, amazed and confused to discover that i scored 90% on a paper i was certain wouldn't fetch me as high as 80. i looked at the girl next to me, and she looked at me, and i saw my own surprise reflected back at me. i looked around - everyone.

*breathes*
maybe the other went alright as well? i hope so.

---i hit the labs to print out directions to the wedding... and was politely asked to keep it down. i'm not used to being the annoying idiot :$

i was completely incapable of surviving the holocaust poetry session with my eyes open. at one point i lost the ability to connect the words that everyone was saying... a chocolate break didn't help, water didn't help. i was buggered.

i had a nap on the bus home and was properly woken by the shock of hearing the doors open and realizing i'd arrived and needed to get through others to get out. i quickly got dressed and went to pg's mum's place to wish her a happy birthday, then we found the car and were on our way.

we found the place without too much difficulty, and i got to rest while learning about cat stevens. i don't know if i'm a fan, but it's nice music.

the wedding was pretty cool. i like not being recognized by the people i've just spent almost four years with; there were a couple of guys that i enjoyed seeing, the food was good, nystire, the kinder and i drank a lot of rum and tequila, and all in all it was fun evening.

---i was still kinda drunk by the time we got to pg's, and spent the night dreaming of realistic comic superheroes.

i woke up with a hangover, and decided to join anyway.

once i got home and began to work (no, really, i eventually managed to tear myself away from webcomics long enough) i made a bit of headway (and learned a lot of flash).

i just learned that the chemist has officially left us all, although i don't know if it's because he felt bad about his behaviour or because he was angry about ours. i hope he sorts his shit out in a positive way.

my damned windows installation keeps messing with the system time, and in turn changes the time on my iphone when i connect the two. i couldn't figure out how it was dark by 3pm!

pg called me up to express excitement that it was finally raining. "are you sure? it might just be a burst pipe or something..."
about twenty seconds later i heard the thunder. the thunder was LOUD. it was close. it was closely followed by rain. rain! rain. not a lot of it, but it's a start. could we please have some more???

right. i'm done for the day. it's dinner time.

---i missed the whole infowar thing - i think stuxnet was more interesting.

still shocked - need more time

[this post brought to you by diamond head]

all my troubles began yesterday with my inability to catch a quick nap before heading off to work. i went out to catch the bus, and one of our managers was on it... he decided to get off at the same station as me to see if it was any closer.

it wasn't. his response?
"i'm gonna slap the bitch outta you"

i spent the afternoon working, then continuing with my paper within the calm of the phone lines. the head manager who's stepping out brought chocolate ice-cream bites... they were frozen solid and cold. and not good to have in one's mouth when answering a call.

after the shift i spoke to someone about an interesting-sounding job. halfway through the conversation i was asked if i didn't feel overqualified for the job... my boss was standing far too close for comfort when i said "listen, the job i'm doing now? i don't wanna use dirty words, so i'm not going to describe what levels i've resorted to."

[*suddenly feels better after a quick break*]

on my way out i was reminded of aziz ansari because i usually rollerblade. with one gay co-worker and one straight, the three of us went down a gratuitously gory mental spiral, eventually reaching a low enough point with the following (you'll have to select it to read it, it's awful):
a gherkin merkin': badly shorn pubic hair over a small, green penis suffering genital herpes

so we called it quits.
[for those who've read the above - don't you wish you hadn't?]

i hopped over to the university, beginning the experience in the orange store. all i wanted to know what how to check my balance... the saleswoman had no idea either. while attempting her suggestions, i got to witness her using grimy tricks on other customers. they really do talk a lot of horseshit.

i walked inside to find a hanukkah headphone party. i had a beer while discussing idealism with co-conspirator (or do i refer to her as a union-mate?) before we headed to the student union meeting. it began late, so we talked a lot more. i have a lot of things to say.

first item on the agenda - an announcement regarding the fire last week. it's touching to hear all the stories about the people who took command and donated their time and helped physically with the ordeal. it's disturbing to hear all the stories about the government institutions (some aid ones in particular) and services who did as little as they could get away with.

the next couple of items were interesting too, and fortunately a bit more positive. there's a hint that we may have succeeded somewhere along the line...

i wasn't happy about leaving early, but i had promised to get to singer's first performance on time. if only the invitation i'd received hadn't been incorrect, i would've known that i had an hour more than i'd thought. i didn't have to miss the main item on the agenda :(

i decided on falafel on my way home, and walked into the place next door just as they were setting out the candles. all the patrons (including one really strange man and his child, i'm certain that kid's not getting the best genes in the pool) were stuck singing for their supper...

... i rushed home, strapped on my blades and got to the bar *just* one hour early. buggrit. i haven't seen her family since we stopped seeing each other, so that was a little... a little awkward. amusing, though, that nobody recognized me with hair :P

that extra beer... i tried to read, i tried to write, and eventually, circuitously, entered a conversation with the beautiful girl sitting at my table that lasted until the show started.
single-serve friends :P

that extra beer... that went to my head.

the performance was brilliant - i'm really impressed. thoroughly amused, too - the last song was the one singer and i argued over the most, and when she got to the Big Fix she made a really mischievous face at me while singing it her way :)

her one song got stuck in my head for most of the next twelve hours. not bad, not bad at all.

she finished earlier than anticipated, and i rolled out of there and into the group. we had one tough blade, but very social. i even found out who's borrowed my copy of johnny mnemonic! (after my phone upgrade...)

pg and i had an argument, and we irritated each other a lot with this one... i worked out my frustration with some serious exercise. my legs were strained by the time i finally got home (around 1.30am).

i walked in, quaffed an energy drink, showered and got to work on my paper. the only thing that got in the way was my windows installation. i'd forgotten how much i despise microsoft - windows 7's a huge improvement technologically, but some of their measures are still rather draconian.

around 4am sorter was giving me a few pointers as i prepared to put together the last page or two. i was all over the place comparing readings and fixing things when my whole neighbourhood lost power. no wireless, no light, a few hours left before the paper was due... not good.

not good.

---i figured it was best to go to bed and sleep a couple of hours, but the caffeine was still in charge and it must have taken me about half an hour to catch some z's. and two hours is just not enough sleep.

i spent about ten grim minutes snoozing, then dragged myself out of bed and got cracking. i put together the summary and tidied up some more, then made triply-sure that i had a copy to print when i got to campus.

yes! first print was smooth, first peer-review not so much. i grabbed her paper (for a moment she thought i was serious about replacing her cover page and handing it in as mine) and fixed the style issues, printed again and refused to look back.

our first class was the usual nightmare - only it gets a little worse every time. at least it had an amusing warm-up; we're all starting to get familiar with each other :)
so half the class have notes they don't understand, the other stopped wasting their time trying, and one or two *think* they got it but that's only because we've been talking about the same shit for the past six classes. it's a terrible course :(

the end of it was perfect, though. the professor talked about shklovsky (at least i think it was him) saying that in order to be art the representation must be difficult to understand. the more difficult, the more artistic. that was when it struck me as appropriate for her to be reflexively discussing an idea that represents her: she's an artiste. she's making it as tough to follow her as possible because that increases our exposure to her techne :/

---one of the girls mentioned a vampire smiley in class, and that always reminds me of the life of riley - one of the greatest webcomics i've ever read!

doughnuts waiting for us outside of class, a cup of coffee, and the next class (almost) made up for the first. i'd done the reading during the first (the lady with the dog) and had plenty of opinions and side-notes. even though i broke a genre boundary by bringing in an argument based on frank herbert (RIPASBF*) and robert jordan (RIPAPBF**) that scored me big brownie points with the lecturer. i'm well pleased, even though i probably shouldn't be :D

 * RIPASBF: may he rest in peace and his son burn forever
** RIPAPBF: may he rest in peace and his publisher burn forever

i tried telling the british girl in our class a little johnny joke, but she didn't get it :S

i had a quick, burny lunch with pg and eidetic, then stopped by wr to hear there's a girl looking to help out with anime night - *GLEE*!

i chatted with a couple of guys from our poetry class, then went out to the bus. while waiting, a blind man, his guide dog and a young girl stopped in the centre of the stop to wait for the bus. there were a couple of people right next to the man when, mid-sentence, he let one rip. he carried on as if nothing had happened, and everyone remained still and quiet - except me. i had to get some distance between us, and quickly, when the smell hit: the expression that struck me a short while later was "a guided fart".

i was D-E-D dead tired, and i almost slept on the bus (not a good idea for a short trip). once i'd arrived at work i realized that i was wearing the wrong shirt for the interview i was going to - not everyone appreciates "i wanna **** [princess peach] like an animal".
i got some work done, then rushed home to change to something less offensive.

on the bus, it suddenly struck me why statistics and people who put their faith in them bother me. just as plato's reflections, they seem to have power but are no more than misleading figures. when we use stats... we're facing the wrong direction.

forgetting my military training (har, har) i chose all the wrong buses to the interview, and was a bit late. in retrospect, i should have worn the original shirt. i think the guy was having a laugh at my expense, he was cryptic and had me off-balance from the start. it's not clear if he was impressed or disappointed, and his excessive wordiness afterwards makes me think it's not going to happen.

i went back to work, worked hard and well, then switched with one of the agents and spent the rest of the evening being mindless.

it's now really late, i have readings to do. going to a wedding this evening isn't a good idea. i hope it's not too late to cancel? and dammit, i haven't gotten back to the guy who interviewed me two weeks ago...

flaked out and all soldiery

right - this was a HARD week. i was completely exhausted when i returned to base on sunday... exhausted to the point where the raising of a limb or the flexing of grey matter was a chore. with that as the background, sunday and monday were two of the most physically demanding days, both mentally and physically, that i've undergone in the last half a year.

this week was spent in the deep desert, being drilled and living like real soldiers, sleeping in crappy tents, dealing with no water, eating rations and trying to remain focused on the million-and-one different things that we had to remember for every step of the way.

without getting down all the details, i can say that on the whole i enjoyed the experience, although i got horribly sunburned and i had some frustrating moments with my platoon (although the team's getting on much better). i even managed to get a couple of good words out of my commander :)

today i got *really* lucky, after missing the bus from the base i hitched a lift with a cute major - she not only got me to a good place but she gave me a few pointers as well, and i managed to find a bus travelling from the previous base i was assigned to and they let me ride with them until be'er sheva. after three days without showering and working my ass off, i had a good shower before changing into my clothes for mmf's wedding and heading off to meet up with ru55's fiancee to get a ride to the event.

the wedding was really nice, we had a lot of fun, and i just completed my mission as designated driver.

now i'm at SxS's, about to crash for a couple of hours before heading back to base. my commander was so impressed today by my offer to do the book report on my partial reading of the hebrew one that he gave me an extension which will make all the difference! in addition, my day-job commander has okay'ed my vacation so although there's no "final" in the military i'm pretty darn close to it.

this week i was way more relaxed, and i've found my groove. it's a bit late as far as the peer-review is concerned, because there're a bunch of assholes who've been discussing openly how they're going to screw me over - but there's not much i can do about that so i'm just carrying on and hoping for the best.

back into character

i forgot to mention a couple of amusing things from last night:

1) it turns out that both mmf and ru55's fiancee both share my low blood pressure / fainting problem. what are the chances??

2) ze german (hurricane) was sitting behind me while four of us played mario kart, and in frustration slammed his wii remote down, hitting me square in the head. i still find that amusing.

the afternoon was perfect - it's been a long time since i've enjoyed a civilized shower and after the excellent biltong and great steak leftovers (eaten after the belgian waffles, of course) i took another nap. we picked up yogi, went to mmf's and i split before they all headed off to his bachelor's party - now i've got packing and homework to do before hitting the sack.

i am really sad that this weekend has come to a close.

loooooooooooooooong..........

i REALLY need to go to bed.

right: the wedding.
ab-so-lute-ly STUNNING. the wedding itself was magic, i think it's because i'm friendly with both the bride and groom, and the whole thing was really special.

it was uber-weird being in uniform. but i had fun anyway ;)

i got home around 1am...

to wake up at 6.30, hurriedly shave etc. before missing the bus. i got to the base to discover that the kid who was giving me shit yesterday wasn't arriving... great to know. i don't know what to do about him.

today was fairly busy, but amongst all the chaos i managed to learn how to do vb6 network communication, which is cool. on the other hand, i'm having a serious, serious problem with smoking. not cool.

i got home, put in a washload, slept for an hour, and went off to play pool with spot - it was GREAT fun, and i just got home now... t'was worth it :D

more is nog 'n dag - 5.30 wake up... yay...

[added later] KNEW i forgot something. i saw a doctor today, she told me the reason my hand's been hurting the last couple of months is because i've broken something. so i'm off to get x-rays sometime this week...