It's A Sign!

My friend M. likes to joke that my middle name should be "It's a Sign". I'm all about signs. I believe that's the Universe's way of communicating options to us. Of letting us know something's coming. And lord, do I feel bombarded by signs lately. (Reads like the ravings of a lunatic, so moving swifty along...)

At any given time we're faced with more choices than we know what to do with. Fear often encourages us to limit ourselves in those options due to societies DOs and DON'TS and before we know it we've adopted a limited world view and less of a clear idea of where we're headed. Sad stuff, really. But it's in seeing those "signs" I talked about earlier, that we find our way back to a greater perspective. Everything is about perspective. And if you manage to shift it, and see the real possibilities your life holds, you stand a pretty good chance of creating something spectacular. And I don't use that word lightly. Simply put, you have the power to change any/every aspect of your life. 

I'm on the precipice of new things; interesting and deliciously fresh new opportunities. Raise a glass with me, regardless of whether I know what I'm doing or not. It's all about jumping, so the Universe can catch you. Try it sometime, it's marvellous!

Yours in happy times

AG

We Should Be Dancing, Yeah!

This weekend I found myself doing two things above all others: Sleeping, and dancing. Friday night I brought out my dancing shoes at my BF's uncle's surprise 50th birthday party. What a shindig it was. There ain't nothing like "Walk like an Egyptian..." to bring the 80s child in you out. When eventually, at 2.30am, my poor tootsies couldn't take it anymore, I quietly made my escape. 

Saturday, as you can imagine, I had scrambled eggs for brains. And yet I somehow managed to get myself looking half-way decent and into the car for the drive to a wedding in Stellenbosch. The fabulous thing about it? I didn't know the people getting married from a bar of soap. Not their names and not how they fitted into my partner's world. But who cares? All the better for it. Not knowing anyone means not having to be teased at a later stage about how much you threw your name away on the dance floor. Because that's kind of my modus operandi. Dance dance dance and who cares about the rest?
Having left the wedding at 1am, we eventually got home and crawled into bed, where I stayed for pretty much most of the rest of Sunday, alternatively waking, nibbling, watching QI then snoozing again. Delicious sleep....

One of the best things about getting older, and I'm sure there are lots of things I'm forgetting, but the one that comes to mind today is that the older you get the less you care what people think. So I sometimes think I can dance like a white Zulu? Who cares? A bit of kwaito and we have a different sort of problem on our hands. Cheesy 80s? Bring it on! I'll show you how white people danced in the 80s! And as for my favourites - the one hit wonder that was Ice Ice Baby and who can forget the "pant" that goes with Hammer Time - there's nothing better to get the party started. So, my point? You're never too old or too young to dance. I saw it all this weekend - and the one thing us dance-bunnies had in common (you'd think it'd be rhythmn, but no) was a smile. From kids in their 20s to Oumas of 80, dancing makes the light shine brighter.

Yours in dancing and dreaming
A.

Love Is...?

An interesting question was posed by in a newsletter I subscribe to. It was: "How do I know I'm in love?" On first read, it seems a simple enough question. But on further thought, a hell of a lot more complicated, no? And then last night I went out for supper (to the DIVINE Jewel of India) with the girls from work and we ended up bonding over whisky sours and popadoms. And I listened intently to each person's way of speaking about what being in love means to them, trying to see if they felt the same as I do. There were some very interesting responses, and these are the ones I can remember *blush* (mine are mixed in there too)

1. cooking meat when you're vegetarian
2. wanting to drop all the plans you ever had to have 10 minutes with the person you love
3. passionately wanting that someone to consume you, and to consume them
4. Accepting every flaw and thinking its wonderful that this individual chose you, above anyone else
5. moving cities on the off chance that this person is imperfectly perfect for you
6. leaving sunflowers on someone's car because they're her favourite, and then never letting on that it was you
7. you're in love with a boer but you're a redneck
8. you want to touch/kiss/pause/engage the very essence of their being
9. you want them to be free to just be
10. they're the first person you want to tell any news, the first person you want to share anything with, and the last thing you think about at night
11. you want to kiss them. all over. Often.
12. you do things you never would - laundry/ washing up/picking up dog poo - just to make their lives that little bit easier
13. commitment is planting a tree together and being there years later to nurture it and watch it grow
14. getting up 5 minutes earlier to make tea for your beloved so that they may ease into the day
15. when that certain smile is for you, when theirs lights up the room like champagne bubbles

Ag, there are so many more. And although some of these may not be your idea of how you know you're in love, when you ARE in love, you believe anything's possible, and that's kind the point. Hope and love go hand in hand. Cliche! But no ja, it is what it is. And at the moment, I have both and I'm so so grateful.

How do you know when you're in love?

Yours in warm gooey love
A.

Don't Be A Donkey About It

It's been an age since I last wrote anything, blog-wise or other. But today, I just feel like writing.

What happens when you think you're making progress, and getting better at something only to be evaluated and told you're not, you haven't, reached the standard expected of you? And who gets to set that standard anyway? Surely personal standards are more important? Or a discussion should at least preceed any sort of mutually agreeable standards. Well, in my case, it comes down to me once again trying to get some sort of "ok", acceptance, pat on the back... When WILL I stop doing that?!

The fact of the matter is that we're obsessed with recognition. There are a hell of a lot of people out there who go about there business seemingly not caring (do they?), and to be perfectly honest, I admire that. I wish I could so easily throw all sensitivity out the window and throw around comments I haven't thought through. But I don't. I think it must have its roots in some weird childhood pathology: "please see me, please recognise me, please hear me". But be that as it may, and whatever its bearing on today's reality, childhood can't be blamed.

I think what it really means is that I have just got to step it up a bit, put on the big girl panties and stop crying. Stop expecting and start creating, my own world, without so much as a second thought for the selfish blighter(s) I tend to allow to influence me, to bring me down, to make me doubt myself. It's the way I like to think I live my life, but sometimes these little (read: BIG) hiccups come along and sometimes they bring a tear or two (or a toilet tissue roll worth). It's all about how you pick yourself up, no? Yes?

How do you pick yourself up, when someone else is intent on not allowing that? I'll tell you how I plan to do it. A bottle of wine, a friend's ear to twist, a grand plan, and hope. Smiling all the way...

The Editing Process

In my line of work I receive many many proof copies - samples - of books which will release into the market in the next few months. I get everything from thrillers, general interest fiction and non-fiction, religious titles and romances to our more amusingly termed genres. Each of these proofs are less than perfect copies of the finished product. There are spelling errors, occasionally print errors, zero jacket designs, sometimes the text is laborious because it hasn't yet been cleaned up by an editor... Ag, there can be all sorts "wrong" with the book. And yet proofs are designed to give people like me a very strong feel for what the final product will be like. We must then bridge the gap between unfinished and final copy and sell the product to people in the know - bookshop managers and so forth.

Now imagine we could create "proof" copies of our own lives and future lives, complete with unfinished "covers" (our looks which will change, without prior notice), odd idiosyncracies which flow throughout (bad learned behaviours and childhood traumas), and plot twists which are hard to follow (sometimes we just can't decide exactly how we'd like things to work out). We'd present these "proofs" to our prospective partners and employers to peruse and decide whether or not they'd like to have you - in your exposed entirety - or not. There would be input from all sources - the designers (God), editors (your parents), marketing people (your friends) and others. It would be possible to get feedback so that positive changes could be made in advance, and then you'd send out another "proof" copy to, say, an employer who would like to know more about you. It'd be as simple as saying "Sure, I'll send that right on over. It's a summary of my life so far and the rest as it shall happen, give or take an event or 2."

What do you think? Yay or nay? I like the idea of constant change and improvement, perhaps that's why I like the idea of a proof being a work in progress. Sure the final book is gorgeous and smells nice and looks pretty and reads well, but really its the result of months of hard work put into making it what it is. And even then some books bomb and others sell and sell. Maybe its more about seeing the the innate value in each and every book, for what it is, in the same way as we should look beyond the obvious in each person and see the work in progress and the achievements which have been hard won. Imagine what your life "proof" would be like to read, so far, and how would you like the next few chapters to turn out...

Strange Days...

It's been an absolute age since last I posted and quite frankly, I have no excuse. Ok, I had an op on my foot and recovery wasn't fun, but should that have stopped me? And I've been busy - with work, with friends, with moving into a new house, but should those things have prevented me blogging? Surely if writing the odd post is something you want to do, you'll prioritise it and get it done regularly? Apparently, not so. But all things aside, I'm back and I'm making a fresh start. So...

Today I want to talk about weird things. You know, when you're merrily going about your day and you witness something just, well, odd, and you realise that some people are just weird. For instance, in an effort to find boxes for my recent move I popped into the local Pick 'n Pay to ask if they had any and while I waited I watched a man behave strangely. He walked up to where the eggs were stacked, chose the smallest box and then, without skaam, transferred a box of jumbo eggs into the place of the little eggs, which he placed carefully into the "jumbo" box. Who does that?

And then later in the day I watched a man walk down the eisles in Checkers and help himself to cans of food which he placed inside his oversized jacket. When I pointed this out to a person packing shelves, he stopped, watched the man, and then shrugged at me and went back to work. Amazing. Truelly amazing.

And that's not all, I've now become alert to this weirdness and I've been seeing all sorts of weird things ever since, almost like I went through a one day initiation of weirdness and now I'm alert to it. I live in a special city, Cape Town, but now I'm seeing all kinds of "special". As my friend A would say; "That's a special kind of f***ed up right there!"

What strange or notable things have caught your eye lately? I'm not talking oh-my-god-bring-down-the-city kind of weird, just, well, odd stuff.

Yours in pursuit of odd
A.

What gets you through the day?

So there I was, sending my final emails for the day, planning for tomorrow and merrily getting on with things, when I heard a PING!, alerting me to the fact that I had new mail. And the mail read:

The big bad wolf said "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down".

The little pig said "f*** off or I'll sneeze on you!

Isn't that brilliant? Is that not the funniest thing you've read all day? It made my day, I'll tell you. At the end of a lllllllooooonnnnnggggggg Monday, it raised my mood perfectly.

What gets you through a blue-ish-grey-ish Monday? Besides strong coffee, great company and jokes that are actually funny?

Yours in self-raising spirits

AG