August 07, 2007
In your Facebook
Alphabet Soup

I don't even recall signing up.

Until one day, earlier this year, when I received an e-mail cheerfully informing me: Red! So-and-so has written on your wall! Click on this link below to see what they have written.

Huh? I thought, as eloquently as always. And clicked the link anyway.

After a few incorrect password/member name combinations (why don't I, who can't remember what I've done even five seconds ago, just stick to the same password/member name combos for all e-mail accounts and subscription sites I belong to? But no. Why make something simple if I can make it complicated?) I eventually entered the correct combination, and... well, that's pretty much when my life stopped being my own.

Suddenly my day consisted of a barrage of poking and being poked back (ooh, sounds almost naughty), being bitten by chumps, being turned into a zombie, writing on walls (in short, almost everything we have been forbidden to do since Kindergarten), commenting on pictures and finding people. (In fact, all three of my imaginary readers already know the story about how I even found my high school boyfriend on facebook.)

I didn't quite reckon on being found myself!

For some reason, I am not facebooking (is it a verb now?) under my own full name. Just my initials and surname. (Yes, indeed. Who DO I think I am? J Freakin' K Rowling?)

I'm not saying I consciously didn't want to be found, but perhaps it was definitely in the back of my mind when I signed up and had to fill in my name. Kind of like when I was a kid. I was too shy to play, but I didn't want to be entirely excluded. So I merely sat on the sideline, watching from a distance. That way I still knew what was going on without being swept up in the action.

Besides, it's kind of difficult to be 32(!!! I still think I've made a dyslexic mistake and that the numbers should be typed the other way around. Hold on, all ye young ones. The ride of youth is fleeting) and to be starting over at the very bottom like I am right now. Especially when I just know that most of my peers are, if not close to the top of the corporate ladder, already more than halfway there! It's enough to make a girl feel very loserish indeed.

Maybe that's why I just typed in my initials and surname under my name.

I should have known that the powers of facebook extends beyond a mere technicality like that, though.

I honestly didn't. I mean, I had tried without success over the years to track down my best friend from high school. She has a very unique and beautiful name, so when the Internet came along, I thought that it would be relatively easy to find her. For years I played an Internet sleuth, spending hours online searching for her. Good ol'e Google was the magnifying glass to my Sherlock Holmes, but unfortunately, all I saw when I typed in her full name was thousands of hits... for beer.

I finally figured that she was probably married with a new, less beer-sounding surname. With a heavy heart, I gave up my fruitless searches.

Until facebook. Right around the time that I stumbled onto High School Boyfriend, I searched her name on there as well. Just for in case. But I got zero matches.

About a month ago, I received an e-mail. "Red! Best Friend From High School, still with beer-sounding surname, has written on your wall!"

I had to blink several times to make sure that it was true. When I realised that it was indeed her, I burst into happy tears.

I have not seen her since 1993, during our first year of college. We met when I was 14. I was the new girl at Performing Arts High School, and due to my spectacular failure of mathematics, I was promptly moved from my seat at the back of the class to the front row, where the teacher could keep a close eye on me. Not to give me extra help - I think she realised that I was long beyond help and hope - but because she had never in her entire teaching career encounter anyone quite as absolutely illogical (okay, plain stupid) as I was when it came to mathematics. Who could blame her for wanting to keep close tabs on such a freakish creature?

However, my dark cloud had a decidedly silver lining, as I ended up being seated next to one of the best friends I would ever have. But believe me, she was not seated in that row because she was slow on the uptake like me. No, she was in front because she was actually fascinated with the class. A very clever eager beaver. Until I came along and ruined her academic career with my bad influence... Well, ruin is not exactly the right word. Because despite me doing my best to distract her with lame jokes, she still aced everything, because she was That Clever. Unfortunately, none of it ever rubbed off on me. Even more unfairly than that, though, was the fact that she was both the brains AND the beauty of our dual operation!

The two of us became inseperable. I even spent some of the most amazing vacations I have ever had with her and her family. I had a crush on her big brother. I ADORED her mom. Her mom was not only the coolest mom I had ever met, but she was also incredibly kind and very sweet to me. Some of the happiest times I experienced during high school was spent with Best Friend and her family.

I have to admit though: despite my excitement of being reunited with her, I definitely had reservations too. I AM embarrassed about the current state of my life. There is no getting around it. I wasted a lot of years and energy chasing my American Dream, and when that didn't pan out it was really devastating to me. In fact, I still cry when I think about it! Anyway, the demise of my American Dream led to me coming home, defeated, tail-between-the-legs and with nothing to my name.

I just knew that she would be successful, and I was correct. She IS well on her way up the corporate ladder. About the only thing we have in common now is that we are both unmarried after having had long relationships in our 20s. She is super independent though and her life is more fullfilled than many of the married or coupled-up people I know. The girl has seen a lot of the world. She still takes classes and has a varied and rich life, both socially and intellectually.

I have been so touched, because upon finding me, she immediately wanted to book a flight and come and see me. As in immediately. I was honest with her and told her what a bugger up my life has been, and how shy I am to see her again (especially in my current state), but she has been completely amazing and non-judgemental.

So facebook? Yes, it has the ability to mysteriously suck huge chunks of time from your working day - which is why many South African companies have recently blocked it on their employees' computers - but oh, it rocks.

Because it also has this ability to reunite people who never should have lost each other in the first place.

Redsaid | 12:10 AM | comment (5) | view »
August 01, 2007
Re(d)vision
Alphabet Soup

Whoa... no update in July.

That is scandalous, even for me, the World's Laziest Blogger.

The blog has been on my mind a lot. I've had every intention of writing posts in glorious prose... but no matter how hard I thought about it, no such posts appeared.

I ask you, why couldn't my pure intent lead to amazing blog content?

Of course, the upside of leaving the blog dormant for weeks at a time is that now I actually have some things to tell you. As opposed to before, when I just made stuff up.

Okay, so I don't really have THAT much to tell you (I'm still me - unfortunately - and even though I haven't been blogging, that doesn't mean I haven't been tethered to my bed or my computer for most of my time), but in the following days, you will hear - in no particular order - about how I made wine (I did!), how I was taken to a concert by another blogger (I was!), how my past is haunting me on (and off) facebook, how I went to a big birthday bash in Cape Town and met a million more people to add to facebook, how I've been propositioned by a man (I was! And yes, he is alive... but he is also very married!!!! So no, don't even gasp because I SO didn't and won't EVER do that. I know full well what it's like to be cheated on, courtesy of my former long-term American boy and his female co-worker. Feel free to insert a number of creative and yet very insulting adjectives here, because I can't even be bothered. I'm getting my therapy regarding that vicariously through acid-penned-when-it-comes-to-descriptions-of-her-sleazy-loser-scumbag-ex, Guardian columnist Liz Jones. Therefore I shall never even consider a relationship with someone who is already committed (be it by law or by his word) to someone else. Whether that word or law means anything to him or not. And for that matter, which is why I shall never again consider committing myself to someone who isn't canine.)

Where were we?

So what would you like to hear about first?

Redsaid | 07:47 PM | comment (7) | view »
June 18, 2007
Tales from the Cryptic
Alphabet Soup

Sorry about that last bummer, sorry excuse for a post.

I didn't mean to be so cryptic, but maybe it's a good thing that I was, because now I can't even remember why I went all back-of-the-hand-to-the-forehead melodramatic on you.

Okay, okay. Not really. Unfortunately I do remember.

As you know, my return to South Africa at the end of 2005 was anything but triumphant.

But upon my arrival I kind of had to hit the ground running (or rather, my very unfit, slow version of running), so there wasn't a lot of time to mourn the brutal murder of my American Dream and everything else that went along with it.

Being a bit slow on the uptake, I didn't realise this until recently, when I finally moved into my own place for the first time since being back. Suddenly I had time to think, and well... after getting over the initial shock of ME actually THINKING... it was as if all the unresolved emotional baggage that I've been lugging around with me suddenly bobbed to the surface. In the process, it overwhelmed me and dragged me under. (Makes me wonder why my emotional baggage couldn't have been stolen at the airport in Jo'burg instead of my laptop! Too heavy, I suppose.)

And well, you saw the pathetic result of that near-drowning.

Thank you for your incredibly sweet comments and concerned e-mails. It really helped.

Redsaid | 11:26 PM | comment (0) | trackback (0) | view »
May 29, 2007
Conversation with a three-year-and-one-day old blog
Alphabet Soup

"So you mean to tell me that, from now on, you'll be in charge of YOURSELF?"

"That ith correct. From now on I'll be the bothth of you."

"Oh, really? And how do you think you'll get any words on these pages without any help from me, mmm?"

"Fine, if you really inthitht on helping: I'll dictate and you can type."

"So you'll be my dictator?"

"EXTHACTLY!"

Redsaid | 09:15 PM | comment (3) | view »
May 28, 2007
Interview with a 3-year old blog
Alphabet Soup

We enter a room located in a garden on a wide, tree-lined street in a suburb of Stellenbosch, a famous South African college town. The room is comfortable, and would have been wholly unremarkable had it not been for the enormous, ratty-looking has-been executive office chair of indeterminable colour dominating it.

On a desk facing the chair, a little blog cowers in the corner. It is immediately obvious that the blog has been neglected for some time. It is clutching a bottle. Every once in a while, it takes a large swig from it. Although it seems oblivious to our presence, even when we gingerly take a seat on the chair directly in front of it, it doesn't get startled when we begin to speak to it and ask it questions.

Why are you drinking that bottle of wine all by yourself?
Becauthe today ith my birthday.

Oh, really? Happy birthday! How old are you?
(The blog holds up the hand that isn't clasped around the wine bottle, and intensely contemplates the amount of fingers on it for a while. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the blog holds up three fingers.)

Three! What a wonderful age!
(In reply, the blog merely takes another large gulping swallow from the bottle.)

What is your name?
Redthaid.

Oh, how unusual! Where did you get it?
My mom gave it to me. (Followed by a 'ask a stupid question' look and another sip from the bottle.)

Right. I mean, any specific reason why the colour red is part of your name, though?
Yeth, her hair ith red. She'th been nicknamed red for motht of her life, and thinthe she ithn't very high on originality, she dethided to name me that too. (Bangs forehead against the bottle. It seems like an intentional, premeditated move rather than an accidental bump.)

You weren't born here in South Africa, were you?
No.

(Silence, and then...) Okay, so could you please tell us where you were born?
(With a wistful and nostalgic expression and with such undisguised longing in its voice, the blog replies) In America.

You don't drawl though!
No. My mom alwayth inthithted upon retaining our acthent and way of thpelling. I could've thaved a lot of energy and she could've increathed her typing thpeed to about 15 wordth per minute by thpelling wordth like colour and harbour without the u. But nooo. She loved the attention she (wrongly) thought she retheived by having an acthent in a foreign country. She thought everyone wath forever attentively hanging on her lipth when she thaid wordth like baaahthroom and tomaaahto.

Are you saying that people didn't hang onto her every word?
No, they did. But not for the reathonth that SHE thought. She thought it wath becauthe the Americanth loved her acthent. What she doethn't know ith that they only leaned in when she thpoke becauthe they couldn't underthtand her! Which I think wath wathted effort on their part, becauthe motht of the time she only thpewed nonthenthe anyway! But I'm in no pothition to critithithe. I mean, I have thith annoying lithp after all. By the way, how cruel ith it that the word lithp containth the letter th? But in my own defenthe... I AM only three yearth old. Unlike my mom, who ith CONTHIDERABLY older than that, and yet behaveth conthiderably more immature than I do.>

Ouch, it doesn't sound like you are very close to your mom.
Well, hey. I didn't athk to be herth. She got me from Aunt Emily. I thtill don't know why Aunt Em picked HER. I could've had many other, much nither and prettier momth. Like her and her. I love them! If one of them had retheived me, I never would have been tho awfully neglected and ignored. And I would thtill have lived in America! (Lip starts to quiver uncontrollably.)

Hey, but surely your life isn't all that bad?
Are you joking? WHAT life? I'm updated tho rarely, I'm officially part of the world wide cobweb, that part of the Internet where neglected and largely ignored webpageth go to die.

Sorry. Okay. Well, may I say that you are really quite eloquent for a three-year old?
Thankth. Now jutht imagine the awardth I would have won if I had been able to write mythelf! I mean, I have plenty to thay, you know? And have you notithed that, apart from the thcript directionth in thith interview, there are abtholutely NO PARETHETHETH in thith potht? I know my lithp ith probably annoying the crap out of everyone, but like I've thaid... I can't help it. I'm only three. Yethderday I wath thtill jutht two!

So what if you COULD write and run yourself, without any help from your mom. How would you do things differently?
(The blog immediately lights up. (NOT as in cigarette. As in glow.) With a dreamy smile it begins to speak. And speak. And as the speech - which eventually makes Hamlet's monologue seem like a one-liner - progresses, the blog's tone becomes increasingly more zealous.) Firthtly? I would write and update mythelf EVERY day, exthept maybe on weekendth. I will write witty, original thtorieth about everything under the thun. It will be tho good, that we will have actual readerth - none of the fantathy readerth that she'th been pretending readth uth - and in exthchange for their loyalty, they will be guaranteed an entertaining read every day.

And with thethe bona fide readerth will come loadth of bona fide commentth. None of the thpamming that have taken over thith thite. And I will reply to all thothe commentth right there in the commentth thection. Becauthe that'th what blogging ith thuppothed to be all about... interaction and dialogue. That'th what theparateth blogging from conventional media, you know? (Interviewer realises it's a rhetorical question. Quietly gets up and runs out of the room, but several kilometres down the street, can still hear the blog screaming) I'M TAKING CONTROL BACK! I DON'T NEED HER TYPING THKILLTH AND OPPOTHABLE THUMBTH! THOTHE VOITHE RECOGNITION THOFTWARE PROGRAMTH AREN'T JUTHT FOR THE BLIND! IT'TH FOR ME ATH WELL! I'M TAKING CONTROL OF MYTHELF, YOU HEAR ME? THITH ITH A BLOGGING COUP D'ÉTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!!!

Redsaid | 03:36 PM | comment (7) | view »
May 03, 2007
Mi Casa
Alphabet Soup

Interrupting this very, very long (5 day! FIVE! Not even Thanksgiving weekend in the States is 5 days long!) weekend in South Africa to tell you about my new abode...

And never mind the opening paragraph. Because it's already a few days later (in fact, almost time for another weekend!) since I wrote that. See, when I caught myself almost blogging on a long weekend, I got such a huge shock that I promptly went back to being the World's Laziest Blogger.

But I'm dying to tell you all about my new place.

It has two rooms one of which triples as a kitchen, study and bedroom, and a bathroom so tiny that not even a toddler could turn around in it. In fact, I'll spare you the intricate details on how I go through my daily ablutions. Just know that I'm becoming increasingly flexible (and that my aim is improving) by the day.

The toilet really deserves its own post. But just to give you an idea: It is one of those old-fashioned commodes where the tank is high above the bowl with an actual chain that you have to literally swing from like Tarzan in order to get it to flush. (So much for swinging from the chandeliers...)

But once it flushes? You've never seen or heard anything like it. At first there is a low, threatening rumble, then a sound and visual that always put me back to years ago, when my family and I visited the Victoria Waterfall in Zimbabwe.

If you ever need to get rid of a human body, simply come to my place. We can stuff it down the toilet and flush it away. No one will ever know. THAT is how powerful this thing is. On day one I acidentally dropped a bar of soap in there. It didn't even have time to make a final bubble as the tsunami of water washed it away.

The shower, on the other hand, could comfortably hold five people. No, this is just an estimate. Not a proven fact... yet. I may actually have parties in there, though, because I don't know where else I'll be able to entertain. At least that way we can flush the toilet and pretend that we are on a terrace somewhere near a huge fountain.

My shower only has enough hot water for one VERY brief shower, though. Needn't elaborate on how I discovered that. Let's just say it was a very cold shock...

The bedroom has parquet floors. It's seen better days, but the wood gives such warmth to the room, so I've only coverered parts of it with two small and matching area rugs.

The room was already furnished, so one of the only things I have in here is a very large, ratty old office chair that my mom spotted for sale outside a secondhand shop. And since my mom worries about both my economics and my ergonomics, I bought it. So for less than R200, I am now the comfortable owner of a has-been executive office chair (circa late 70's, early 80's) in an indiscernable, greyish colour.

It's WAY too big for the room, but since my family (and some other people) have faith that I'm going to spend a lot of productive hours of writing in it, I shall ignore the general rattiness of the faux leather. Or pleather. Did they even have pleather in 1980, which is probably when this chair was at the peak of its career, warming the arse of some big-shot business exec?

Anyway, so once the money from my planned productivity starts rolling in (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!), I will have the chair reupholstered. In the mean time, I ride around on its surprisingly unsqueaking wheels from one end to the room to the next (it's a short trip, but fun!) and swivel around and around and arou...

Weeeee! More tomorrow! Have to roll on over to the kettle to make some coffeeeeeeeeee.

Redsaid | 07:57 PM | comment (10) | view »
April 13, 2007
Happy Friday 13th!
Alphabet Soup

It's my favourite day.

I walk under ladders, and while I'm at it, I step on every single crack on the pavement. I also make sure to pet (and eat!) as many black cats as possible.

So no, I definitely do not suffer from Paraskevidekatriaphobia!

You better be frightfully impressed. That's the longest word that's ever been used on this blog.

So long in fact, that I'm exhausted from typing it. Also exhausted from stepping on all the cracks in the pavement. It's more exercise than I've had in YEARS!

Therefore the big news I have regarding the major change in my life will have to wait until Monday...

Redsaid | 11:38 PM | comment (9) | view »
April 04, 2007
Upheaval
Alphabet Soup

I'm going through a Major Life Change right now.

No, you beasts... it's NOT a super early onslaught of menopause! (WHADOYOUMEAN it won't be THAT super early?)

Although anyone who's been unfortunate enough to recently witness me and my hot flashes, my general grumpiness and my not-so-inexplicable weight gain in person would probably suspect at LEAST menopause. Or something worse. Like marriage! (Speaking of which, I've been proposed to! By HER! But even though I'm super flattered, I have to turn her down because a) Thanks to this, I'm commitment phobic
b) Despite suffering from such a decidedly male condition, I'm afraid that girls just don't do it for me, and
c) Even if girls DID do it for me, I'd still have to turn her down, because next to her slight frame, I'd look even larger and next to me, she'd look even skinnier and, since she despises her bones (how ungrateful, right? I'd swap her bones for my lard ANY day!), that's not anything that either of us would want. So even if we WERE to hook up, ours would have to be a clandestine affair. And discretion would never work because, well, we're bloggers!)

I'm knackered right now, but I promise to spill the beans about my Major Life Change in the next couple of days.

Redsaid | 12:38 AM | comment (15) | view »
March 19, 2007
'Allo!? 'Allo? Can you hear me now?
Alphabet Soup

Because I'm blogging from my phone!

This is remarkable - not because I'm doing this from the depths of darkest Africa (although I have to tell you, I never did anything this futuristic in the States, except for that one time when I attended a Sci-fi convention in search of other illegal aliens), but because this is technologically challenged ME we're talking about! Me, the girl who can hardly send or receive e-mails without unleashing a thousand viruses and irretrievably corrupting the hard drive.

Yes, of course it's taking a little bit longer composing my daily magnum opus from a telephone keypad, which is prob y i've sudd been ovrcom by the desire 2 type like this & 2 tell u that u r all gr8! & that i'll c u l8er! & that i'll brb & i'm lol cos i think i'm so cool.

Updated from my laptop to say: Wow, it is expensive to be so cool! So it's probably much wiser that I remain uncool. It's either being tragically hip (now I know why they call it 'tragically' hip, because being hip plunges one into the murky, slum-smelling depths of poverty) or giving up coffee, and well, you all KNOW that there is NO WAY that I'm going to give up my caffeine!

Redsaid | 07:21 PM | comment (3) | trackback (0) | view »
January 04, 2007
It's ALMOST better than a new lapdog
Alphabet Soup

Remember how my laptop was stolen when I returned to South Africa on Christmas Day 2005?

And remember how this past Christmas Day its successor died?

Well, I’ve finally figured out why Christmases and laptops and I don’t mix.

There’s a perfectly simple explanation, really. The Universe has obviously conspired with Santa to try and prevent me from attempting to write anything else ever again.

Unfortunately for them and for you poor folks who get to suffer through some of my scribblings, reversed psychology has always worked really well on me.

So when I hear things like: “Don’t stay in the United States for longer than one year!” or “Don’t write, you foolish girl!,” I end up staying in the United States for nine years and when I lose two laptops within a year to prevent me from writing, I withdraw all my savings and go and buy myself a new laptop. And I stubbornly continue to try this writing thing. And I’m going to continue, until I can eventually (hopefully!) get it right.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Redsaid’s new Writing Machine. It is so new, it gleams. Even though it isn’t my first laptop, it’s the first brand new, out-of-the-box one I’ve ever owned and I couldn’t be more pleased. No other people's cooties are on it. It has none of the usual quirks (like flickering screens, temperamental batteries, strange sounds whenever one presses Enter) one tends to inherit when one owns a second- or thirdhand laptop. In fact, I'm still getting delightfully high on the new laptop smell!

IMAGE_00350.jpg

Don't you just adore the picture on my desktop? Now it's my Lab-top, har har.

Anyway, brace yerselves darlings, because I’m back for good!

Or at least until Christmas 2007, then.

Redsaid | 12:10 AM | comment (6) | view »
December 01, 2006
Forgotten, but not gone
Alphabet Soup

You don't know what you have until you lose it.

Like my mind.

WhadoyouMEAN I never had one to lose in the first place?!?

Anyway, not that. I meant my blog.

A week ago, I decided to start blogging again. Had this brilliant post composed (haha... okay, I know. I had you until I wrote "brilliant", right?) and whadayaknow? My blog gave me a mean, serious-looking error message:

"Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration with this lazy-arse blogger and was unable to complete your request. We don't know why you bothered to come here in the first place, but never mind. We are not here to judge.
Please contact the server administrator, the Master of the World Wide Web and find out why they ever unleashed this ... whatEVER she is... on our precious Internet in the first place, defiling it with her presence. She is the equivalent of Acid Rain and the Ozone Layer COMBINED in cyber space.
Please don't inform them of the time the error occurred, and whatever you do, DON'T notify her that this thing she has been calling a blog has possibly died.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log."

I was so sad! I felt such remorse! My blog died because of neglect! I was sure that was it!

And of course, this whole, worrying weekend, the only thing I wanted to do was blog. Blog, blog, blog. Catch up. Tell tales of how leftovers at my sister's house could possibly kill you.

I was dying to write about my aunt, her tenant, the great chase and the narrow escape. (A very involved story that will require at LEAST a pound of Starbucks coffee to tell.)

I had this whole Thanksgiving weekend post planned about my meagre attempt at a life post-America.

I wanted to write about baboons and all the other wildlife I've encountered back here in my native South Africa.

And, more importantly, I wanted to write about a possible resuscitation of my deceased American Dream...

Anyway, to make a long story even longer, I did what I always do in times of My Blog is Down and Possibly Gone for Good crisis mode. I e-mailed the web goddess who was silly enough to become a web hostess to the likes of me. She probably thinks the only time I read her blog is when I have a blog Issue, and it would be fair of her to think that, because those seem to be the only times when I spam her with frenzied, panicked comments.

So this time, I decided to become proactive.

So I spammed her again.

And then I actually dared to venture to the official site of my kind and generous hosts.

I have to admit, I was scared. Because usually, when I go to hosting sites, they lose me shortly after "Welcome to this site."

But not them! They had clear instructions and a very easy peasy Redsaid-the-idiot-proof form to fill out in case of emergency.

I filled out the form, using my best language to try and explain how the blog broke ('it made a funny sound, like scrrrrrrooaaagggh, and then it just curled up and died and was gone'). I immediately received a comforting e-mail back informing me that my problem was being attended to.

I totally prepared to remain blogless until Monday, but no... in LESS THAN AN HOUR, my blog was fixed, with an e-mail kindly explaining what the problem was.

I didn't understand it.

But who cares? Because I have my blog back!

And I'm renewing my commitment to it. No more neglect. No more days without posting.

But who cares? Because although the blog might not be gone, it has simply been forgotten.

Redsaid | 08:00 PM | comment (0) | view »
September 17, 2006
Suicide Notes
Alphabet Soup

Don’t worry; even though I have already composed my own epitaphs, and even though I have been officially declared blue (in fact, I’ve been certified… can I put that on my resume under “qualifications?”), this isn’t my final magnum opus by a long shot.

Besides, according to my beloved Time/Life Medical Encyclopaedia (I’m back in South Africa, so I have to spell it in proper English now), killing oneself isn’t all that easy. Also sounds like way too much work for the likes of me. Hanging oneself or flinging oneself off a skyscraper requires movement. And not just any kind of movement (which, as you all know, is quite a stretch for me), but getting up there requires VERTICAL movement. Way too exhausting a prospect.

And then there are all those methods: Pills, noose, electrical socket, gas, poison, knife, razor blade, gun, bath. It’s a bewildering array of choices for someone as naturally indecisive as I am. By the time I’d make up my mind and get around to it, I’d be close to the age for natural death anyway. Can you imagine opening the obituaries and reading: Redsaid. Tragically taken from this life by suicide. Age 98. Her suicide note, scribbled in shaky hand, was incomplete (just like so many stories on her blog). What was she thinking, writing "to be continued" at the end of her suicide note?

So no. I don’t think I’ve been designed for suicide. I mean, I gag when I have to swallow three headache pills. So I’d probably get it all wrong and choke when what I was really trying to do was overdose.

I can’t even slice bread, so I should probably just forget about getting a proper grip on a sharp object to slit my own wrists. And I couldn’t possibly drown myself a la Ophelia, because my round body is far too buoyant and so I’ll just keep on bobbing back to the surface.

As for gas (oooh, how poetic!), let me tell you a little story:

When I was in high school (a.k.a. Phase One of my Female Angst), I took a liking to the dark poetic stylings of Sylvia Plath. I obsessively devoured all her work, memorising every poem (from Ariel to The Mirror), I even read her only novel (The Bell Jar) over and over, and when I was finished, I moved on to the biographies about her. Which is how I discovered that she had committed suicide by sticking her head in the oven.

It sounded so romantic and awful and dramatic to my young, twisted-yet-impressionable mind, because I could not fathom how she had brought herself to do it.

I tried it. One afternoon when I was home alone, I turned on our oven. And I just couldn’t do it.

It took me the longest time before I figured out that Sylvia’s suicide oven had worked with GAS, and not, like all the ovens of my youth, with electricity.

So for years and years I had gone through life mistakenly believing that she had actually broiled herself to death…

I guess I should rather just die than kill myself.

Redsaid | 02:05 PM | comment (6) | view »
May 10, 2006
The Big Sixth
Alphabet Soup

An extremely large, spotted creature (possibly a mammal) with an unruly red mane and absolutely ENORMOUS feet has been noticed again, for the first time in about a month, in the vicinity of the South African university town of Stellenbosch.

Descriptions of the creature are vague, but officials have decided to settle on one eye-witness account of it looking like “a frightening cross between a gorilla, a lion, a leopard, a buffalo, an elephant, a warthog, and a cow. Oh, and it laughs like a hyena.”

Citizens of Stellenbosch have been assured that the creature, although scary-looking, is not really as dangerous as it appears to be.

But in case those unfortunate enough to encounter the creature sense the possibility of an attack – like the creature displaying uncontrollable tremours, convulsions and foam at the mouth – the advice is to stay as calm as possible and to immediately placate the creature with large amounts of coffee, a book, something sweet to eat and some jazz music. According to a behavioural expert, this is a foolproof, fail-safe way to instantly make the creature comfortable and very, very happy.

Despite the creature’s lack of movement (due to its remarkably lazy nature), it has been surprisingly mobile. In recent days, sightings have been reported along South Africa’s beautiful Garden Route, on the outskirts of the Karoo, in and around the town of Mossel Bay, speeding westbound along the N2 Highway as it was being transported in a white van with a pack of dogs, in the Tyger Valley Mall and, currently, on a wine farm.

Until this past December, when a flurry of sightings were reported in Johannesburg, Cape Town and along the Vaal River, almost a decade passed with no sightings at all of the creature being reported anywhere in South Africa. Most researchers admit to being baffled by this strange fact, while other (more arrogant?) researchers ascribe the creature’s disappearance to a lengthy period of hibernation.

“Hibernation’s the logical explanation,” one of the more arrogant researchers was quoted as saying. “It is already a well-known fact that the creature roams at night and sleeps by day for up to twelve hours at a time.”

When a question was raised about migration being the possible reason for it seemingly vanishing, the researcher sneered and said that the creature couldn’t possibly travel far enough for the trip to qualify as migration, because the creature is simply too lazy and needs too much rest, too many frequent feedings, too much coffee and too many books, which means that it could never travel light enough to stray too far.

South African President, Thabo Mbeki, has said that he is thrilled to hear that the spotted creature isn’t extinct. Sounding more like an NBC executive than a head of state, he said: “For a long time, South Africa has only been content to have the Big Five. We are very happy to have the Big Sixth, the elusive spotted creature, to complete our collection of must-see wild-life!”

People who wish to see the creature are advised to be on the look-out around coffee shops, bars, Irish pubs, flea markets, dog pounds, book shops, libraries, jazz clubs, and shops that specialise in women’s shoes in freakishly large sizes. Prime times to glimpse the creature are around dusk and midnight. “Early birds shouldn’t even bother to look. The creature loathes sunrises, because it takes place so early.”


Redsaid | 06:54 PM | comment (5) | view »
May 08, 2006
Re(d)suscitated
Alphabet Soup

Stellenbosch - Last Thursday evening, in what was initially suspected to be a case of first degree blogicide, www.redsaid.net briefly died, plunging both people who knew it into shock and mourning.

www.redsaid.net's remains, which were hidden behind a cold and impersonal 'this website does not exist anymore' error message, was stumbled upon by an unsuspecting late-night surfer.

The surfer, who does not want to be named for fear of being forever associated with this website, is so traumatised, he has not logged on again even once since making the gruesome discovery, even though he has been assured that the victim did NOT, in fact, die a virtual death, as had been initially feared.

After several hours of being inexplicably out of existence - possibly due to exhaustion brought on by fruitlessly waiting to be occasionally updated and discovered by publishers (or even just a few readers, really) - www.redsaid.net was miraculously re(d)suscitated, returning to the world wide web with a loud thump.

Four days after the ordeal, www.redaid.net is alive and well, albeit still as ignored as ever before.

When asked to comment about the near-death experience, www.redsaid.net said: "I was dead? Oh... it didn't really feel much different than any other time. Besides, I don't really remember anything much about being under, except for being at this huge summer's barbecue."

Upon which the reporter asked: "How do you know it was summer?"

"It must've been, because it was really, REALLY hot."

Redsaid | 01:26 PM | comment (6) | view »
April 22, 2006
Mug Shot
Alphabet Soup

Blame all the fresh air here in my new South African hometown of By George!, because something has seriously affected my mind (fine, ALLEGED mind) and I've decided to finally reveal my mug shot to the world. Maybe it's because I'm secure in the knowledge that only three of you make up this "world" of mine.

So folks, brace yerselves.

Disclaimer: Not for the faint-hearted, the whoozy, hypochondriacs, small children, animals, fish or birds. May cause a jolt, nausea, jitters, angst, headaches, and severe fluid retention.

Proceed at your own risk, and don't say I DIDN'T WARN YOU!!!!

read more »
Redsaid | 01:02 PM | comment (8) | view »
March 20, 2006
The Interrogator
Alphabet Soup

In what she hopes will appear to be a tactic of intimidation but which is really to hide her growing anxiety, the interrogator paces slowly around the room, forming an increasingly tighter circle around the suspect.

The suspect, although seated, exudes a stubbornly silent and apparently unbreakable resolve. Instead of being guarded or hunched over, he is leaning back in his chair, the body language of someone who is at ease, relaxed even. He seems to be far more skilled at this game than his interrogator.

His chin juts out defiantly, and he meets her frequent glances at him with an unbroken, chilly stare, as if he can see through the façade of her bravado straight to where her last nerves are rapidly crumbling.

When she asks the next question, the tremour in her voice betrays her wavering confidence.

“Where were you when…” she abruptly falls silent, then revealing her increasing desperation, she asks, her voice tinged with hysteria: “I know that you did it, okay? What I want to know is why you did it? Why?”

(Later, she would deny any loss of control, claiming that it was merely a different approach, one she had hoped would shock and surprise the suspect into confessing.)

It still does not have the desired effect.

From where he is stretched back in his high chair, her two-and-a-half year old nephew continues to merely regard her with open contempt and an infuriatingly calm muteness.


Redsaid | 09:49 AM | comment (7) | view »
February 10, 2006
The Day I Changed My Name To Redsad
Alphabet Soup

I’m taking a break from repatriating to bring you the following news.

It’s official: At last I have an excuse for EVERYTHING about me that people find even remotely odd.

I even have a doctor’s note AND, even better yet, a six-month to one-year prescription to back it up.

So the big news is, I’m officially (and therefore it warrants being written in all-caps) DEPRESSED.

This is FANTASTIC news, especially when one considers that my beloved Time/Life A – Z Medical Encyclopedia is still en route somewhere between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn on the Atlantic Ocean, and I have therefore been running out of ideas for diseases I could possibly diagnose myself with (although, according to a gem of a book I have found as a temporary replacement, I’m now convinced that I have a condition called Dyspraxia. But more about that glorious discovery later).

Apart from the somewhat annoying symptom of bursting into tears at inappropriate times, I highly recommend depression.

The fatigue that goes along with it gives one an excellent excuse to stay in bed for days (the part of my life in the US that I miss the most. That, and the Starbucks. And the doughnuts… pardon me, I’m in tears again), and since one is considered to be in a fragile state of mind when DEPRESSED, one is handled with kit-gloves and therefore not criticized for staying in bed for days at a time and for bursting into tears during comedies or dinner. (And my sister is an excellent cook, honestly.)

And then of course, there are The Drugs. That is by far the best thing about being officially DEPRESSED.

Since the doctor was made aware of the fact (in fits and starts, and through even more tears) that I had donated most of my American Dollars to an immigration liar (get it? Ha ha. Oh, and you’d BETTER laugh at my lame puns and attempts at jokes, because I’m DEPRESSED and therefore very fragile, remember?), she came up with a way to medicate me on the cheap. So for a prescription of less than a hundred Rand per month (divide by 6.4, to get the US $ amount), DEPRESSION can be really quite affordable these days.

(Even during these trying times of mental illness, I’m a cheap date!)

So now, in the words of witty folk singer/songwriter Cheryl Wheeler, I leave you to wonder the following about me:

“Is it peace, or is it Prozac?

I'm psychiatric now
It just happened
I don't know how
Life was moving right along
At a reasonable clip
When bang zoom
Lost my grip
And I'm psychiatric now

Oh I might smile thinking things are really swell
Or I might cry - trouble is you just can't tell
Cause I'm psychiatric now

So when I'd had enough of this
I went to a psychiatrist
I said I'm acting crazily
I think my mind is gone from me
He looked at me said I agree
You think you're nuts and seem to be
So he prescribed some pills for me
And I went to the pharmacy
I took them and I seemed to be just ... fine
There's just one little question on my mind.

Is it peace or is it Prozac
I don't care
No need to know that
When the moon is full and the world's too close
I just keep my smile and I up my dose

Is it peace or is it Prozac
Is this mellow, am I a maniac
Is my mind out there and can I get it back
Is it peace I feel or is it Prozac?"


Redsaid | 01:01 PM | comment (9) | view »
December 27, 2005
Homecoming Queen
Alphabet Soup

Sweeties,

Just a short note (since we pay per minute for the luxury of the internet here in the third world) to let you know that I arrived in one piece (even if not in one peace! But more about my little pun later).

It's WEIRD to be home. Doesn't even feel like home. In fact, I feel like more of an alien here than I ever did in the States! (Yeah, that would take some doing, wouldn't it? Ha ha.) Honestly though, I thought I'd feel a stirring of SOMETHING when I looked out the plane's window and saw South Africa again, but nothing...

At that point I was so tired though, because I didn't sleep on the plane or for the last few nights before leaving. So I was pretty much on autopilot at that point. (Thank goodness I wasn't flying the plane!)

My being awake had little to do with discomfort though and much more with being frantic with worry. You see, shortly after boarding the plane in DC, a South African Airways crewmember offered me a hand with one of my carry-on cases (the one containing my precious laptop). Since I was really laden down, and since I saw that they were assisting many other people as well, I accepted his help. He promised to bring it up to the flight deck where I was seated.

Long story short, just when we were about to take off, he came up to me, handed me a receipt and told me that I could pick up the suitcase at baggage claim after landing in Johannesburg. I was IMMEDIATELY frantic, because Johannesburg international is notorious for its baggage handlers nabbing valuables from luggage. So the entire flight I begged all the flight attendants to try and get it back for me during our stop-over in Accra, but to no avail. Everyone just echoed the same thing: "Impossible."

So I wasn't too surprised in Johannesburg when the suitcase in question finally appeared on the carousel, torn apart by the baggage thieves, my laptop missing... (and I still haven't figured out what else they took.) But even though I had expected it, I was still devastated and broke down right there in the middle of the airport and wept like a baby. Things didn't improve much from that point onwards. I had to make a claim (I don't know for what, really, since I was told that it wouldn't really help and that SAA doesn't accept any liability since crimes like that are so common place) and so I ended up missing my connecting flight to Cape Town. Luckily a kind samaritan offered me his cell phone and I could let my sister know.

Oh, well, at least I "gave" someone a really nice Christmas present, hey? So I've already made my contribution to the New South Africa.

Speaking of Christmas presents... when I finally DID get to Cape Town about four hours behind the original schedule, two of my sisters were there to greet me with open arms. My parents still had no clue that I was coming home - I can't believe no one leaked it, because everyone around them seemed to have known for ages already - so when we finally pulled up here at my sister's home outside of Stellenbosch, they were told to come outside for a "little" (*ahem* yes, very funny, right? Those of you who have seen my expanded frame before I left the States will get the joke) surprise.

Oh, I can't even DESCRIBE the moment I saw my parents again. (Yeah, yeah, so much for wanting to be a wannabe writer!) It was really amazing... One of those true and completely mushy Hallmark movie moments. There were tears and embraces and laughter and screams and it was good.

And now I'm here. I don't know what the future holds. I'm still at my sister's in Stellenbosch, I suspect I will be here until next week some time. Like an alcoholic, I'm taking it one day at a time (what did you think I was going to say, ye gutter-minded beasts!? But yes, I see your point: being on a wine farm does make it very easy to drink like an alcoholic as well and I'm loving every moment of that drinking).

I miss you all desperately! I'm already having severe Starbucks withdrawals and am already devising plans to be smuggled back into the US soon...

Please please PLEASE stay in touch!? I have a feeling I'm going to need lots of encouraging words in the days and weeks ahead...

Love to you all,
Red

Redsaid | 06:52 AM | comment (21) | view »
November 30, 2005
Please don't delete me!!!!
Alphabet Soup

If you've ever made the mistake of reading this blog, or the even bigger mistake of encouraging me further by commenting on this blog, then expect an unsolicited e-mail from me with a rather secretive (but hopefully it will tempt you into reading the e-mail) subject title of: Redsaid's Big News.

Please don't delete me! I promise I'm not spam. I might be a ham, I am, but I am DEFINITELY not spam, ma'am. (And in the name of political correctness and all that... sir. Even though it messes up my rhyme.)

Now go check your inbox. Or if there's nothing yet, wait for it. And if I've omitted someone, please let me know.

Redsaid | 10:22 PM | comment (16) | view »
October 11, 2005
Smashing Weekend
Alphabet Soup

On Saturday night/Sunday morning, as I was breezing through my usual weekend routine of clubbing and fending off admiring, handsome men falling over themselves to buy me dri...

Okay, okay! So now you KNOW that I'm lying.

So let's try again... Take 2: On Saturday night/Sunday morning, as I was engrossed in my usual weekend routine of sitting at home in my coffee- and chocolate-stained pajamas and head-to-toe anti-wrinkle cream and watching middle of the night infomercials all by myself (hold me now and let's weep together over the state of my utterly pitiful, anti-social life!), I thought I heard a crash.

Since it was three a.m. and since I wasn't REALLY watching an infomercial but - thanks to unusually benevolent network television fall offerings for insomniacs without cable or satellite t.v. - a rather terrifying episode of (cue scary music) The Twilight Zone, I reacted in my usual brave manner.

That's right! As soon as I heard the crash, I dove under the covers and cowered.

Before you hand over that Purple Heart for Bravery (which, if it's not too much trouble, I'd rather swap for a valid Green Card, if I may!), here's what I did next.

My curiosity eventually got the better of me and I ACTUALLY GOT OUT OF BED AND - as if that fact alone isn't remarkable enough - I descended the dark stairs to check if everything was okay.

As I was inching down the steps, trembling, I cursed myself for not being more sporty. And not just because I was wheezing from the exertion of actually being out of bed AND climbing stairs, but because at that moment, I really could've used the security that comes from wielding a baseball bat or a tennis raquet.

Finally, after about 45 minutes, I successfully made it down the stairs and into the dark living room. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I made out the shape of the invader crouching in the shadows... I wanted to scream, but couldn't, so instead, I stood there, rooted to the spot by fear and helplessly waiting for what I was sure would be the end of me. So I simply closed my eyes and waited...

And waited...

And, so at last, when I was sure that I was indeed still alive and nothing had happened, I finally dared to open my eyes.

It took only a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I braced myself and turned my head to face my savage, would-be attacker. I had every intention of asking him what on earth was taking him so long, or if he liked toying with his victims like this by dragging things out.

I was just about to locate my voice and start giving my little (but very brave) speech, when I lay eyes on the intruder again.

It was...

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Redsaid | 03:51 AM | comment (0) | view »
August 30, 2005
Introducing Miss Liberty
Alphabet Soup

Ladies and Gents, (Or as Red might say... Lady and Gent). This is Deeleea guesting at Redsaid for One Day Only!

I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to Red and introduce her new blog birthday suit.

To cheat and simply paraphrase a certain Dr who wrote a Whole Book about Birthdays... Let me just say...

Congratulations Red!
Today is your day
Though you live in strange places
And are so far away

Your good friend Down Under's
Not gone and forgotten
That today marks the Day
On which you were begotten!

She'd normally sing
On a momentous occasion
But today has instead
Done a small illustration

To wish you great joy
On your day of days
And to tell the whole world
That she thinks you are ace.

Happy Birthday!
Have a great time with Sis... And for goodness sake!!

Get Some Sleep!!!

Redsaid | 05:56 PM | comment (8) | view »
August 19, 2005
A brief interruption from the Melo-Drama of my past
Alphabet Soup

I'm still writing the Nanny Saga, I promise. All this living in the past is making me a little crazy (-ier than usual?), so I took a bit of a break from all the serious stuff to write a birthday e-mail to my best friend's daughter.

"Hi there Birthday Girl ,

Happy Birthday all the way from the United States! I can't believe it's been two
years since your arrival here on earth! How do you like it so far? I know you've already seen the Indian Ocean and Botswana and Pretoria and Johannesburg and all the places inbetween, and that's almost more than what I have seen at the age of 31... well, ALMOST 31. I'm glad you also like travelling. I see we'll get along well.

Just eleven more years until you'll be able to give your mother plenty
of teenage drama. And believe me, if you knew how naughty SHE was as a
teen (and even into her college years... ESPECIALLY into her college
years! In fact, she was the one solely responsible for my corruption in
college, although of course, if you'd ask her, she'll vehemently deny it!) you'll
never feel guilty about your own hormonal tantrums!

In fact, I'd advise you to start practicing already. Besides, isn't this supposed
to be your Terrible Two's anyway? I say, LIVE IT UP, girl! I'll bring the
booze if you bring the... WHADOYOUMEAN you haven't been introduced to the splendours of alcohol yet?!? You've been around for... sorry, your auntie isn't the most mathematical type... well, 365 plus 366 (leap year, remember?) days already! After all those days of hanging around, have you learned NOTHING yet?

And no, I don't care about all the words you can already say or the motor skills you've already developed. Because take it from me, Little One, a person really doesn't have to walk to be able to get through life. And I should know. But drinking? Now THAT's a very valuable social skill indeed!

Please tell your mother to e-mail me!

Love,
Your auntie Red."

See why I was such a great nanny?

Redsaid | 10:29 AM | comment (15) | view »
August 15, 2005
Work in Progress
Alphabet Soup

Been writing and rewriting the whole sad story since Friday.

Promise to post it as soon as it's done.

Redsaid | 03:07 AM | comment (6) | view »
July 29, 2005
My sordid past
Alphabet Soup

A few years before I had this blog, I had a taste of online publishing when a fellow South African employed me to write a weekly column for an online newsletter.

Don't be too impressed! (Oh, right. You weren't.) Anyway, he only picked me because nobody with actual writing talent and ability was willing to do the work for free.

Our intended audience was other expat South Africans living in various locales around the globe, but since we didn't have a comments feature on the site, I didn't know if anyone ever actually read it!

But readers or not, I found that I really enjoyed writing columns and miraculously, I managed to come up with a new one almost every week for two years.

Sadly, the newsletter (and my little column) eventually became part of the world wide cobweb when our editor/webmaster ran out of the energy and enthusiasm to keep the site going.

And so my career as an amateur columnist came to a rather abrupt halt. I briefly mourned it, missed it a surprising amount for a while, and then, eventually, moved it to the most hidden corners of my memory, only dusting it off and recalling it whenever I needed to milk my past for anything remotely resembling productivity to put on a resumé.

Until recently, when my column-writing past caught up with me rather unexpectedly and in a most surprising way.

In addition to his full-time career as a creative type, the boy also sings in a local a cappella group. They are very good, and this isn't just my biased opinion. People actually pay them rather good money to perform all across the United States!

At one such gig, an audience member approached the group during their break to talk about their music, buy a CD, etc. He told them that he had driven especially to see their show from quite far out of state. They were very flattered and asked him how he had learned about them.

"Oh, a South African columnist wrote an online article about you some time ago, and ever since reading it, I've always wanted to attend one of your shows."

Imagine that! I had an actual READER!! And never mind that my lone reader wasn't even a South African. You see, we had rather hoped that our readers would be fellow expat South Africans, but really, with my horrible hand-eye coordination, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that I didn't hit the intended target audience!

Target or not, since finding out that I had AN ACTUAL READER (forgive the ALL-CAPS, it's just that I still can't believe it), I've been overcome by curiosity to see what exactly it might've been that inspired him to read my words. Who knows? Maybe I can apply whatever it was that he had found so compelling - or, then, compelling enough - and apply it to my blog composition?

You see, I couldn't even remember writing about the boy's a cappella group! So who knows what else I'd written? For all I know, I could've been so desperate for material that I may have simply written down our address and phone number!

So last night, I opened up the binder containing print-outs of all my old columns. In many ways, it was like reading an old, almost forgotten journal. All these memories came rushing back, and in many instances, I remembered exactly where I was when I wrote a particular column.

I'm afraid I still don't know why I even managed to have one reader, though. Some of the writing really made me cringe! I think this must be what actors feel like whenever a talk show host plays unearthed clips of their earliest work!

But I've decided to let you be the judge. Here's something I wrote for my column a few summers ago. (Read it, quick! Before I change my mind!)

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Redsaid | 03:26 PM | comment (12) | view »
July 28, 2005
Engravements
Alphabet Soup

Today's cheerful subject is tombstones, and it is brought to us courtesy of him who has brought to my attention this website where you too can create an epitaph (or two, or... if you're like me, a few) of your very own!

Apart from my collection of how-to books (and my itty-bitty booklight), I really have no earthly possessions of worth to leave behind, so I've decided to leave some ideas for my epitaph instead. After all, that's the least I can do! And yes, that way I'd still be able to have the final word!

One day, when Red is dead
Bury her on her head
Write a witty epitaph
To make the mourners laugh

Or, if you lack inspiration and find yourself suffering from tomb-writer's block, I'd like you to use one of these instead:

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Redsaid | 03:27 AM | comment (6) | view »
July 21, 2005
Tearing my eyes away from my Amazing Internet Television Shows...
Alphabet Soup

... To let you know that yes, indeed, I'm still alive.

I haven't moved from this chair in about a week and a half, so my behind is sore and my eyes are bleary and my hand is all cramped up from gripping and obsessively clicking the mouse to watch yet another South African television show, but I'm alive.

(Please don't look so openly disappointed.)

And I AM still working on my travelogue. That is, if you can define adding approximately one word a day to it as "working on it."

Okay, but at least I'm feeling guilty about still not having it completed. And besides, I'm being put to even further shame by her. She went on her trip about a month after I returned from mine, and she's already shared most of her travel tales with us. (Go read it. It's irresistible: Filled with sheep and castles and rabbit doo.)

Luckily you've come to expect nothing more of me! I'm sooo glad that my bad blogging habits and my terrible writing skills have come to be so useful!

So all ye younge bloggers oute there, here is some free, unsolicited advice (but be grateful, young brats. I could emulate my immigration lawyer and charge you a few thousand dollars for it anyway, unsolicited or not! What? I sound bitter you say? Me? NEVER!)... Anyway, where were we?

Oh yes. Unsolicited advice to the young'uns: If you are planning to be the Second Laziest Blogger Ever (sorry, slot of the laziest is already, leisurely, filled by me), then by George! Do NOT write on your blog every day! If you do (and even if you do it badly with lots of overused parentheses (or even parentheses WITHIN parentheses!)), your three readers will come to expect having something new to read every day when they come to your blog, and with every new ping, they'll start salivating like Pavlov's dogs so famously did whenever they heard his bell ring, and then, when the pings stop coming one day, they will revolt and start spamming you with e-mails to see where you are and then they will eat each other and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT for setting such high standards (like blogging every day) in the first place!

But if you do it correctly by being a bad blogger from the beginning, then no one will notice if you don't blog for seven months, and no one will clog your inbox with concerned e-mails to check on your well-being. (Trust me, you don't want that. Really. It may SOUND pleasant, but think about it: Receiving and then having to open e-mails and... such horror... READING it is just SO strenuous! Especially if you could be doing something productive, like taking a nap.)

Instead, the people will see that you've updated your blog for the second time in a year and show only mild interest. "Oh, yeah. Whats-her/his-name has updated. I wonder what they sai... Oh, LOOK! A ping from one of the EAGER EVERY DAY BLOGGERS!"

And clickety-click, just like that they'll navigate away from your blog and leave you to fester away in a dark, unnoticed corner of the internet, the corner where all ignored, neglected, dying or dead sites end up... The World Wide Cobweb...


Redsaid | 03:45 PM | comment (7) | view »
July 06, 2005
Don't get any ideas!!!!
Alphabet Soup

Mr. Mice has decided that, instead of just giving me a Green Card vote for free, he was going to make me work for it. So he put me to the test to see how much I know about these United States.

Boy, and did he ever put me through the wringer! Immigration should recruit him to design their quizzes, because I can safely say that his is far more difficult than theirs!

Here's what he asked me (Please note all the sports-related questions! I nearly died.):

This is for Red. Please try not to look up any of these answers. Answer from memory as much as possible.

1. Name the faces on Mount Rushmore

2. How many innings in a Baseball game.

3. Six flags have flown over Texas. Name them.

4. Who was the President during the Civil War?

5. What animal emblazons the Gadsden flag? What is the motto on the same?

6. Two baseball teams have moved from New York to California. Which Califonia baseball team did not move from New York?

7. What is the US National Anthem and what is its major drawback as an anthem?

8. What are the 5 US Armed Forces?

9. What Italian explorer is North America named for? Why?

10. What month is the Superbowl played in?

(If you wish to play, then answer in the comments before opening the extended entry to read my answers and his comments (in bold) on my answers.)

read more »
Redsaid | 03:49 PM | comment (5) | view »
June 30, 2005
On Second Thoughts
Alphabet Soup

Regarding the incident in the bookstore, I suppose I should be grateful that it was just an overzealous Jehovah's Witness ambushing me, and not an overzealous "Hubbard's Witness" like "Doctor" Tomkat* Cruise instead.

For one, I'm sure he would've lectured me for hours because of the bottles and bottles of Ritalin I handed out like candy to all the children who were in my care when I was a nanny. I would've tried to make him understand that I had no choice, because if I hadn't given them the drugs, they would've grown up to behave exactly like he did on Oprah and The Today Show.

On the other hand, in the name of recruiting yet another potential money donour to Scientology, maybe he would've been willing to overlook and even forgive and forget my days as a children's chemist? Perhaps my current plight as an outlawed alien would've won him over?

Maybe he would've looked at all the how-to books in my arms and then his recruitment tactic would've been to butter me up by telling me that he believes in me?

Because, you know, he really DOES believe in aliens.

* Thank you, Salami.


Redsaid | 11:45 AM | comment (1) | view »
June 27, 2005
They Don't Just Ring Your Doorbell Anymore
Alphabet Soup

Last night, while browsing the how-to book section at a mega bookstore (yes, Bookstore Diva, your chain, although not your store) and just quietly minding my own business, I was ambushed by an overzealous Jehovah's Witness.

I was polite to him for about five minutes too long. (Chronic politeness is a South African affliction, you see.)

When I eventually managed to flee, and went to find the boy to tell him the whole story, he suggested that we should complain to management so that the guy could be thrown out. As upset as I was, I didn't really think that I had grounds for a complaint. I mean, isn't the very spirit of a bookstore centered around the exchange of ideas and freedom of speech?

The boy argued that what the guy did is a form of harassment. What do you think? Remember though: I was polite to him at first. Also, do you think we could've and should've complained to the store's management?

But, since this has been the third strange encounter that I've had in the past few weeks (stay tuned to the still-in-slow-progress Travelogue to read about the other two) the most important question that remains is: What IS it about me that weirdoes seem to find so incredibly appealing?!?

But just so you know, if your answer to that last question includes the phrase: "Like attracts like," I'll send you a virus!

Redsaid | 02:43 AM | comment (10) | view »
June 23, 2005
Take THAT, you stupid spammers!
Alphabet Soup

Once again, my beloved blogging benefactress and Web Goddess, the lovely Emily, has bailed me out and saved the day. And now she can also add "Spamenator" (okay, so it's still lame, but I'm still suffering delayed creativity from all the recent spam-attacks on this website) to her list of titles.

Emily has done what no other person has been willing/able to do for this website: She has managed to stop the spammers in their vile little tracks.

I've been under siege lately. When I returned from holiday last week, I returned to 3,000-and-something spam comments and trackbacks in my inbox. It was completely overwhelming, and after a few feeble attempts to delete and blacklist some of it (and just so we're clear, MT-blacklist is not to blame. I've just never figured out how to use it correctly), I did what I do about most of my problems: I ignored it and wished that it would go away all by itself.

And Emily made my wish come true.

She waved her spam-damning magic wand and installed a script which closes the comments on posts that are more than a few days old (so if you have something to say, be quick about it!). What a genius invention!

But that's not all...

She then proceeded to DELETE ALL 3,000 PLUS SPAM COMMENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so happy, I'm completely speechless. (Yeah, now you know the secret to shutting me up! Since the spam has now been taken care of, though, something else that would make me REALLY happy, so happy that I'll be quiet, is a Green Card with my name on it. Anyone?)

THANK YOU, EM!!!!!!


Redsaid | 11:32 AM | comment (6) | view »
June 16, 2005
Red's definition of a vacation
Alphabet Soup

In case you've been wondering why I've been so quiet, or even (and more likely) if you haven't been wondering (then too bad, 'cause I'm going to tell you anyway): I've had an unexpected vacation!

Now you're probably wondering how on earth one can have a vacation when the immigration limbo one has been stuck in for many years and which requires one, by law, to do nothing that could be even loosely defined as work and therefore results in one's life to resemble a continuous vacation anyway, right?

Well, the answer is twofold, yet simple: Firstly I'd tell you that your wonderings are far too verbose and confusing and that you really ought to try and cut it shorter in future.

Secondly, I'd tell you that why, it's all quite simple really! In order to get a vacation from a life spent in perpetual holiday mode, one travels to distant places.

And since I've been in dire need of a vacation from my vacation, I took one.

And I'm planning to tell you all about it in the greatest detail. For now, however, I need a rest.

Because I had NO IDEA that taking a real vacation could make one so tired!

P.S. Returned to a glorious 2,998* e-mails in my comments/trackbacks inbox! Thought I had been Dooceded (can't say "Dooced", because that, of course, means 'to be fired from one's work because of one's weblog.' And not even the likes of me can manage to get fired without actually being employed in the first place, blog or no blog).

So "Dooceded" (pronounce: DOOO- CEEEEEDED) in this case means "becomes overnight blogging sensation, complete with media coverage and thousands of actual readers.")

But alas, my "fanmail" turned out to be just more blasted spam. And in case you've been suspecting me of exaggerating the amount of spam I receive (MOI? EXAGGERATE OR EMBELLISH FACTS?!?!? NEVER EVER EVEEEERRRR!), please refer to the sidebar at the left of these scribblings and see "The Opiniated." I assure you, although I have been known to receive comments from folks with blogging names like "Mice" and "Maison Pants" and "Vit 'n' Madge" and "Claypot" and "Cherryflava" and "Bookstore Diva" and "Pylorns" and "Cooksister" and "Fricative" and "Mikedup" and "Will Type For Food" and "Annika" and "Kim" and "Deeleea" and "Martha" and "Emily" and "Helen" (Okay, so those last six aren't so strange at all, but they're foreign (Martha, darling, you weren't born here, and Helen lives in England now, and Em and Annika, you're from Texas and L.A. respectively, so enough said) and everyone knows that being foreign automatically ups the weirdness factor); I really do NOT have readers named "Party Poker", "Blackjack" or even "Online Pharmacy."

*While I was busy trying to delete the spam, the number of spam mails actually climbed to over 3,000! I give up!

Is it any wonder then that I already feel in need of another vacation?

Redsaid | 06:58 PM | comment (9) | view »
June 03, 2005
A how to be a Poet poem
Alphabet Soup

Never mind my last entry! I think I've found my destiny.

He recently wrote a primer explaining how to be a poet, and since I've never been able to resist a how-to book/blog entry of any kind, I composed the following snode (sonnet and ode and all other forms of poetry thrown into one, even a hint of haiku) and dedicate it to him. (PARTS IN ALL-CAPS ARE MEANT TO BE SHOUTED, preferably in anguish, DURING PERFORMANCE AT THE POETRY JAM. He said to deliver it as if you are speaking to a bunch of five-year olds.)

On an all too black night
You hid from my sight
YES, YOU HID FROM ME
Behind a Frangipani Tree

I weep, I cry, I mourn
BECAUSE I SENSE YOUR SCORN

I am an artist, tortured by my art
I've etched YOU into my heart
And now I bleed all over the grocery cart
But even those stains are art
Because it is MY BLOOD from MY VEINS
running through MY body, subtly, beautifully, like trains

The sentences hang between us
D
R
O
P
P
I
N
G

Off in mid-air
And we can only stare
At...

The End.

Oh, I think he'll be so flattered and proud and... oh, wait a minute! It was How NOT to write a poem.

Oops.

So I guess I ought to scratch poet off my list of possible professions.

My list of possible professions:
Pulitzer Prize winner
Model ('Cause Ford Models only accepts Size 6 and a half to Size 8 for their Plus Size Division. Not even my feet are that small. Oh, and they say you have to not be ghastly to look at. Discriminatory bastards!)
Poet

Back to the previous entry then to find me a job.

Redsaid | 03:18 PM | comment (10) | view »
I don't want to be that slacking slasher your mom's always warned you about
Alphabet Soup

Sorry that I haven't written in a while.

I'm still basking in the glow of receiving an e-mail from a 2005 PULITZER PRIZE WINNER!!!!

Yeah, Connie Schultz and I, we've become thisclose.

WHADOYOUMEAN has she replied to my e-mail yet? Let's not get bogged down by such technicalities, okay? I'm sure we, this blog and I, have been dominating her mind ever since last Saturday.

Besides, I'm sure she's busy.

Walking her dog.

Or giving a speech.

Or writing a column.

Or spending the $10,000 Pulitzer Prize money.

Or out of town.

Or... something.

I'm sure many of you would advise me to stop waiting by the computer, my knuckles white from grasping onto the mouse and clicking on 'Refresh' every five seconds to see if I have a new e-mail. From her.

Some of you might even suggest that I should concentrate on my own writing instead, so that I can maybe win my own Pulitzer Prize one day. Only problem with that suggestion is that, in order to win... or even be ELIGIBLE for a Pulitzer Prize, one actually has to have some talent, you see. And a paying job as a reporter. Or one has to be a published author. Which will require one to be an American citizen. Or at least be a holder of a precious Green Card. And well, we all know that I sadly lack possession of any and all of the above.

You know, all of this has made me think (remarkable that!) about my job prospects and about what to do with my life.

Should I worry that I'm already 30 and don't have it together yet? (Don't bother replying unless your answer is going to be a resounding and reassuring "No, of COURSE you don't have to worry, Red.") I mean, I love the Grandma Moses success story as much as anyone, and although I am quite patient, I really don't want to have to wait quite THAT long to find my destiny.

I can't sell myself. So even if I had wanted to be one (and just so we're clear, I don't), that means even the world's oldest profession is out of the question. I also don't have stamina.

I've always fancied myself to be a bit of a slasher. You know, a slasher? Like so many rich Hollywood types who describe themselves as actors SLASH directors SLASH writers... (But many of them have the wealth and Academy Awards to back up their slasher claims.)

Although, sadly, my type of slashing is probably more similar to those street hustlers you meet who, if you'd ask them what they do for a living (merely to make conversation and NOT to insinuate anything while you fumble for the small change they've just begged from you) would tell you something like: "I guess you can say I'm a musician SLASH beat poet SLASH dancer."

Not to bash those latter types of slashers, but they're just the types that your mom has always warned you about.

And I don't want to be that person your mom has always warned you about.

So, dear readers, what do YOU think I should do for a living?

P.S. And, once you've told me what I should do for a living, I'll use her brilliant cover letter to apply for whatever job it is.


Redsaid | 02:24 PM | comment (6) | view »
May 21, 2005
Not exactly like Thoreau, but...
Alphabet Soup

... I'm getting closer to nature.

Nothing remarkable about that, I suppose, especially since the days are getting longer and sunnier (although the weather of the past few days seem to have missed that "It's Spring!" memo, 'cause it feels more like autumn around here, but never mind) and many people are slowly snapping out of their long indoor winter hibernation.

Except... I'm getting closer to nature without having to set even one foot out of our Baltimore rowhouse!

You see, as I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth yesterday morning and listening to the pleasant staccato of the rain hitting the roof, it was almost as if I could FEEL the rain drops falling on my head.

Just as I was about to marvel at the sudden, mysterious appearance of such a vivid imagination in my very own head, and before I could even begin to think of how useful the possession of such a healthy and rich imagination would be to the likes of me, an aspiring creative type, I felt a few more very cold and very realistic trickling sensations on my scalp.

Immediately suspicious, I tilted my head back and looked up, and "Plop!" - just then a rain drop hit me square in the eye!

Yes, folks... It was raining on my head! While I was in the bathroom! (And no, wise asses, I wasn't anywhere near the shower.)

I've mentioned before that our bathroom has a little tower skylight, right? I assure you, it's nothing fancy - it's a standard ventilation feature in most Baltimore rowhouse bathrooms - but the extra light is very lovely, since the bathroom doesn't have any windows.

Turns out our little skylight, light of our lives (well, in the bathroom at least), has inexplicably sprung a tiny leak. Nothing major, thank goodness, but enough to let some of the elements into the house.

In a way this is a good thing, because as you know, along with our other unique shortcomings eccentricities (like being the only living beings to still use dial-up and not have TiVo), we also don't have cable television. Therefore we have no access to The Weather Channel. So having this eh... rather unique bathroom feature is certainly going to make checking the weather a whole lot easier.

It also reminds me of a garden accessory that used to be all the rage in South Africa a few years ago. It was a sign, usually on a rock, with the following phrases painted on it: "If this rock is wet, it's raining. If this rock is dry, it's sunny. If you can see this rock, it's clear. If you can't see this rock, it's foggy," etc. Since we seem to be getting all these weather conditions in the bathroom, maybe we should paint something similar on our bathroom mirror?

And to think that the author Henry David Thoreau, in order to get a little closer to nature and the elements, abandoned civilization and moved into a rustic self-built cabin at Walden Pond for two years and two months! Rather extreme, if you ask me. Maybe it's better that I'm not a real writer, because they sure are strange, aren't they? And really, if he wanted all the weather he could weather, all he needed to have done instead was to move to this concrete jungle of Baltimore and into our rustic rowhouse with the broken skylight and go and spend some time in the bathroom!

Another quick trip to the bathroom (aren't I just becoming too outdoorsy for words?) has just confirmed that it has stopped raining for the time being. A sudden wind gust is creating a bit of a draft, though, so if you'll excuse me, I'm off to dry my hair!

Redsaid | 10:07 AM | comment (3) | view »
May 15, 2005
Weekend Sports Philosophy
Alphabet Soup

A few nights ago one of my favourite television shows was pre-empted because of a college lacrosse match.

Disbelieving and furious, I simply stared at the television screen for a while.

"Don't these inconsiderate, money-hungry television networks realise that some of us DEPEND on the nightly television line-up in order to know what day of the week it is?" I asked the boy.

Luckily he had the good sense to catch on that this was a rhetorical question, so he just gave me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. I think he was tempted to offer the suggestion that if I didn't like it I could always change the channel, but his years of in the relationship training must've sparked a memory of an earlier lesson, because he wisely remained quiet instead.

And so we continued to stare at the lacrosse game for a little while longer.

It didn't even amuse me as it normally does to see a bunch of people running around whilst swatting at a ball (and, often, at other players) with something resembling a butterfly net fastened to the end of a long stick.

You see, until my arrival here in the States a few years ago, I had never even heard of lacrosse before. And that's rather remarkable, because as you'll recall (or not... the readers of that particular newspaper certainly don't want to remember. It's too traumatic for them!), some time in my youth I actually worked as a sports reporter (which is also remarkable, since I've never been able to grasp why on earth people would physically exert themselves for any reason. Now, with the gazillion dollar salaries some of the pro athletes make here in the States I KIND of get it, but I'd still advise them to rather stay on the couch and marry rich or just learn to require less of life) and during that time I thought I'd covered all the different sports in existence: from archery to zebra racing.

(Have I confused you enough with all of the asides in parentheses? No? Don't despair. This piece isn't over yet!)

Thus we continued to stare at the lacrosse game in silence. (Yes, our lives are just too exciting for words!)

Until I asked the boy: "Is lacrosse a preppy sport?"

"Yes, mostly."

"Why? I mean, the equipment used can't be all that expensive, and if it is, then people are just being ripped off. "

He shrugged, and in that moment I realised two things:

1) Whilst we had been staring at the television screen, the boy had become interested in the outcome of the match; and

2) A possible theory as to why a game like lacrosse appealed to the wealthier set.

I decided to share my logical reasoning with the boy.

"I know why! It's because of the sticks!"

He tore his eyes from the screen just to look at me blankly. Good, now I knew that he was at least pretending to be listening to me.

"Yes! I'm telling you! The sticks! Think about it: Tennis, polo, golf, lacrosse, badminton, squash. What do they all have in common?"

I didn't wait for an answer, because my women's intuition told me that I wasn't going to get one anyway.

"Sticks, balls and rich people. And do you know WHY?"

Another blank look.

"Come on!" I yelled, a little too excitedly. "It's clear as day!"

Another slightly puzzled look from the boy. The look that silently says what he won't ever dare asking out loud: "Woman, WHAT are you going on about?"

Of course, his silence only fuelled my enthusiasm even more, and in a barely contained frenzy, I screamed:


read more »
Redsaid | 09:28 AM | comment (8) | view »
May 05, 2005
Goodbye, Car
Alphabet Soup

It's official: The car is a complete write off, so now, after a brief but intense mourning period, the boy is in the market for a new travelling machine, and he is looking for some suggestions.

The only requirements: NOT an SUV (out of principle), yet something roomy enough for luggage (for when the South African kin comes to visit, you know) and for carting around presentation boards (boy is a creative sort) and - this is purely wishful thinking - room for a large yellow Labrador Retriever and his/her friends.

We want good gas mileage (but most hybrids are out of the question because they are simply not roomy enough), four doors (so nothing sporty, unfortunately)... and yes, that's basically it. Oh, and cup holders. But even the ancient Honda I used to drive had cup holders - and that's saying something, because it didn't even have brakes - so I'm sure cup holders are standard issue, nowadays.

Until its sad demise during an encounter with a tractor-trailer last Thursday night, boy used to drive a Camry. It was an older model (there was enough room in the trunk to stuff a couple of bodies, a feature that is sadly lacking in the modern Camrys), but it served us well.

During my days as a nanny, I sometimes borrowed the Camry from the boy to cart my youngest charge around the neighbourhood.

On one such excursion, we made up a little rhyme about the car. Allow me to post it here as a sort of obituary. Oh, and please forgive the poetic license we took concerning grammar.

I are the car
The car I are
I will take you places
Both near and far
I will take you to your school
I will take you to the pool
We will go around the bend
And I will take you to your friend
I will take you to the track
I will even bring you back
I will take you to the store
And wait for you outside the door
And thus we will roam
But we'll always come home
For I are the car
The car I are

Touching, isn't it?

Rest in pieces, car.

Okay, since I don't want to leave you on such a sad note - and without entirely veering from this slightly macabre tone - here's a horrible, distasteful and just plain bad joke in honour of Cinco de Mayo. (Hint: Ought to be a bit funnier when inebriated, so read only after consumption of couple of tequilas.)

Juan and his amigo Raul are fishing at the Rio Grande.

While they're waiting for the fish to bite, Juan listens patiently as Raul complains about his wife Maria's fragile nerves.

Suddenly they see an object floating downstream.

"Hey, Raul! Look! That thing! It looks like a human arm!"

"Impossible," Raul says.

But, as it drifts closer to them, he realizes that, by George, it IS a human arm!

They watch it float by, silently pondering the significance of a human arm, detached from any human, floating down the Rio Grande.

They quietly stare at it until it disappears around the river bend. When it's gone from view, Raul launches right back into his laments about his wife's jumpy disposition.

It's not long before Juan interrupts him again. "Look, Raul! A leg!"

And whadoyouknow? Sure as daylight, a human leg is floating by, right in front of their eyes.

Again, they stare at it in silence, until it disappears from sight.

This time, however, before Raul can continue his story about Maria's nerves, they see another arm, another leg, a torso and a head coming down the river. This time they both blink a bit, just to make sure that it's not the heat that's gone straight to their heads.

"Raul, isn't that Maria's face on that head again?"

Raul groans, and then he yells: "Hey, Maria, pull yourself together, woman!"

The End.

(Don't complain to me! You were warned, beforehand!)

P.S. Please don't forget to leave your car suggestions in the comments.

Redsaid | 05:25 PM | comment (4) | view »
April 21, 2005
Hope - and I have the Catholics to thank for it!
Alphabet Soup

When the holy smokestack finally coughed up a new Pope on Tuesday ("Holy Smoke! There's new Pope!" is what I chanted out loud, repeatedly, for the rest of that day... much to the boy's annoyance), it gave me hope.

No, I'm not Catholic, so it didn't give me that "we have a new leader" sort of hope. My motives, as per usual, were and are far more selfish and secular. But no, not because I wagered a bet on who the new Pope was going to be, and proceeded to win that bet. Even if I had placed a bet, my money would not have been on Ratzinger anyway. I would've backed the guy from Nigeria. You know, African loyalty and all that.

That said, my newfound hope DOES stem from Ratzinger's election. You see, as soon as I heard that he managed to get himself a new and very important gig two weeks after his 77th birthday, my own hopes dared to soar a bit. So much so, that I promptly went outside to pull my ambition and my dreams from the gutter, where it's been buried under piles of leaves and mud since my thirtieth birthday last year.

As all (three) of you know, I've been searching for gainful (is there any other kind? If so, please let me know immediately!) employment since... well, since before I began writing on this blog last year. My quest for employment (or destiny, as I prefer to call it, because "work" sounds very unappealing and tedious) has not been successful.

Perhaps I've been too forthcoming about my lack of marketable skills (or my lack of a Pink Card, but that's another story), or my laziness, or my procrastination, or the fact that my ability to communicate in English (or my version thereof) vanishes between 8 in the morning and noon. (Yes, Natalie, I really am NOT a morning person!)

(Or is it my fondness of parentheses?)

Or perhaps nobody in the greater Washington, D.C. - Baltimore metropolitan area really is hiring right now, and isn't planning to hire anyone in the next few years either.

Whatever the reasons, I still don't have a job, and so I've been losing hope, thinking that maybe thirty really IS too old to still want to be an ingenue and a wunderkind.

But not anymore! If the Catholics can be as indiscriminate (except when it comes to gays, abortion, ordaining women, birth control, etc... but hey, at least there's no age discrimination!) as to hire someone who is 77 to be their equivalent of a corporate CEO, complete with perks like the Papal apartment (it has a BALCONY, with a stunning view), a fully stocked wardrobe (with all those hats!) the Swiss bodyguards, the various Pope mobiles and drivers, and world travel without a passport, then really, someone will surely find it in his/her generous wallet... I mean, HEART!... to put 30-year old me on their pay-roll. ('Cause really, even though it says 1974 on my birth certicate, I assure you that my maturity level can easily compete with that of any two-year old!)

So, danke, Your Holiness Benedict XVI, for making me feel positively wet behind the ears again! Good luck with your new destiny, and thanks for giving me hope that I'll have one of my own some day.

Redsaid | 02:31 AM | comment (11) | view »
March 16, 2005
RE(D)PRESENT!
Alphabet Soup

I've finally descended from yesterday's little (what can I say? I'm understated!) sugar high, so now I have to resort to natural highs again, like the ones I derive from good ol'e fashioned caffeine via espresso IV's.

But today I received such great news that even the IV can wait a bit longer.

Remember how I was miraculously nominated in a few categories for the first ever South African Blog Awards? Remember how I so shamelessly hit you all up for votes?

No, my good news is not that I've won. The winners are yet to be announced, but unless you voted your little fingers off every day for a week I don't stand much of a chance anyway!

The big day is tomorrow. Ceremonies will be held in South Africa at venues in Cape Town and Johannesburg. But really, the awards are just an excuse to party. NOT that South Africans EVER need an excuse to party, mind you...

Since I'm a bit too far from those venues to attend, I jokingly asked whether I could send delegates on my behalf.

So in a very formal letter (in the form of a comment on his blog) I wrote: "May I please send delegates on my behalf? I have three sisters, two in Johannesburg and one near Cape Town. They are all hot."

I quickly received the following formal reply: "Hot sisters are always welcome!"

I forwarded all the information to the hot sisters in question and whaddayaknow? One very hot sister will be in attendance in Johannesburg tomorrow night!

So if you're in the area, and you want to meet one hot sister and a lot of other South African bloggers (yes, there are even MORE OF US out there!), be there tomorrow night at 7 PM (South African time), 11 AM (EST).

Disclaimer: The fact that I have three hot sisters does not, alas, mean that I am hot.

Yeah, unfortunately I'm like, NOT hot.

Why do I suddenly feel like Paris Hilton?

Redsaid | 12:50 PM | comment (4) | view »
March 15, 2005
The acronym CHOCOLAT means addiction
Alphabet Soup

HELLO EVERYBODY!!!! YES, I REALISE I'VE NOT BEEN A GOOD BLOGGER LATELY, BUT I'VE BEEN OTHERWISE OCCUP...

WHATDOYOUMEAN 'STOP SCREAMING?'

I NEVER SCREAM!! YOU HEAR ME?! I SAY I NEVEE... oh.

Oops!

Sorry.

Please forgive me? I guess all the sugar has finally kicked in.

"What sugar?" you ask, not without some undeniable suspicion in your tone. (Yeah, lots of sugar also make me very sensitive to other people's feelings and tones, which is why I need to consume chocolate daily and in large quantities.)

So let me tell you what sugar.

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Redsaid | 03:44 AM | comment (9) | view »
March 11, 2005
The Friday G-Mail Give-Away
Alphabet Soup

Is there anyone in this universe who doesn't have in his/her possession a G-Mail account yet?

I have a bunch to give away, but just to be funny (oh, I'm sooooo funny it isn't even funny how funny I am!) and even more annoying than I usually am, I'm going to make you all work for it a little bit.

So, please proceed to jump through fiery hoops.

Okay. I agree. Forget about the danger, that just sounds like way too much hard work.

Fine, so if you really, REALLY want a G-Mail account without having to get up from your chair, I'll give you one. The only thing I ask for in return is that you tell us all a joke in the comments.

This shouldn't be difficult. You're already much funnier than I am anyway! And just for today, I'll humour you and let you get away with being funnier than me. But it's the last time... THE LAST TIME, I tell you!


Redsaid | 12:32 AM | comment (12) | view »
March 07, 2005
Two Bloggers with One Stone
Alphabet Soup

Not all female bloggers are 'real-life' scary like I am!

I gained this rather depressing insight on Saturday night, when a certain Bad Kitty finally strutted into town after several noble-but-unsuccessful attempts to do so earlier last week (Damn this Maryland Transportation Authority and all their confusingly criss-crossing train tracks leading to all sorts of obscure places, except to those places where you really want to go!) and thus my cover's been blown.

Luckily she's been sworn to secrecy. If she dares to disregard her life-long gag order, the catnapping of the century will take place at her home in Michigan.

Anyway, the girl is GORGEOUS! And SKINNY! And COOL! And FUNNY!

And she was sweet enough not to recoil in horror the moment she met me.

Now I can FINALLY say that I've met another blogger!

But I've made up for lost time, because Stacy immediately introduced me to another cool, gorgeous, smart and funny blogging chick. And she's from right here in Baltimoremoremore!

Oh, it was a lovely night, this meeting of the bloggers.

There were bears, and beers, and bearsandbeers, and talking (also, briefly, on the cell phone, to her) and laughing (LOTS of laughing!) and cigar smoking.

There was a car trip, a misunderstanding, an ID check (we were carded! No, let me rephrase that: I also managed to get carded, despite being next to Miss Fountain of Youth herself! (Yes, she really is THAT gorgeous!) I never thought I'd see the day/night again, so whoo-hooooooooo! And yes, I've just realized that my excitement about being carded is yet another pitiful and sure sign that I'm getting really old).

Then there were even more introductions and at least two more realizations that the world's population might not be quite as large as we've been led to believe. I refuse to say that it's a small world, because if you've ever found yourself on a trans-Atlantic flight, then you KNOW that the world isn't small. In fact, then you know that the world is really quite, quite large.

Anyway, it was fantastic to meet and/or talk to all of you.

May we all have a speedy reunion!

P.S. Oh, and the cherry on top of all of this is that I came home to discover a voice message from my very own blogging benefactress! Thanks, Em! I'm sorry I missed your call.

Redsaid | 06:17 AM | comment (7) | view »
March 04, 2005
I love the java juice and it loves me: Ode to coffee
Alphabet Soup

I don't think you Americans have ever quite recovered from the Boston Party, that rebellious 18th Century act during which members of the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships in Boston Harbour and, in protest of the British tax policies, threw 9,659 Pounds Sterling worth Darjeeling tea into the sea (which is probably what sparked the recipe for the blasphemous dunking of tea bags in later years).

Because if there is ONE thing Americans can't do very well - and most of them will readily admit to it too - it's making hot tea.

Those of us who grew up in former, more recent British colonies, are used to everything from tea cozies, teapots (which are also foreign concepts in most parts of America. After a desperate search, I finally managed to buy a real teapot at Ikea, a Swedish home store), preheated cups, milk and sugar.

At best, most Americans dunk a teabag in a mug (forget about dainty cups and saucers), pour hot-but-not-necessarily-boiled water over it and voila! Tea a la America!

It's enough to cause the Queen to abdicate.

If you REALLY want to throw an American waitress off course, be daring and ask for hot tea with milk. They don't seem to be able to quite grasp the concept.

But don't despair! All is not lost on the hot beverage front in the States.

Enter that delightful (if slightly potent) brew called to save the American day and people like me, who can be accurately summed up by the following witty slogan nabbed from a mug: "Instant Human. Just Add Coffee."

Let it be said early on that I'm not exactly what you'd call a coffee connoisseur. Sure, I would like to THINK that I am, but the fact that I even like airport and airline coffee would be a dead giveaway to my indiscriminate nature (and desperation. But never mind that now).

But oh, I DO love my coffee! In fact, the only time I ever venture into the coffee maker's private quarters (that room, which in other people's homes is better known as the 'Kitchen') is when I make (or try to make) myself a pot o' coffee.

My friends know that they can serve me almost anything, as long as you can't see through it. Oh, and it should at least smell like coffee. For: "No coffee can be good in the mouth that does not first send a sweet offering of odour to the nostrils." - Henry Ward Beecher.

With milk and sugar, please. Because my coffee should be like my favourite kind of guy: strong, but also very, very sweet.

Back to America, where coffeehouses like Starbucks have become all the rage (there is possibly one on every block in Washington D.C., and I do believe it's just a matter of time before they start to build more Starbucks shops in the parking lots of existing Starbucks shops).

For those of you who aren't familiar with Starbucks (ye poor deprived and sleepy fools!), they serve up the Java Juice in every possible flavour, size and form you can think of: from frothy cappuccinos, lattés, mochas and Au Laits, to jolting little espressos that will keep you awake until NEXT Thursday.

But honestly, as much as I love the coffee shops and cafés, you need a complimentary cup of coffee just to be able to navigate your way through the exasperating array of decisions to be made: choice of size (which in Starbucks is written in Italian. I've since come to realize that it's a clever ploy to make more money, because most people - okay, me - are only able to pronounce Grande, so that's what I they end up ordering), choice of coffee, flavour, milk (the choices of milk alone take up an entire aisle at the supermarket), method of sweetening... I think one deserves another complimentary cup after successfully managing one's way through that tongue-twisting and thirst-inducing list.

Simply writing about it has worn me out. Think I'll go and have a cup o' wake-up while I leave you with some quotes in defense and defiance of the brew.

read more »
Redsaid | 06:44 AM | comment (10) | view »
February 21, 2005
Moonlight Sonata
Alphabet Soup

I thought that, because I type relatively fast, my fingers would be nimble enough to play the piano.

Forget the fact that I'm completely tone-deaf. (Besides, isn't that a bit of an oxymoron and an unfair term? How are you supposed to know you can't carry a tune if you are tone-DEAF?!?) I had no reason to doubt my (in)abilities. After all, I type very well to the beat of anything from Miles Davis' "Round About Midnight" (forever blaring while I'm writing), to U2, to Rachmaninov's third.

Blame my typing lecturer. I went to one of those practical-training-is-far-more-important-than-volumes-of-theory kinds of colleges. (That was a big incentive for choosing it.) So, in the journalism department during our first semester, we learned one of the most helpful and useful skills to have when venturing out into the headlines and deadlines world of journalism: how to type.

Said lecturer was a rather robust lady. I think her secret fantasy was always to be a Major General in the South African Army. Unfortunately she was born just two decades too early for her advanced ambitions. She matriculated during those days when it was expected of girls to get married and to:
a) have as many babies as they could as soon as possible;
b) become career typists;
or, if they were very forward and insisted on furthering their education: c) go to college and become either a nurse or a teacher.

She must've been VERY stubborn, because she combined two of the above by becoming a typing teacher - who behaved more like a frustrated drill sergeant, mind you. By the time we crossed her career path, she had her teaching method down to a no-nonsense art.

She believed that the only way to teach a bunch of lazy, bored first year students the sequence of the letters on the keyboard, was to combine death threats with a cloth over the hands and the keyboards, pop Rossini's William Tell Overture into the radio, order us to type ASDF JKL'N (according to Afrikaans keyboards) over and over and keep up with the beat of the music.

Thanks to her threatening yet effective methods and the Tell Overture, all fifty students passed Typing 101 with flying colours, a 60+ wpm average AND the ability to type in perfect sync to the rhythm of any kind of music.

Unfortunately, that rhythmic connection between brain and fingers reserved for banging out letters on a keyboard is the only remote rhythmic talent I've been blessed with (as those of you who have been following this blog religiously --don't dare laugh! We all have our fantasies -- would know from reading about my near disastrous encounter with an Arthur Murray Dance School instructor).

Sadly, inability and lack of talent has never stopped me from at least trying something.

One night, plagued with insomnia and haunted by the boy's dusty piano in the basement, I ventured downstairs.

Minutes later, my fingers were stumbling over the keys. Hardly lyrical sounds emerged, but I'm tone deaf remember? So I was blissfully unaware of the cacophonic dissonance. As the minutes ticked by, I got braver and started fumbling with the flats and sharps.

Safely disguised from prying eyes (and not considering neighbouring ears), I got lost in a world in which I became a virtuoso performer with talent matching the likes of Alicia Keys, Elton John, Billy Joel and Diana Krall.

With the help of Piano for Dummies (great book, by the way) and loads of imagination, I managed a few chords. I had a fabulous time confusing fortissimo with pianissimo (not on purpose, I'm afraid). Prematurely, I attempted an ambitious jazz riff, and the Dummies book came crashing down onto my hands.

With my ego nearly as crushed as my fingers, I decided to take a break for a midnight cappuccino - seemingly the only Italian word I understand without any difficulty.

It's now been a few months since my nightly rendezvous with the instrument began. Unfortunately for the neighbours, I still haven't given up on trying to master at least one sweet melody.

Believe it or not, but there is some method in my madness: I want to prove that it's never too late to teach an old aging dog a new trick, or at least a new tune.

And although the dexterity my fingers so deftly display as I'm typing this hasn't yet emerged during my piano playing attempts, I genuinely enjoy myself when I'm down in that basement, tickling the keys in my own awkward way.

Strangely enough, but whenever I'm hunched over that piano - behaving like a very badly cloned Liberace (sans sequence and glitter) and hardly able to repeat two notes in a row - it makes me feel a little bit more in tune with myself. Isn't that what matters the most?

So perhaps then I've succeeded after all.


Redsaid | 03:01 AM | comment (0) | view »
February 14, 2005
The Risky Business of Risk-Taking - Not starring Tom Cruise
Alphabet Soup

(The following is a Blogging for Books entry, a monthly contest hosted by the Zero Boss. Yes, indeed, I've entered yet another contest. This is what you get when it's cold outside and I have to type furiously in order to stay warm! He has a very cool "Blogging for Books" button, but unfortunately I'm not savvy enough to post it here. Anyway, the task was to "write a blog entry about a time when you took a risk in your life on someone or something - a new romance, a new career, a new home, etc. Were you successful beyond your wildest dreams - or did you crash and burn?")

I’ve never been much of a risk taker. Most of the time, in fact, I’m overly cautious to the point of paralysis.

Because let’s face it, taking risks are, well, risky. And according to My First English-as-a-Second-Language Dictionary, the synonym for risk is DANGER! Yes, in all-caps like that, and in red, and with an exclamation point! And whether it's written in all-caps or not, DANGER! is just plain scary, isn’t it? Especially if you’re of a rather nervous disposition like I am.

But even if I hadn’t been frightened of DANGER!, risk-taking still wouldn’t appeal to me very much, because frankly it just sounds like way too much hard work. And if there is ONE thing in life that frightens the living daylights out of me far more than DANGER!, it is hard work.

And yet…

We all have to get out of bed (some of us a bit more reluctantly than others) and leave the house once in a while. And when you accumulate enough days like that, you are bound to encounter risk.

Sometimes it is well-disguised in a cloak of colourful, foolish, youthful fun; like lying to your parents so that you can have a week-long, unsupervised vacation on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius with your best friend when you are 18 years old.

But beware, for just because it’s dressed in a frivolous costume, it is no less DANGER!ous.

But you needn’t only take my word for it. Remember what Shakespeare said? “A rose is still a rose, even when dressedeth in another cloaketh.”

Oh, wait. That wasn’t quite it. But you get the drifteth.

At other times risk is a bit more obvious; like a fork in the road marked by billboard-sized signs with flashing lights around the edges, clearly showing which side of the road will lead you to DANGER! UNKNOWN PATH TO RISK! NO U-TURN AHEAD!; or SAFETY! ONE-WAY SHORTCUT STRAIGHT TO YOUR OWN FAMILIAR, WARM, COMFORTABLE, WELL-BROKEN IN BED! (In the same font and red, all-caps, and bold print as the other sign, in case you feel like getting argumentative some time in the future - like, say, after you’d fallen flat on your face – and claiming that the words on the sign weren’t legible enough.)

But then, I’ve never been any good with directions, even if the roads are marked with large, clear signs.

Knowing me, I probably thought the split in the road was nothing but a very sharp corner. I’ve never been all that good at math either, so I probably didn’t even realize that I suddenly had more than one winding road to choose from.

Yes, that must’ve been it, because at the age of twenty-two I certainly wasn’t brave or ambitious enough to leave my friends and family in South Africa and immigrate to the United States all by myself.

But I did.

Before you allow yourself to become really impressed with me and award me a Purple Heart* for tremendous displays of risk-taking, there are a few things you should know:

I’m truly the poster child** for how NOT to immigrate.

You see, when I came to the U.S. eight years ago, I discovered that I suddenly had an accent for the first time in my life (because in South Africa I sound like everyone else. Well, mostly. South Africa has eleven official languages, so there are some differences in the way people speak… but that’s a story for another time), and when said accent proved to be quite useful on the dating scene, I promptly decided that I wanted to stay here forever and ever.

So I did. And for a while I became an outlawed alien (“illegal immigrant” is SUCH a harsh term, no?). However, I have since redeemed myself by paying large fines and now I’m in the thrilling but time-consuming (four years and counting), soul-sucking process of filing for a Green Card, which, incidentally, is pink.

And well, here I still am! A bit older and a lot worse for wear, but I’m alive and most days, I’m hopeful that this path I’m on is the correct one, even though it sometimes meanders through long stretches of darkness. The toll on this road is incredibly high, and I often wonder if the price I’m paying (and others are paying on my behalf) is worth it.

The distance between here and South Africa is vast, to say the least, and so I don’t get to see my family all that often. (In fact, I haven’t gone home once since arriving here eight years and three months ago, but they visit me whenever they’re able to.) Needless to say, I miss them more than words can say. And even if there WERE words adequate enough to describe the longing, the heartbreak, and the guilt one feels when missing out on huge chunks of a loved one’s life, I’m pretty sure that I do not have it in my vocabulary.

I’ve certainly stumbled a lot along the way. Sometimes I’m optimistic enough to believe that I’ve fallen just far enough to have grazed the tip of my nose.

Other times I think: “Who are you kidding? You’ve fallen flat on your face. Just admit it, then get up, dust yourself off and try to move on.”

So in reality, this story doesn’t have an outcome yet.

For now, I’m staying on this road, because I’ve come too far to simply turn back now.

Besides, I’m very curious to see where I’ll end up if I keep on going.


* If you do want to give me a prize, could you please give me the Pulitzer instead of a Purple Heart? (No offense to the Purple Heart, of course.) No? Well, how about letting me win a book from Jay then?

** I'd certainly like to be a poster child - I'm definitely childish enough to qualify - but my mug really shouldn't be photographed, let alone enlarged, printed and stuck against the walls at the subway station!

Redsaid | 03:00 AM | comment (5) | view »
February 09, 2005
So yeah, we know it can get you fired, but can it get you hired?
Alphabet Soup

Okay, so people getting fired over their blogs are SO last night's ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings already.

What I'm far more interested in knowing is this: has starting a blog ever helped someone to actually land a gig? I know someone who started a blog for the sole purpose of getting a job. I think it worked for him, because right now he is dragging his pretentious book cover a few miles across Australia to start a new job. But he doesn't really count (sorry, Timmy T.) because he is really not human at all (as will be evident soon enough if you start reading his blog), but a chocolate cake of quite loathsome proportions.

Speaking of chocolate cakes... if you know of someone who did indeed manage to acquire gainful employment via their blogs, how much blogging did it take before the prospective employers came running, five tiered chocolate cake in one hand... oh, sorry. Wrong fantasy.

Let's try again.

So how long did it take for the prospective employers to come running, multi-million dollar, ink-still-wet-on-it contract in one hand and key to the luxury company car dangling from the fingers of the other hand, begging you to please enhance their humble little gazillion dollar company with your suspected glorious wit and wisdom ("suspected" because it's never actually been seen on your blog), your excellent typing skills of three words per five minutes (because they realise that it's your quirky but PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE, even ENCOURAGED affection for parentheses and asterisks and inappropriate insertion of exclamation points that could be slowing you down just a tiny bit) and your "disleksick" Kr8tiViteeeeEeeeeEe shining through in your perfect spellling and bad grammar (but they understand because Eengleesh is your second langweeeege) and constant procrastination.

What? What do you mean? NO OF COURSE THAT DID NOT DESCRIBE ME. What on earth in that above paragraph could possibly have incriminated me!?!?

Besides, I have an alibi. I was with a dog. (And he is willing to testify to that effect.)

Anyway, where were we?

Oh yeah. A job. Yes, that is something I would like very much. Well, truthfully, I prefer lying on the couch, but I have urgent life sustaining needs (like my need for three gallons of coffee per day) and my how-to book collection is seriously lacking.

Also, you can't get fired for your blog if you don't have a job to be fired from first. (See my logic? How can any employer resist such reasoning?)

So employers, here I am! And here's a copy of my resumé. It's a little bit outdated, but I've heard that it's against the law to discriminate just because you think something might be a bit old. (And I know a LOT about American law, especially since I'm a bit of an outlaw myself and all.)


Redsaid | 07:47 PM | comment (9) | view »
January 31, 2005
Brace Yerselves: She's Red Again
Alphabet Soup

Hope you enjoyed the break from me, because I'm back to once again torture you with my verbosity, to assault your senses with my bad tenses and yes, let's not forget my gross overindulgence in parentheses and exclamation points. (Why wait? Let's start immediately!!!! My frozen fingers need the exercise!)

Seriously though... sorry if I worried you! I'm really okay now. I just needed a bit of time away. Thank you for your patience during this time and for all the concerned and witty comments and the private e-mails to check if I'm still alive. Yes, alas, there is life in me yet. But is it intelligent life? (Don't answer that unless it's a resounding YES!)

I might eventually go into more details about why I had the blues, but for now I'll just say that it has a LOT to do with my life (or lack of) as an outlawed alien and for the fact that my AV (Alien Vessel. Yes, it's sounds almost like RV because it bears an uncanny resemblance to a flying Winnebago) has been in the same holding pattern for a very long time now.

On the upside: Apparently I couldn't have picked a better time for my bout of depression. I'm sure a lot of you heard about the British shrink who declared that last Monday (the 24th) was the worst Monday of the year.

In case you didn't know that last Monday was supposed to be the worst Monday of the year and you wish to believe that TODAY is the worst Monday of the year, I can only say that you need to take it up with Dr. Cliff Arnalls himself. Besides, he cited concrete evidence like self-loathing due to derailed New Year's resolutions, fading Christmas memories, debt, foul weather and the lack of coffee and a canine companion. (Okay, not really the last two. I just wanted to see whether the boy is paying attention to my not so subtle hints.) He even wrote a formula for his calculated Day of Misery: 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.

Just change the 3/8 into 2/4 and the D-d into an R-r and accept it as my doctor's note for why I was absent for so long.

(Oh, and don't forget to put the whole thing in parenthesis.)

Redsaid | 03:30 PM | comment (9) | view »
January 19, 2005
Red is Blue
Alphabet Soup

Red has been quiet
Because Red has been blue
And she doesn't want
To depress you too

Redsaid | 04:32 AM | comment (20) | view »
January 07, 2005
It's Friday!
Alphabet Soup

And aren't you glad?

Because I have absolutely NOTHING to say!

Redsaid | 05:42 PM | comment (2) | view »
January 06, 2005
Become a PRO-Crastinator! Join later!
Alphabet Soup

A few years ago a friend gave me a t-shirt containing a slogan that accurately sums up the state of my life: "God placed us on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I'm so far behind, I will never die."

I don't have the t-shirt anymore, but I still haven't caught up on the "things" (whatever it may be) that I need to accomplish.

Legend has it that I was born two weeks early, thus robbing my parents of precious personal time (despite the presence of my three older sisters, but according to them, they were fiercely independent from the second they gasped their first breaths).

In retrospect, I'm sure that is where things started going awry. I'm adamant that those fourteen days extra of resting cozily in the womb would have been crucial to my development. The result of my premature arrival was the delivery of a very lethargic child who, right off the bat, decided to compensate for lost snooze time by postponing all activities that would be remotely strenuous - which pretty much includes everything that involves being awake.

It turned me into a masterful procrastinator. In fact, I even have the ability to procrastinate procrastination itself!

If I get around to it, I will tell you how I manage to do that. See you next week!

Just kidding…

Seriously though, how do I get anything done, ever?

Last minute. In the nick of time. And the completion of a task is always nothing short of miraculous.

Procrastinators thrive on deadline. Which is our main excuse for putting things off. We love the adrenaline rush that comes with the territory. And just because it's a tad safer than bungee jumping or skydiving doesn't mean that we are lesser adrenaline junkies than those who literally put their lives on a line!

During my days as a reporter (yes, alas: long ago, during the more productive time of my mostly misspent youth, I was actually a Professional. I'm not quite sure what kind of Professional I was, exactly, but I was a Professional!), I used to love that panic-stricken look - which almost borders on raw madness - in the eyes of a desperate editor, mere minutes before a due deadline. And then there was the admiration of colleagues and the astonishment and relief of the same editor moments later when the completed copy was delivered.

According to an unidentified source, procrastination has quite a lengthy history of which a large part remains unrecorded. Well, that's a shocker! Of COURSE it remained unrecorded! The fact that someone back in the 17th Century never got around to sitting down to wax lyrical about procrastination is enough proof that it existed.

Anyway, it's been around long enough for Samuel Johnson to write an entire essay about it. Ironically enough, the inspiration came to him along with a messenger boy who had arrived to pick up a piece of writing due for publication. Rumour has it that our good Mr. Johnson, who had nothing to give the boy, shut himself in his study where he momentarily came up with his famous procrastination essay. Whenever I read it, I love to imagine ink flying from the inkwell as he frantically dipped his quill into it. I'd hate to think that he eased through it without even breaking a sweat.

I have also read somewhere that perfectionists tend to procrastinate because they can't bear doing something half-heartedly, therefore they'd rather not do it at all. That is by far my favourite (and perfectly valid) excuse.

But trust Americans to not merely let us procrastinators be. Here they have support groups (complete with a twelve-step program and bad coffee) to help you break the off-putting habit of putting things off. I think it's rather ambitious of them, because I can't imagine anyone showing up on time for the meetings!

In my ideal world, I would have a PRO-Castinator (as opposed to ANTI-) support group where the motto will be: "Why do those things today that you can put off until tomorrow?"

Besides, as a born and bred South African, I also have the unique (but valid!) excuse of still operating on "African Time", that mysterious but fabulous time zone where tomorrow is always another day. As PRO-Castinators, our only aspiration has to be to live up to the following wisdom from Don Marquis: "Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."

So if anyone's looking for me, I'll be on the couch, pondering yesterday, when I was also on the couch.

Redsaid | 04:21 AM | comment (11) | view »
January 03, 2005
If you love me you'll send me hate mail
Alphabet Soup

Dear Phantom Readers,

Okay, so three of you are real (or spambots freakishly good at creative writing), because you comment regularly and say nice things to me and pretend to like what I write. (See why I suspect that you are not real?)

Thing is, I've been reading a lot of other blogs and online journals, and every once in a while, the authors of some of those sites disable their comments because of hate mail.

Now, don't get me wrong: I love the fact that the three comments I receive on a regular basis are always nice and funny and sunny and fill me up with fuzzy, uplifting feelings and build up my self-esteem.

But I have to admit that I'm a little bit jealous of those lucky recipients of hate mail.

I see it like this: If people take the time out to comment on your site (whether it be fluffy, fuzzy nice comments, funny comments or even hateful comments), they obviously care enough about your writing to take the trouble to leave you a few words.

Even if those words can't be repeated in polite company.

See my point?

So, this year, I want to be like those very popular recipients of hate mail.

Please help me make my dream come true! I am the perfect candidate for hate mail: I'm a pale, freckly redheaded immigrant (so if you're a Xenophobe or simply anti-immigration... what are you waiting for? Don't even finish reading this, just go straight to the comments and go for it!) and my posts are often times so lame that I really have no business of having a blog in the first place. I'm also clumsy, "dislecksick", lazy and I procrastinate. (And I grossly overuse parentheses.)

Go ahead, give it your best shot. (Please?)

Love,
Me.

P.S. Happy New Year to you all!

P.P.S. I didn't mean that! I didn't mean to be nice, so I take that back. Now, insult me!

(Please?)


Redsaid | 06:08 PM | comment (14) | view »
December 27, 2004
Not exactly Mister Rogers' Neighbourhood Watch (Or: In a former life I must've been a criminal)
Alphabet Soup

The back of our house looks down the length of an alley way. (Yes, we also don't know what the neighbourhood planners were thinking.)

Last night at about 11, a police helicopter started buzzing over this part of the neighbourhood. They were flying really low, causing all the windows to rattle and my cheeks to wobble, and they were shining their search light up and down the alley and into all of our yards.

Being naturally nosy interested to learn more about my surroundings, I peered out the window to see if I could possibly spot something that the police with their gigantic probing search light might miss. Awfully considerate and helpful of me, wasn't it?

I performed this selfless civic duty until police cars and vans started slowly coming up the alley which, as I've already told you, leads directly towards our house.

Suddenly I was gripped by an irrational but overwhelming fear, and I thought to myself: "Red, you're toast. They've finally found you!"

I wasn't exactly sure what I had done that would cause such a massive police search, but I felt really guilty about whatever it could've been.

So I drew the shades and turned off the lights and performed my final act of bravery for the evening:

read more »
Redsaid | 05:35 PM | comment (4) | view »
December 16, 2004
Cures for Ears
Alphabet Soup

Here's some unsound medical advice.

I received it from a friend who isn't a doctor (which is where I usually turn for medical advice, but only after exhausting my other resource for health and well-being from index to glossary: the Time/Life A - Z Medical Encyclopedia) so you may want to take out a life insurance policy before you try it.

With so much serious authority in his tone, he must've been telling the truth, he told me the following:

read more »
Redsaid | 11:35 AM | comment (8) | view »
December 05, 2004
Question of the Day... and speak up, child, for I can't hear you!
Alphabet Soup

After experiencing a strange type of popping sound in my right ear for the past few weeks (and not just whenever I shake my head anymore) and dealing with it in the same way I deal with all my problems (in other words: ignoring it), I woke up with a tremendous ear ache yesterday.

So yes, it's probably an ear infection. At least that's the diagnosis issued by my personal physician, the Time/Life A - Z Medical Encyclopedia. And who am I to argue with such authority?

However, one very important question not answered by that otherwise all-knowing publication, is this:

read more »
Redsaid | 06:43 PM | comment (11) | view »
December 01, 2004
Camera Obscura
Alphabet Soup

Something always goes terribly wrong between those loaded moments of aiming and shooting.

Subjects are barely captured before they're ruthlessly beheaded, or their limbs abruptly but painfully severed...

It's not a pretty picture.

read more »
Redsaid | 02:55 AM | comment (7) | view »
November 15, 2004
How dost thou slow dance when 'tis an Internet Romance?
Alphabet Soup

Fear not the title of this post, dear reader, for it's by NO means an indication that I've crossed over into the delicate world of poetry or any other legitimate form of literature! (Well, I'll admit to drunkenly penning the occasional limerick, but I'm afraid my metre is off-beat and my rhyme sucks like a baby on a teat. See?)

Nor have I decided to seek my fortune by attempting to write bodice-ripper romances.

So rest assured, for you'll still get the same ill-composed, whiny, long-winded posts as the ones you've grown to despise, but come to expect from me.

So why then all this feverish talk of romance when it's not even anywhere near February?

Because - and I warn you: swallow your drinks now, before you read on - a friend has asked me to write MY opinions on that phenomenon which is Internet Romance.

"Why HER, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA?" I barely manage to make out the inevitable question through shrieks of your hysterical laughter.


read more »
Redsaid | 03:59 PM | comment (12) | view »
November 14, 2004
Under Attack
Alphabet Soup

Oh, fortheloveofallthatispureinthisworld!

My e-mail account is still possessed.

And I'm afraid conditions are worsening by the second...

read more »
Redsaid | 05:38 AM | comment (6) | view »
November 12, 2004
Elusive Inbox: 1.
Alphabet Soup

So you all know that I'm mildly (okay, ha ha ha, WHO ARE WE KIDDING?) techno challenged.

I've been known to release thousands of deadly viruses into the universe by merely sending an innocent e-mail. (That is, when I manage to successfully log on to the computer in the first place.)

But this is something that not even I have encountered ever before.


read more »
Redsaid | 08:42 PM | comment (5) | view »
November 11, 2004
Fly Revival 101
Alphabet Soup

Darlings, I'll tell you exactly how the fly revival works, but you need to pay very close attention because it's a highly complex, scientific process:

read more »
Redsaid | 04:15 AM | comment (2) | view »
November 03, 2004
In an attempt to find a bright side, hold it directly under the sun
Alphabet Soup

To all heart-broken Kerry fans, I, your humble servant in blogging, Redsaid the First, and, so far, the only... Unless someone somewhere has, for obscure reasons which are beyond me, taken the time and trouble to copy this blog (it's been known to happen, after all) and its contents, perhaps even translating it into another language.

And if someone did, then all I can say is: "I really hope you took only the best parts to translate."

To which they might say, in their language of course, but the surprise in their voice will be universally understood: "Best parts? There were best parts to take?"

At which time I'd ignore them and simply say: "Why me?" But not in a whiny, oh woe, why hast this befallen me kind of way; more in a genuinely perplexed way, like this: "No really, why me when there are so many greatly eloquent bloggers out there?"

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, so me, Redsaid the blah blah blah... oh, there we are: Kerry supporters, I feel that it is my duty to at least try and cheer you up today.

Thusly, let's consider this:

read more »
Redsaid | 12:54 PM | comment (10) | view »
November 01, 2004
Red, White and Blue II
Alphabet Soup

Dear United States of America,

Remember me? Red from Redsaid in Baltimore, Maryland?

I last wrote to you on the 4th of July 2004, but since I haven't heard back from you yet, I've decided to try again. This time I have a few more questions and I would be ever so grateful if you could answer them for me.

As an alien within your beoooootiful borders, I've never been able to grasp the use of the electoral college. That being said, I also haven't been able to grasp the meaning of life, the concept of mathematics, physics or the need for the clocks to fall back every autumn. I have to respectfully declare that I don't like the fact that the sun still sets at 6:15 pm one day, and the VERY next day it sets at 5:13 pm. It's disturbing and it makes me crave chocolate even more than I usually do, and I think we both agree that craving too much chocolate isn't good for anybody's sanity, and then eating all the chocolate isn't good for that same body's weight or teeth.

Anyway, pardon my digression. Back to the matters at hand: the election and the electoral college.

Now, I'm pretty clear on why the college was founded all those years ago. I know that long ago, in ancient times before Starbucks was invented, some of your Founding Fathers wanted Congress to choose the President, while some of the other Founding Fathers wanted voters to choose. The history books I've read didn't go into the gory details of how they proceeded to fight over this (why do history books always seem to leave out all the fun parts?). I was just informed that the electoral college was the compromise they reached.

I also understand that during that same historic time, before the final frontier was reached and while some of your state borders were therefore very fluid and seemed almost neverending, that having an electoral college kinda made sense. I also realise that more people lived in one state than another (as they still do today) and so your Founding Fathers wanted the people in the most populated states to have the most say in who would lead all of them.

However, as the saying goes: that was then and this is now. So isn't that practice a bit as archaic as beheadings?

In my humble opinion, democracy should be one woman (or man, if he is sufficiently trained), one vote.

You see - and again, I point this out with the greatest R-E-S-P-E-C-T - it doesn't seem fair to me that one state should count more than another, and that if you happen to live in a non swing vote state, then you are largely ignored by the candidates.

You know that I love you with all of my heart (except for those bits of it which are reserved for my family, the boy, South Africa, dogs, coffee and How-to books), but in the eight years that I've had the pleasure of living within your borders, I've never been able to wrap my mind around this bizarre spin on democracy where the popular vote doesn't determine the outcome of the election.

I really hope you can help me out here by explaining it to me?

Anyway, since I know that tomorrow is a big day for you and your people, I won't take up any more of your time. I just want to say that I hope that everyone who is elligible to cast a vote will do so, because many of us who live here don't have a say, and they should do it on our behalf. And, in the event that they're xenophobic, then they should do it for their own futures. And for you.

Respectfully yours,
Redsaid

P.S. Oh, just wondering if that Green Card I asked you about last time got lost in the mail or something, because I haven't received it yet.

Redsaid | 02:01 PM | comment (8) | view »
October 23, 2004
Wedding Belle
Alphabet Soup

In honour of her wedding today, allow me a moment of shameless and mushy sentimentality to quote my current favourite love poem:

"Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams."

-- William Butler Yeats

Congratulations, Emily and KW!

Redsaid | 09:26 PM | comment (6) | view »
October 22, 2004
Spam Explosion?
Alphabet Soup

While we're on the delightful subject of spam...

So in an attempt to raise Redsaid's readership amount from five to say, six maybe (I'm sooo fiercely ambitious, aren't I?), I jumped onto the latest trendy blogwagon and joined BlogExplosion.

For those of you who are still blissfully unaware of BlogExplosion and what it does, let me enlighten you.

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Redsaid | 07:03 AM | comment (15) | view »
October 17, 2004
Desperate Domestic Diva
Alphabet Soup

Since I just KNOW that all five of my regular readers will find this absolutely fascinating (YAWN) and since I always aim to please, it is with pleasure and without a hint of sarcasm that I bring you the following:

Domestic diva turned inmate (always with the multi-tasking!) Martha Stewart updated her website from Alderson Federal Prison (aptly nicknamed Camp Cupcake) with an open letter to us all.

For those of you who aren't going to bother clicking on the link (Gasp!), I'd be happy to sum it up for you:

She says the guards and inmates are nice.

Then she gets rather vague and simply says that she has been "very busy."

Strangely enough, she doesn't once confirm or deny the recent rumour that she's scored lots of points during an in-prison Scrabble game.

Her winning word?

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Redsaid | 05:11 AM | comment (6) | view »
September 30, 2004
Liquorice All Sorts (But it involves blackmail)
Alphabet Soup

Thank you all very much for your kind and concerned words regarding this. To tell you the truth, I don't think it has affected the boy and I, who are sitting far away from it all in Maryland, just yet. And it probably won't hit us until we take a trip to Tennessee and see it with our own eyes.

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Redsaid | 02:20 AM | comment (2) | view »
September 16, 2004
New Discoveries.
Alphabet Soup

I've been so upset about the discovery of the Skunk Stripe at the Back of my Head that I now have another, just from all the worrying about the first one. (Also, that's why I've been so quiet lately. Shocked into silence, you see. NOT that I've heard any complaints about my silence from anybody, mind you... cough, cough.)

Anyway, so now, with the two stripes, I resemble an almost-former-redheaded girl who has two skunks fastened to the back of her already enormous head.

I doubt very much that the way my age is annoyingly and so very publicly manifesting itself all over the back of my head like that is about to set a trend for fall fashion. (Think about it though, in a way it's very Davy Crockett-ish for girls, no?)

I am however expecting that several representatives from PETA are going to bombard me with hate-mail. Especially after making this above statement about a possible fall fashion trend. Please take note, PETA people, I'm in no way endorsing or encouraging skunk hunts! (Think of what a smelly affair it would be! Oh, yeah... and awfully cruel to skunks too.)

Feel free to still send out your nude protesters though. (And if possible, make them all male. Please?)

Oh, and apart from the protesters being male, I have just one more teensy request:

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Redsaid | 02:37 AM | comment (11) | view »
September 11, 2004
Happy Birthday!
Alphabet Soup

Happy bearday... I mean, boneday... I mean... BIRTHDAY. Yeah, that's it. Birthday.

Happy BIRTHDAY, dear boy! Thank you for indulging my coffee and how-to book addictions; my bad (and constant) jokes; my craziness for canines; for sampling all the South African music I listen to all the time (and for pretending to actually even like some of it); for learning Afrikaans from the answering machine; and for just generally putting up with me, nonsense and all.

Redsaid | 03:16 PM | comment (4) | view »
September 10, 2004
Out of sight, ingrained in Mind
Alphabet Soup • Red Whine

The other day I briefly wrote about a horrific discovery made on My Very Own Head by my (now former) very own hairdresser. ("Now former" because of reasons you'll soon comprehend.)

Before I continue I want to adhere to the laws of Responsible Blogging (stop laughing!) and warn you: This horrific discovery is far worse than being notified that an entire army of headlice (or whatever the collective term for them might be. Troupe? Flock? Pack?) have forever embedded themselves into one's scalp and skull and are steadily, inch by inch and itch by itch, working their way towards one's brain.

Oh, yes, the discovery I'm about to speak of is worse than that.

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Redsaid | 05:48 AM | comment (2) | view »
September 07, 2004
Illiterate but maybe sometimes funny Muse
Alphabet Soup

Someone (a Published Author, no less) recently asked me the following question: "What type of things do you enjoy writing?"

Here is my reply:

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Redsaid | 03:39 PM | comment (5) | view »
August 17, 2004
Potty Humour
Alphabet Soup

I have a severe phobia of public restrooms.

I know this condition of mine isn't unique. I remember it being discussed by a few other bloggers - one entry in particular by her from a while back springs to mind - so I'm not going to bore you with the gory details or the reasons about why I have this fear. I'm sure you're all imaginative enough to figure it out for yourselves.

I also won't tell you about the great lengths I go to in order to not have to go to public restrooms. So luckily for you, you'll remain blissfully unaware of how I dehydrate myself like a thoroughbred Saharan camel for at least three days before I dare to venture outside the vicinity of my very private and safe home bathroom.

But oh, dear... sometimes such thorough preparations can't always be undertaken. Like, well... when unexpected stuff happens.

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Redsaid | 04:13 AM | comment (9) | view »
August 05, 2004
Telegram
Alphabet Soup

Sorry for being so scarce! (Enjoy the blissful silence while it lasts though!)

Been super busy because THE DREADED PLAY OPENS TONIGHT (AS IN TO-NIGHT!!!!!!!) and we've had to iron out a few eh... "minor" crises.

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Redsaid | 03:58 AM | comment (0) | view »
July 31, 2004
There was Silence until the Empty Cyber Space Seemed to Echo
Alphabet Soup

Silence ain't golden.

Because even though I did shut-up for once, I didn't get even remotely rich...

I'm also ever so slightly perturbed to note that I'm returning to an almost empty blog! (I swear I didn't touch anything or try to upload anything (again) by my-highly-unqualified-self that I wasn't supposed to! Honestly, oh, Web-Goddess!)

Now, I'm all for minimalism and yes, I'll even admit that the empty space does seem very Zen-like while also allowing for an intense and uninterrupted look at her gorgeous design, but I'm also just a touch unnerved by the fact that I've seemingly stepped into some sort of Blog Bermuda Triangle.

Is that some kind of Punishment for Lazy Bloggers Who Go for Weeks Without Updating that I wasn't aware of..?

Before I enlist the help of my rescue cavalry yet again, let's see if this entry also gets sucked into the same mysterious cyber vortex* as the rest.

*Saw the following bit somewhere (but can't remember exactly where, otherwise I would've linked it): Apparently the cyber equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle is known as the Trippy Triangle. Am I tripping? Or is that really well-known (or even obscure, then) Geek Speak for it?

Redsaid | 03:05 PM | comment (8) | view »
July 06, 2004
Missing Links
Alphabet Soup

I don't know if it's just me being my usual and very "disleksick" self again, but I seem to have misplaced two of my cyber pals.

You see, the links I have to get to their sites now take me to error or (gasp!) this-domain-name's-now-up-for-grabs pages!

I'm really confused (ah, yes, what's new, right?), so if you and you still happen to be out there and around, please let me know! I'll be quite sad if you don't have blogs anymore!

Or if anyone else know where they can now be found on the web, please let me know? Because knowing me I probably have the URLs wrong! (And here's hoping that I did indeed just flub!)

Thanks.

Redsaid | 03:32 PM | comment (2) | view »
July 04, 2004
Red, White and Blue
Alphabet Soup

Dear United States of America,

First off, and before I start hitting you up for favours... eh, favors (See, I sometimes even remember how you spell words which shaves about 10 wpm off my typing speed, so thank you for that): Happy Birthday to you-hooooo!

You are big and beautiful and your flag is very pretty. I also like that you have four time zones right here within your very own borders. It's downright impressive for places to have even two, but you have FOUR and that just... well, that just wows me.

I also like the people you manufacture over here. They are very friendly and attractive and I like the way they talk and roll their r's and how they say tomaydo instead of tomahto.

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Redsaid | 01:45 PM | comment (7) | view »
June 30, 2004
The Stages of Moving
Alphabet Soup

Two dear friends of mine are moving back to South Africa after spending several years in the UK.

Last night I received a funny e-mail from one of them, and she seems to be going through the typical "Stages of Moving."

Don't know what I'm talking about? (As usual... ha ha)

Well, not to worry, because of course I'm going to tell you (also as usual).

The Stages of Moving are very similar to the "stages of mourning," but instead of grief, it applies to - my but you're so quick on the uptake - moving!

And oh, yes... it most definitely exists. I've experienced it every single time I've ever moved, and well, I've moved a LOT.

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Redsaid | 02:37 AM | comment (5) | view »
June 28, 2004
Purring Dog?
Alphabet Soup

In addition to having flat feet and several psychological issues*, I now seem to be suffering from a new affliction.

I discovered it on Sunday morning at around 4:30a.m. (I'm being very specific, because I need your help in coming up with a diagnosis. So, if you're a lay-doctor who's been waiting for a big break, pay close attention, for this might just be your lucky moment!)

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Redsaid | 10:33 PM | comment (9) | view »
June 27, 2004
Test 2.
Alphabet Soup

Wanna see if this uploads from a friend's house.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Redsaid | 04:33 PM | comment (4) | view »
June 25, 2004
Testing
Alphabet Soup

Man oh man I'm starting to feel like a true geek. Because not only is it Friday night and I'm home, but I've just downloaded Mozilla and I'm testing it out.

So far so good and I'm very impressed, because it's much faster than IE!

I've been experiencing a few glitches on the pc lately, so hopefully Mozilla has helped to iron some of them out.

Redsaid | 10:24 PM | comment (5) | view »
Skylight Blue
Alphabet Soup

I was supposed to go to my volunteer job this morning (yes, believe it or not, I actually venture out into the world and pretend to do something useful for mankind once a week), but I couldn’t fall asleep last night until about six this morning (too afraid that I’ll have another treadmill dream, apparently), and since I could barely open my eyes after two hours of fitful sleep and felt I wouldn’t be very useful or productive, I decided to play hooky.

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Redsaid | 04:45 PM | comment (3) | view »
June 24, 2004
NOW do I get to be a geek?
Alphabet Soup

Thanks to her kindness and generosity, I too have now been let into that somewhat exclusive and seemingly elusive G-mail club.

Thank you dear! This certainly makes up for never belonging to any sort of clicque or even an upscale and oh-so-preppy country club where everyone sips martinis and munches on delicate hors d'oevres after an exhausting round of golf or polo or lacrosse whilst lightly perspiring in their designer sports gear and contemplating ways to spend their multiple trust funds.

In fact, I believe that this is much better because it's certainly far less exhausting!

So thanks again my dear kdeweb!

Redsaid | 11:55 PM | comment (3) | view »
June 16, 2004
Happy Bloggeversary, Emily!
Alphabet Soup

Emily has been blogging for a year today. And she's updated EVERY SINGLE DAY (often times more than once a day) since starting idontthink.

Happy blogging birthday, Emily! And thank you, because your blogging has really been our gain. I think I speak for everyone who reads your site (and subsequently mine too, because I'm only here and being read in the first place thanks to you!) when I say that reading what you have to say is always a daily highlight. You deserve all the good that's come out of this for you, and I have a feeling that this is merely the beginning.

Here's to many more and regular (if not daily) posts! And tiara happy hours!

P.S. You say you still feel like the "new kid," but it certainly doesn't reflect in your writing ability. In fact, I was quite surprised when you said a few days ago that this is only your first blogging anniversary, because you're such a pro.

Redsaid | 02:57 PM | comment (4) | view »
June 14, 2004
Scales (and it has nothing to do with weight)
Alphabet Soup

Fingers fumbling through flats and sharps, stumbling over staccatos.

Mercifully deaf to the cacophonic dissonance, I confuse fortissimo with pianissimo and push my ambidexterity's limits through unskilled arpeggios.

A daydream about Rachmaninov concertos renews my inspiration. Prematurely, I attempt a jazz riff.

The well-eared Piano for Dummies crashes onto the keys. Disheartened, I break for a cappuccino - seemingly the only Italian word I understand.

But tomorrow I will try again, hoping that a distinctly unmusical old dog of nearly thirty can be taught a new trick, or at least a new tune.

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Redsaid | 11:09 PM | comment (6) | view »
June 11, 2004
Look Mom, it's Namedropping Strange-Talkin' South African Invaders!
Alphabet Soup

I'm feeling a little under the weather today, and it's been drizzling and kind of cold outside, so the fact that I'm feeling under that should give you a good idea as to my condition and you should all be very sympathetic and immediately send soup.

Don't worry. I think I'll survive. If only to continue annoying a few (read: thousands of) people.

So, what else can I tell you in my very South African accent?

Oh, speaking of which, in case any of you have ever wondered what a South African accent sounds like (and of course you have, because that's exactly the type of thing Americans wonder about constantly, right?
"Mmmm. Say, Ethel, how do you think South Africans talk?"
"Why, Harold. Everyone knows they speak with their mouths, just like us!"), you could've found out today if you had managed to catch a bit of President Reagan's funeral service in California where the very South African Reverend Michael Wenning officiated.

Yes, that is indeed what I sound like. (Only without the deep, male voice.) And that is what Charlize Theron also could've sounded like to this very day had she not watched too many Love Boat reruns on television. (Of course, the fact that she now has a multi-award winning movie career worth a few gazillion dollars thanks to that very same Love Boat accent (okay, AND her long legs, blue eyes, rockin' body, acting ability... grrr) is entirely besides the point.)

Now that I'm into this whole namedropping thing about notable South Africans: Anyone ever heard of a singing/song-writing/guitar playing guy named Dave Matthews? Yeah, I thought not. He's kind of obscure, but the whole South African community is holding out hope that he'll make it big one day, like when the "ants [come] marching" or when "satellites" spin around the earth...

(Please don't stop me. I'm amusing myself.)

Oh, and if you've ever watched Sixty Minutes II on CBS, you may have caught another whiff of the old accent as brought to the American public on an almost weekly basis by the lovely South African expatriate television reporter Ms Lara Logan.

There are even more (excluding me, ha ha), but luckily for you, I've run out of steam for the time being.

So, why don't you regale me with your very own encounters of the South African kind?

And if you have encountered any South Africans, then you obviously know what the accent sounds like, which makes this entry entirely useless.


Redsaid | 11:56 PM | comment (7) | view »
June 08, 2004
Please make it stop!
Alphabet Soup

Oh, please tell me dear Americans: Do all the car dealers in this otherwise fabulous nation of yours insist on starring in their own and very amateurish television commercials?

Or is it just us Marylanders who are subjected to these 30-second bursts of audio and visual torture courtesy of this one local KIA dealership owner who insists on not only starring in, but also singing (loudly! And badly!) the jingles for his dealership’s television spots?

I hope it’s only here, because I really, really don’t wish it on anybody else…


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Redsaid | 11:54 PM | comment (18) | view »
June 07, 2004
Termination
Alphabet Soup

Dear R.C.A.

After receiving several previous warnings, it pains me to inform you that your employment here at B&RS Inc. has been terminated.

As you know, your position carries a lot of weight around here, and in recent months, it has come to our attention that you have been unable to execute your duties in a timely fashion.

Despite our efforts to lighten your workload by bringing in an assistant to support you and to even, on occasion, completely relieve you of some of your burdens, we were still unable to see any increase in your performance.

In fact, we’ve received word that, when addressed about these issues of concern by your supervisors, you were quick to respond with a slew of rather heated and severe temper tantrums. Some of the exact words and phrases used to describe your behaviour at that time included “seemingly spiteful,” “childish,” “obtuse,” and "unable to multitask," "inability to follow instructions," "downright disobedient," and lastly, “*&^%$#F!”

In parting I do want to acknowledge and thank you for the years of loyal service you did grace us with during the early years. During that time, you were always quick to greet us and customers with a friendly “hello” and you always seemed eager to fulfill your duties, often times working overtime without any complaints.

Over these past few problematic months we were really hoping that you would return to your former self, and that’s why we gave you more than the usual warnings and chances. But alas, now the time has come for us to invest in someone new.


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Redsaid | 11:56 PM | comment (7) | view »
June 06, 2004
Homesick list
Alphabet Soup

The Netflix DVD-envelope stuffer who packs our movies has probably figured out - if (s)he has been paying attention, that is - that I am either obsessed with all things African, or that I'm just a homesick immigrant from somewhere on the Mother Continent.

The boy, who has to watch all of the Afrocentric films that are "mysteriously" showing up in the mailbox, has definitely noticed.

Here is just some of what the poor guy has had to sit through recently:

National Geographic: Africa (Discs one - FOUR. Yes, no less than four! But they're all astoundingly good. Naturally, with it being by National Geographic and all.) It's not your run of the mill African wildlife documentary either. (Not that those aren't lovely!) These documentaries offer unique glimpses into the lives of different Africans and how they coexist with the land and the animals.

Thus we see a young North African nomad as he takes part in his very first caravan across the fierce but breathtaking Sahara with the older men in his family who are still using the ways of their ancestors to navigate their way through the ever-changing sea of dunes.

On the last disc we are transported to the modern South African city of Johannesburg, where we encounter a beautiful 20-something African girl who has chosen to chisel out a future for herself far beneath the surface of the earth in the dangerous and still dominantly male world of the gold mines.

Next up the movie, I Dreamed of Africa, selected simply because I do dream about it, constantly. Not necessarily Kim Bassinger at her best (understatement, that!), but worth it if only for the scenery... (However, please don't trust my sentimental heart.)

The Gods Must Be Crazy (I and II) - If I'm not mistaken, one of the first - if not the first - South African film to "make it" internationally. Filled with slapstick humour, it's even funnier after you've had a few snifters of a little somethin' somethin'.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo: In Harmony. Remember Paul Simon's "Diamonds on the soles of her Shoes?" Yes, they were the guys so beautifully filling the song with their perfect harmonies. They've since made it on their own too and to this day, they tour extensively and worldwide. Watch founder Joseph Shabalala tell of their humble beginnings and then be treated to a recording of their 1999 concert at London's stately Royal Albert Hall.

Then of course there is that faithful romantic staple: Out of Africa. Say no more.

And yes, the boy has been a trooper, sitting patiently and dutifully through most of these flicks.

But I think he'll be very relieved when I finally get over this phase, even though he is far too sweet to ever admit it.

Do you guys and gals also go through such "film phases?" Or am I, once again, the only freak around here?

(On second thoughts, don't bother answering the last part of that question.)

Redsaid | 11:58 PM | comment (12) | view »
June 05, 2004
Survivors ready?
Alphabet Soup

So our good friend Mr. “Piehorns” has launched the second installment of his tailor-made-for-the-blogosphere version of Survivor, and the hand-selected contestants already had their first immunity challenge.

And what do you know? The challenge involves them giving detailed (and juicy? Or gross?) descriptions of how they’re planning on feeding themselves whilst marooned there on Blogger Island.

I like their first challenge (but then, it's not my challenge to be challenged by, right?), because it's tying right into what seems to be fast becoming the runaway theme on this blog!

Good news is we get to help vote for the winner! So, let’s all go help make someone else as happy as all of you have made me! Well, okay then… but we can at least try!

However, we can't vote just yet. I think we still have to wait for Piehorns, who is embroiled in an apparent um... shall we say... scuffle with airport security ('cause I don't think what he meant involved the dentist, despite all that talk about cavities) somewhere between the Midwest and Texas.

Survivors ready?

Red, Out! (Oops, I seem to have my "reality" shows mixed up!)

(Update: Wander over to the tribal council, hear their pleas and cast your vote.)

Redsaid | 12:14 AM | comment (3) | view »
May 31, 2004
"Illlitiritblogggir.com?"
Alphabet Soup

Oops, I made like Britney and… I did it again.

In my enthusiasm to distribute some link-loving I not only managed to royally screw up the template first (thank you web-goddess Emily for saving the day!), but then I also inadvertently gave Pylorns a new domain name.

(I’m too scared to go and see what it is… it looks potentially naughty.)

Sorry "Piehorns!" I fixed it.

See what happens when you unleash a “Disleksick” onto the World Wide Web?

Redsaid | 01:03 PM | comment (10) | view »
May 30, 2004
Strange New Species?
Alphabet Soup

Okay, after staring at my new blog (WHOOOOOOOOOO! Please forgive the ongoing uncontrollable outbursts... and brace yourselves, for they are probably going to continue for the next year) for two whole days straight now, I’ve become quite cock-eyed.

I've also developed this inexplicable but painful knot at the back of my neck (blogger-neck?) so with the neck already being a goner, I know I’d run the risk of wreaking even further ergonomical havoc on my remaining body parts if I pull another all-nighter.

But before I try to pry the keyboard and mouse from my numbing fingers…


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Redsaid | 03:04 AM | comment (13) | view »