Turns out my face is too scary even for radio...

That's right. I got STOOD UP.

By a DJ.

I kept quiet all weekend (okay, okay... but I tried, honestly) and soothed my voice with honey and milk coffee in anticipation of my big radio interview on Monday afternoon. It turns out it was all for naught, because there WAS no call, no interview.

Normally a girl should at least get one complimentary dinner before the guy decides not to phone, no?

Remember my ratty, so enormous it swallowed up my entire room, has-been, executive office swivel chair (circa 1970's/1980's), covered in torn, grayish (but it's really an unidentifiable colour) pleather, purchased by me in April from a second-hand shop?

It is dead.

In pieces.

I am such a loser, even the furniture is breaking up with me...

Today I am older than I have EVER been before!

And yes, I know I said that last year, but this year it is really true, because last year I wasn't THIS old.

Luckily, to soften the blow a bit, I'm not the only one ageing today. Today is also the Ageing Day of an ex-boyfriend. (Happy birthday to us, Johnny Boy!) He is calling me from Mallorca later, the bum. Oh, well. At least he never forgets!

It is also Cameron Diaz's birthday.

And Mary Shelley, who scribbled Frankenstein. She created the monster when she was a mere 18 years old. In those moments when I suffer from delusions of grandeur, I pretend that I'm her reincarnation. WHADOYOUMEAN I'm more Frankenstein than Shelley?!?

My mom called me just after noon today to wish me. She waited to phone, she said, because I wasn't born until midday.

"What?" I asked. "You mean to tell me that there is actually a time of day before noon? I had no idea!"

Let it be known therefore that it is my birth right to sleep until noon. If only because I was such a considerate kid. You have to admit, it WAS rather nice of me to wait until the doctor was fully awake.

I had some more good news today. After some minor adjustments to it, the scale told me that I was 5 kilos lighter than I was yesterday!

They say with age comes wisdom. What about senility then? How do they (whoever THEY are) explain that then, huh? In my case, it's definitely more senility than wisdom. So I've decided to call it wisdumb.

Tomorrow I shall tell you about some of the wisdumb I've acquired through the years.

For now, my arthritic fingers need to rest.

Curled around the biggest cup of coffee it can find.

If your biggest fear on earth was, say, a fear of heights.

And then one day, someone - who knows full well what your fear is and how serious that fear is - misleads you and you end up on a 'plane and when you're 10,000 ft up there (or however high), they suddenly strap you into a parachute and say: "Surprise!" and push you out the door.

Should they really be taken aback if you are less than thrilled and never, EVER want to speak to them again? Would you also be so upset and distressed that you would sob?

And no, the above is all metaphorically speaking. I hate heights, yes, but love flying. Won't go skydiving though.

Can't cope. Hate my life. Wish I could just "Poof!" vanish...

I've always secretly hoped that she was "plump" like me.

I mean, for Heaven's sake, half of her blog's title consists of food!

But despite my fervent wishes, I knew that she wouldn't be fat. She attracts way too much male attention for that, and well, we can say what we want about South African men (or Earthling men, for that matter), but they prefer to bypass girls like me who have tonnes of... personality... to have slight, slinky things dangling from their arms. (Any man who wants to convince me otherwise, feel free to try and persuade me over a fully-expenses paid dinner. With desert.)

And the other day she confirmed my worst suspicions... she is thin. Not just thin, but, according to herself, bones-are-visible thin. And if you've been one of my imaginary readers for long enough, then you would know that, as the world's first and only blubbery, boneless woman, I have always fantasized about not only possessing bones, but actually being able to poke people's eyes out with 'em!

To add further insult to my injured and burdened-by-extra-lard soul: She says that when she stresses, she loses her appetite. Loses! Her appetite!!!

I would never be able to lose my appetite, even if I had wanted to. Wouldn't you know it, but my appetite and I were born joined at the lip. So no matter how hard I try, I could never ignore this enormous appetite clinging to my lip like a stubborn cold sore and glowering at me like a wild and ravenous animal. My appetite suffers from year-long PMS and low blood sugar, and if I don't constantly sate it, there is hell to pay.

So as you can see, stress has the opposite effect on me than it has on her. My heart only needs to speed up by one beat per hour, then every edible morsel within a 500 kilometre radius of me hurtles into the magnetic force field of my mouth and violently flings itself down my throat.

I really have very little say in the matter. And even if I had wanted to protest, I couldn't, because my mouth is full.

See why I write for a living? It's my only means of communication! (Yeah, yeah, I know... one would THINK that I would be better at it then...)

Anyway, back to Miss Mushy Peas on (thinly sliced) toast. I really want to hate her for being skinny and pretty and not eating when she is stressed, but by being charming and clever and oh-so-witty (as has been reinforced and affirmed by her being awarded the Most Humourous Blog Award at Friday's South African Blog Awards), she has made it nearly impossible to dislike her. Even though I still believe that it should be genetically impossible for thin, pretty girls to have brains, personality and talent. It's too unfair!

Yes, it was the South African Blog Awards on Friday night, and even though that other blog I write for lost, my brilliant boss/friend (bossy friend? Friendly boss!), whose blog title also mocks me by being edible, Cherryflava scooped up the award for Best Business Blog. I'm so proud of him!

The other big winner of the night is another skinny bitch - despite the fact that her slight frame has borne twins!! Mommy blogger Tertia strutted away with the major prize of the night for winning Blog of the Year AND for Best Writing!

Unfortunately they didn't win large food hampers... Although Tertia DID win an Apple.

Good thing I wasn't even nominated in that category, because in the highly unlikely event of me winning, I probably would've devoured the damn thing.

Last night I had the WORST nightmare.

No, it wasn't my usual "falling" dream where I have that roller-coaster feel on the pit of my stomach as I'm falling through space, and then I jolt awake just as I'm supposed to hit the ground... or in my case, the sharp rocks I am hurtling towards.

Analyse THAT!

Or don't.

Anyway, this nightmare also didn't contain monsters, bogeymen or ghosts.

It was worse. MUCH worse.

I was out in a shopping mall in the States, and I ran into my ex boyfriend and his current girlfriend.

Apart from the fact that the witch was blonde (of course! Grrr...), I don't remember any exact details.

Except... and this is the truly nightmarish part...

This is UNBELIEVABLE.

Exactly a year to the day of my arrival back in South Africa, where my welcome home present was the prompt theft of my precious laptop (let me just say, NEVER allow a South African Airways crewmember to assist you with your carry-on luggage aboard a flight, because you might never see your precious cargo ever again), the laptop I had been using since June died yesterday. Just like that. One minute we were still happily chained to one another, dreaming up blog posts and columns, and the next minute... kaput. No great explosion. The screen simply went black and the comforting whir of the machine simply grew silent.

I don't know what it is with Christmas and laptops and me.

So I'm typing this on my mom's ancient Dinosaur of a pc using D...I...A...L...U...P. And I have deadlines to meet and right now the only thing I want to do is curl up and die too.

Please send loads of sympathy my way?

Today marks the one year anniversary of the demise of my precious American Dream.

I think I'm still so heartbroken about it, because its two brutal murderers got off scot free.

If you happen to find yourself in my beloved United States (or any other country that serves Starbucks), please head on over and have a grande latte on my behalf? I still suffer withdrawal symptoms...

Also, if it's not too much trouble, pet a dog and think about me. A large yellow labrador retriever will be especially ideal, but I don't discriminate, so really, any dog will do.

In memory of Redsaid's American Dream: November 10, 1996 - December 24, 2005. Rest in pieces.

... set it free, and if, on its maiden flight to freedom, it is blown to pieces with a sawed off shotgun, then you'll have to live with the guilt for the rest of your life.

Don't ask.

How do I loathe thee*? Let me count the ways.
I loathe thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling bandwidth slight
For the lack of free local calls, such ideal Grace.
I loathe thee to the level of everyday’s
Most desperate need for unlimited surfing, by the monitor’s soft light.
I loathe thee intensely, as we strive for cheap, unthrottled broadband internet – our human Right;
I loathe thee completely, as thou turn further from reasons that would be worthy of Praise.
I loathe thee with the hatred thou use to aggrieve us, and cause our loss of faith.
I loathe thee with a loathing I seem to gain
With my lost Rand and Cents, - I loathe thee with the shallow, panicked breaths,
Sorrows, tears, of all my internet-less life! – and, if ICASA should at last choose a competitor,
I shall but rest better only after thine slow and painful death**.

* Yes, you’ve guessed it. Due to painfully slow dial-up and costly local calls – okay, yes, AND due to my lack of restraint and complete and utter need to be online a LOT – my mom’s phone/internet bill was really REALLY high. And my sister’s and bro-in-law’s as well. So if I get scarce(r than usual), just know that I’ll be offline somewhere, in the REAL world (*shudders at the thought*), where I’ll be doing something to try and pay off these debts I have all because our country has a manipulative, sadistic phone monopoly who hates South Africans and don’t believe that we should be allowed to have free local calls or inexpensive and unlimited broadband access.

** And upon Telkom’s demise, I shall gladly write an elegy.

Just a quick one (or a slow one... my mom has DIAL-UP internet, but it gets even more dire than that, believe it or not: for it's only available in the day-time!!!!!! Courtesy of some senior-citizens internet-plan thingy she has, to which I softly beg: Help me!). Anyway... as I was saying: I have to make this quick. Just want to say that I arrived in By George! my new home-town, in one piece.

I've already been across the mountain to the famous KKNK. And no, the KKNK is NOT affiliated with or supported by (or to be confused with) the American KKK. This KKNK to which I refer is a fab arts festival celebrated annually in Oudtshoorn, a town on the outskirts of the Karoo (which is South Africa's version of the Outback), where I unwittingly chatted up South African celebs. More about that in a later update (when I manage to steal on here again).

But what the title of this blog is really referring to today is THIS article I glanced at when the MSN homepage finally downloaded.

I read it and wept a bit for myself. But should this bill pass, I'd be very, very happy for millions of other deserving hangers-on.

Edited to say: I know that this is probably an effort by the generally Xenophobic Republicans to clamour for votes, and ironically their proposed bill is very similar to what the Democrats have been trying to pass for a while, but at this point, I don't care, I just want long-suffering immigrants to benefit for a change, because I've BEEN there, and I know what that kind of life (if one can call it that) is like.

She was gone and I was left alone, a trembling, hopeless hostage, tethered to the line, the mind-numbing muzak seeping into my ear towards my brain, rendering me slowly unconscious.

“Thank you for holding and holding and holding (you’re quite a sucker, aren’t you?).”

“All our service consultants are currently on their taxpayer-sponsored coffee breaks, after which they will be going to a leisurely lunch followed by a five-day weekend. They will pay for the lunch and the weekend with that erroneous deduction of thousands of Rand they had made from your bank account - a slight oversight that occurred when the decimal sign was curiously misplaced and which will take five years and thousands more of your hard-earned Rand to fix,” says the robotic operator in her best Stepford Wife voice.

When I left South Africa in 1996, I was a broke journalist who had to rely on dates for food (so needless to say, I made Kate Moss seem positively obese).

After the money for my rent payment was scraped together, there simply wasn’t anything left for luxuries like food, or a car, or electricity (and my apartment was situated above a Mobil petrol station, which made striking matches to light candles a potentially life-ending and therefore quite thrilling adventure. The upside to living at that particular address was that my friends and I never needed drugs to get high. We merely had to lean out the windows and inhale). And after not spending money on food, or a car, or electricity, there was also no money left for a home telephone.

So, until this morning, I had NO IDEA what it’s like dealing with Hellkom, the ‘affectionate’ nickname given to Telkom, South Africa’s only phone company.

My initiation into the paradoxical experience of trying to get someone from the phone company on the phone occurred in the United States. But James Earl Jones, who thanked me profusely (and repeatedly) for phoning Bell-Atlantic in his sexy Mufasa voice made the whole experience of holding for five hours straight bearable - even secretly enjoyable.

Now, I’ve HEARD the Hellkom Horror Stories and there are enough of those to fill several hefty tomes. So I can’t really say that I went into this entirely unwittingly.

But you know how it is, unless and until you’ve experienced something really awful for yourself, you’re not really able to wrap your mind around it, therefore you always think: “Oh, it can’t be THAT bad. These few (read: millions of) people must surely be exaggerating!”

So I didn’t even complain or hesitate to pick up the phone when my sister asked me to do her a “little” favour and call the phone company on her behalf to find out why they haven’t yet come to move the phone line that she had asked them to “some time ago.”

“When did you ask them to come and do it?” I asked her as I was dialing the number. (Not because I was suspicious at her vagueness, silly me. Merely because I wanted be well-informed when I spoke to someone at Hellkom.)

“Oh, about six months ago,” she mumbled before sprinting out the door, dodging the directory I had thrown at her.

Too late. She was gone and I was left alone, a trembling, hopeless hostage, tethered to the line, the mind-numbing muzak already seeping into my ear towards my brain, rendering me slowly unconscious.

After fifteen minutes the muzak stopped. And even though it should be deemed unnecessary to say that the muzak was awful (because it’s a scientific law of the Universe that muzak must be awful, didn’t you know?), the sudden silence was unnerving.

Just when I thought that I had been cut off, the eerie Stepford-Wife voice came on.

I held. (I might be a sucker, but I’m a PERSISTENT sucker!)

I read War and Peace. The unabridged version. Twice. In its original Russian.

With the other hand, I still held.

Elephants mated, gestated and the females gave birth to their full-term calves.

I was still on hold.

High school graduates entered medical school. Years later, as those same students were solemnly reciting the Hippocratic Oath, I was STILL holding.

You think you get the point, don’t you? But no, really, I assure you, you don’t.

I typed this blog post with one finger. (Still holding.)

Bush was impeached. (I wanted to say that he finally became an intelligent life form, but I simply don’t have enough imagination to write science fiction.) A Democratic black Jewish woman became President of the United States. (Perhaps I can write fantasy fiction instead?)

At last, there was worldwide peace; global famine and poverty and illiteracy were eradicated (and with it, crime); cures were discovered for all diseases; all orphans and stray animals were adopted into loving homes and free books and unlimited refill coffees became a human right.

And I?

Was STILL ON HOLD!

Because alas, whilst corrupt governments crumbled and dictatorships were (peacefully) toppled, one thing remained stubbornly unchanged:

Phone companies never answered their telephones.

… And he is only two and a half years old!

This probably begs an explanation.

Yesterday, I was innocently minding my own business by petting the dogs, when my normally sweet nephew, who was outside with me, was overcome by the mostly hidden Dark Side of his personality (the side usually reserved for throwing Terrible Two tantrums), compelling him to do something to me which I will have to remember to tell all his girlfriends one day while I show them all his naked baby pictures.

My sister came out of the house to ask me something, and I turned my head away from him and the dogs to look at her. Suddenly something made me lose my balance, and I felt a razor-sharp pain at the side of my head, the kind of pain that makes your eyes water.

My nephew had thrown a sizeable stone at me! I had no idea that such a little guy can have such strength… and such great aim!

So yes, alas, I’ve been stoned. By a toddler. And unfortunately, the closest I’ve come to dope is, well, by being myself.

‘Cause I feel like a big dope with a terrible headache…

I stand before you today, my five dearest readers, begging you to PLEASE release me from my misery.

(I didn’t mean it like THAT, so please put those guns away that you’ve whipped out with such great speed and eagerness.)

PLEASE tell me that I’m not the only one among us who has the following torturous dilemma? (Perhaps all you foodies out there would be able to advise me.)

I DESPISE… no, I utterly LOATHE… Glad wrap.

I find absolutely nothing to be so “Glad” about when asked to use it. (In fact, I believe that a more apt name for it would have been “Sorry” wrap.)

And I’m almost always asked to use it.

You see, as has been established on here before, I don’t cook. (And that’s not overdone, that’s actually putting it medium-lightly.)

Thank heavens that most people who have the displeasure of knowing me in Real Life, have come to accept (if not fully embrace) my general helplessness and inability in the kitchen. The result is that I’m happily left out of any food preparation activities.

It’s widely known that I merely have to glance at the fresh produce to have it wither up and die. Add to that my uncanny ability to burn water, and I’m not even trusted to slice, dice or butter. Instead, I’m left with the cleanup part of the culinary experience, which suits me just fine.

Firstly, I’m very successful at cleaning off my own plate. And, remarkably, I don’t even enlist assistance from my canine companions when it comes to the cleaning of the other diners’ plates.

In fact, my dishwashing could inspire soapsuds to fly from here to the States and back again. I’ll rinse, dry, put away and even sweep without much hesitation or grumpiness or even a tear.

But Glad wrapping the leftovers… now THAT is something I hate and fear!

It should be a genuine, Google-able (Googlable?) phobia: “Glad Phobia. Fear of happiness and/or, more likely, of the sticky clear plastic commonly known as Glad wrap (no matter what other brand-name it’s sold under).”

As soon as I’m left with bowls of food to preserve and a roll of Glad wrap to allegedly assist with the preservation of said leftovers, my physical form senses what is about to occur and so it always happens that my right hand turns into another left hand, and all my fingers turn into uncooperative thumbs.

Well… actually, I’ve quickly derived inspiration from Eminem’s famous Wrap… er, I mean… Rapping rappertoire (okay, I'll stop soon, I promise) to help me explain exactly what I mean.

This is to be performed to the tune (beat?) of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”

(Keep the beat by banging on some pots and pans.)

Original lyrics to be found here:

Here then is my "Sorry Rap about Glad Wrap (to be performed to the tune… er… beat?… of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”."

"Look, if you had one roll, or one opportunity
To Wrap everything you ever wanted – One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

Her palms are sweaty, fingers weak, hands are heavy
There’s food on the floor already, mom’s spaghetti
She’s nervous, but on the surface she looks calm and ready
To Wrap chops, but she keeps forgettin’
What happened last time, when the roll wouldn’t unwound
She opens the box, but the roll won’t come out
She’s pulling, but there’s no fooling her
The roll’s not out, it just won’t unwound, blah!
Snap it back to reality! Oh, there goes gravity
Oh, there goes the Rabbit Stew, it was smoked
She’s so mad, but she won’t give up that
Easy, no
She won’t have it, she knows her leftovers must keep
If it don’t it will reek
She knows that, but she’s weak
She’s so clumsy that she knows
She goes back to her fridge, that’s when it’s
Back to the Roll again yo
This whole Wrap shit
She better go capture these leftovers and hope it don’t slip her

Hook:
You better not lose your fingers in the serrated side of the box, the moment
You grab the Wrap, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to unroll
If tomorrow you want to still dine on this roll

The food’s escaping, through this hole that’s gaping
This Glad Wrap isn’t mine for the taking
Make me queen, as we move toward a new roll of Glad Wrap
Culinary life’s borin’, but Glad Wrapping’s close to post mortem
It only grows harder, only becomes stickier
She rolls it all over the Wrap is all over her
Toast to roast Wrapped, she’s known as the Sorry Wrapper
Sticks to fingers, Heaven only knows
How to do this she groans, she’s no Wrapper
She goes to the kitchen and barely knows her own leftovers
So hold your nose ‘cos here goes the moldy water
The leftovers ain’t lefovers no mo’, they’re mold product
They crossed over to where moldy leftovers go
Her nose closed, she smelled nada
So the Wrap Saga is told and still won’t unfold
I suppose it’s back to that old partna’, the Tupperware lives on
Da Da Dum Dum Da Da

Repeat Hook

No more games, I’ma change into what you call rage
Tear this muthaf***n’ Wrap off like 2 dogs caged
I was playin in the beginnin’, the mood all changed
The food’s been chewed up and spit out and now the stage
Where I keep trying to unwrap the next roll
Best believe nobody’s able to Wrap with this roll
All the pain inside amplified by the fact
That I’ve been trying this from 9 to 5
And I can’t provide the right coverage for my leftovers
‘Cos, man, these damn Glad Wrap rolls don’t stick
And it’s no BBC food show, there’s no Nigella Lawson, this is my life
And this Glad Wrapping’s so hard and it’s getting even harder
Tryin’ to Wrap the leftover feed, plus
Teeter Totter caught up between my fingers and the food
Glad Wrappin’ makes me scream on and
Too much for me to wanna
Make the Glad stay in one spot, another day of no leftovers
Has driven me over the edge, I would’ve liked my leftover’s hot
I’ve got to formulate a plan ‘fore I accept my Sorry Wrapping lot
Success is my only mutha*****n’ option, failure’s not
Glad, I loathe you, so this Glad Wrap of yours ‘s gotta go
My food cannot grow old in an uncovered pot
So buying Tupperware is my only shot
Tupperware fail me not ‘cos this may be the last chance at leftovers I’ve got

Repeat Hook

With Tupperware you can do anything you set your mind to, woman"

- Copyright, Redsaid 2006.

(This one is dedicated to my sister, whose birthday could've been on leap day, but luckily she made it out on the 28th. I'll wrap put your leftovers in Tupperware any day, sista! Thanks for taking me in (on?) and early Happy Birthday!

But will I survive?!?

Yeah, probably. Only the good die young, after all, right?

Thank you very, very, very much to everyone (more than five! Who KNEW that I had more than five readers? I certainly didn't!) who replied to the behind-the-scenes e-mail I'd written to explain why I'm more quiet than usual.

To those of you who are blissfully unaware of what I'm going on about (as usual) and who wish to be relieved of your state of bliss and ignorance, drop me a line or two (okay, one will do) and I'll send the much coveted (fine, but a girl can dream) explanatory e-mail to you too!

To those of you who for a welcome change DO know what I'm going on about this time, I'll just say that I'm doing... okayish. My moods (de)range from erratic highs to devastating lows. Oh, right. That's normal for me.

Seriously though, this is probably the most difficult thing I've EVER had to do (which yes, makes me pretty lucky, I guess), and I just want to say that your e-mails of encouragement (and even a Christmas card, from her and her love!) have been helping to get me through this. I wish your e-mails could also help me pack (those of you who can't remember how difficult it is for me to move, see this), but for now I'm content to take all the words of encouragement I can get!

So thanks.

Was it something I had said?!?

Because three days go by and I still don't have a single comment?!? Now, before you think: "How vain of her to think that we should lower ourselves to not only always read what she has to say, but then also take the time and effort to say something about what she has had to say! We have a life, woman! Even if you don't!"

No, please don't be so aggressive, that's not what I'm saying at all! I just mean that I've learned over the year and a half of leisurely blogging that no matter what I say or how often I don't say it (what with upholding my reputation of being the world's laziest blogger and all), there were always, much to my astonishment, a few of you who were obviously so bored at work, that you had something to say about what I had said. Almost without fail. Even though I'm notorious for not replying to what you have to say to me (not because it's not important, understand, it's just that usually I can't think of a sufficient, equally witty comeback!).

You get what I'm sayin'?

As I was saying, I was beginning to think that it must've been something I'd said that made you, my five (yes, FIVE now!) readers quite unhappy. So unhappy, in fact, that you thought it didn't even warrant sending me hate mail!

My fears were immediately eased when I received mail (regular, still not hate! What on earth does a girl have to do around here to receive hate mail?!?) from her and her telling me that my comments police is working overtime (for a change. Usually they are on a very convenient doughnut break when the spammers strike) and so apparently nobody has been able to leave any comments!

Is this true? IS IT? Leave your answer in the comme...

Duh. Never mind. I suppose that was a rhetorical question.

Or, if you really want, you can drop me an e-mail. Even hate mail. Seriously, anything will do!

P.S. And if anyone out there is familiar with the mysterious ways of the MT Blacklist, please, HEEEEELP!

You all know that the A - Z Time/Life Medical Encyclopedia is one of my favourite reads. I highly recommend it to anyone*, but especially to those of us who take ourselves seriously as practicing hypochondriacs and lay doctors.

Don't be deceived by the book's modest size either. Sure, it might not be the thickest medical text around, but trust me, it contains diseases and possibilities for self-diagnosis that you haven't even DREAMED of yet! (And if you haven't dreamed lately, well... according to the book a state of constant dreamlessness smacks of serious underlying psychological issues. Or a severe case of insomnia. Either way, it's bad.)

However, this bug my sister brought with her on her recent visit from South Africa and - when she couldn't stuff it in her suitcase along with all the shoes she bought - decided to leave here when she went home again, has turned out to be quite difficult to shake.

At first I thought it was the flu (after all, I have all the symptoms as listed under "F" and "Flu" in the Time/Life A - Z Medical Encyclopedia) and I thought I would get better when I resumed my regular schedule of rest and relaxation.

So as soon as my energetic sister with all her draconian demands (like telling me to get UP! EVERY day! Before the crack of NOON!) went home, I dove back into bed, only surfacing every couple of hours to replenish my blood coffee levels.

It worked. One day I woke up and knew I was feeling better when I poked my nose out from under the duvet and I was able to actually smell the coffee again.

I celebrated my recovery by immediately taking a long nap. I was viciously shaken awake a bit later as rasping, racking coughs were sending spasms through my body. Talk about a rude awakening!

This specific symptom - illusion of wellness only to then get sick all over again - can be found nowhere in the Time/Life A - Z Medical Encyclopedia, which has left me to draw only one conclusion: If the Time/Life A - Z Medical Encyclopedia hasn't even heard of this flu yet, then it MUST be serious and indigenous to Africa. (And usually "serious" and "indigenous to Africa" go hand in hand. I mean, just look at me! Do you get anyone more serious and African than me?? Exactly. I didn't think so.)

The last time I veered off my usual serious, soft news blog subjects and mentioned this Afri-flu I have been struck with, Tim T. wanted to know if the African flu roams the savannahs with the zebra, lions, etc. That is sooo typical of Tim T., asking all the hard-hitting questions without batting an eye. (Granted, even if he HAD batted an eye whilst typing that hard-hitting question, I wouldn't have seen it. Which in turn bodes the question: If someone bats an eye and no one else is around to see it, did the person really bat an eye?)

I don't know, Timmy T. While I believe the Afri-flu HAS been spotted stalking prey on the savannah (causing lions to cower and elephants to plunge trunk-first into watering holes, causing all the water to instantly depart from said watering holes with one gigantic, sweeping splash, which of course had other severe consequences like drought), sightings of the Afri-flu have also been reported (in wheezing, rasping voices) from several night spots in and around Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

According to the most recent sighting claims, the Afri-flu was seen gnawing another hole in the ozone layer, this time above Bloemfontein. At first the claim was dismissively filed away in a government folder under "R" (for "Rubbish, blatant rubbish!"), because it was suspected that the whole thing was a desperate attempt by the Bloemfontein Tourism Board (but "Bored" is how they've been spelling it on their official stationery) to try and finally convince the world that things really DO happen in Bloemfontein. (Even if it IS only sometimes, and, technically, only ABOVE the city.)

However, the file was promptly removed from the "R" "Rubbish blatant rubbish!" folder when several other witnesses stepped forward, because not only did those witnesses have matching reports of the sighting (this may have been due to the fact that they were all interviewed together, in one room, but never mind), but they also had very concrete evidence (called "indisputable" by the government representative (the vice-chairman of the Afri-flu subcommittee) during his lengthy television news appearance. He insisted on using up every last second of his fifteen minutes of fame).

The "indisputable" evidence? Identical and very prominent farmer's tans, inspiring the vice-chairman to point out: "Those tans are indisputable evidence of another hole in the ozone layer! Bloemfontein residents used to have impressive farmer's tans before, but THESE!"

He paused dramatically, allowing the glowing tans to speak for themselves.

"As we all know, a good tan can only be judged by its tan lines, and we, the government of South Africa, believe that these tan lines are so impressive that these Bloemfontein residents will, for as long as these tans last, look as if they are wearing clothes, even when they are not!" That last remark had the Bloemfontein residents in question (who were already beaming brightly thanks to their ozone-free, early spring sun exposure), positively oozing with pride.

After the chairman's lengthy speech (during which he had managed to smoothly divert the attention away from the Afri-flu epidemic by convincing the Bloemfontein residents with the farmer's tans to help prove his point that they look clothed even when they're not) aired on television, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) was flooded by letters of complaint from the South African Skin Cancer Prevention Society (SASCPS) and the South Africans Against Nudity on Prime-Time (Or Any Time For That Matter) Television Society (SAANPT(OATFTM)TS). (And just as a quick, but fascinating aside: the SAANPT(OATFTM)TS is the first Society in sub-Saharan Africa (and the world!) to have parentheses within its acronym.)

Anyway, the Afri-flu is highly contagious. It spreads from animal to human (and vice versa), from fauna to flora and - as I've concluded from the sputtering noises and anguished beeps that came from the laptop before it froze, then overheated, then turned itself off (but not before it deleted all my work, including this and a few other words-in-progress blog entries. Alas, I'm afraid the laptop ate my homework!) - from human to machine.

On behalf of the chairman of the Afri-flu Subcommittee, I'd like to thank you for taking part in this voluntary experiment to see whether or not the Afri-flu is able to penetrate computer screens and infect readers of this blog, who, according to the chairman, are probably already a bit soft in the head (and therefore probably have very low if not non-existent immune systems) for subjecting themselves to this mindless, nonsensical drivel on a regular basis.

"In which case," he said, "contracting the Afri-flu would only do them all a world of good in the long run."

* The Time/Life A - Z Medical Encyclopedia makes a great gift, especially to hospital patients who can't sleep. Give them this book to read, and I guarantee that it will cure their insomnia. Because after reading this book and reading about all the things their doctors are probably NOT telling them, it won't be insomnia keeping them awake at night!

... I would be a loaf of bread.

My sis is gone and suddenly the house seems unbearably quiet and empty.

Her 18-day visit flew by so quickly, it felt more like 18 hours.

Luckily, she left us with a rather distracting memento... the flu.

Not just any flu either. A potent, monstrous South African flu! (This after I'd TOLD her that I didn't want any gifts! Next time I'll ask for Pro Nutro* instead.)

Seriously, my poor sis fell ill shortly before leaving South Africa and unfortunately she didn't quite shake it while she was here - even though she did so generously pass it on!

The boy contracted it first and I managed to proudly dodge their germs. All these years in the U.S. must've made me soft though, because I was finally struck down last week.

So here I am... a pathetically sad and sniffling heap who is feeling completely crummy.

Which is why I'll be loafing some more until further notice... (Not too much longer, though, I promise!)

* Pro Nutro: A South African breakfast cereal. I've been a proud, life-long addict. Knowing this, my sis DID bring me a couple of boxes of the stuff, even without being asked!

Why why oh why does time seem to fly by when you least want it to?!?

My sister will be leaving again on Saturday and I'm already suffering from severe separation anxiety...

I don't know how long it will take me to recover from the trauma of saying the much dreaded goodbye, but as soon as that happens, I promise to resume my regularly scheduled leisurely blogging.

In the mean time, I'd be happy to receive overnight shipments of all your spare Valiums!

That would be what I am right around now... screwed.

And it's all mostly thanks to Ikea.

You see, it's now 3:50 AM on the east coast of the U.S., and as we are speaking, my sister is hurtling through the sky at... well, I'm too tired/lazy to know or look up how fast those South African Scareways planes fly across the Atlantic.

In any case, she'll be here in just a few hours, and I AM STILL PUTTING HER BEDROOM FURNITURE TOGETHER!

Oh, damn those Swedes and their Swedish efficiency! (I don't think I have Swedes among my three/four or now sometimes five (FIVE!) readers, but if I do... my gross generalisation excludes YOU of course!)

"Well, Red", I hear you murmur. "Why are you still putting her furniture together at this late stage?"

Oh, my dear readers, how little ye seem to recall of my awful habits! Don't you remember that I was born two weeks early (on this very day, in fact) and that I've since tried my damnest to catch up on all that leisure time in the womb that I'd missed out on by being 14 days early?

Well, I still haven't caught up on the lost sleep, that's why I might seem a bit slow to the rest of the world.

Anyway, back to those Swedes and their proudest export: their Ikea stores and its chirpy, do-it-yourself wares.

I've never claimed to like DIY projects. How-to books, yes, but that's entirely different.

Now look, I'll admit that I'm no novice to Ikea's furniture. I've been on a first-name basis with a few chairs named Jors (or was it Hork? I forget. Besides, after a while they all blur together in one's memory. A bit like ex-boyfriends, I suppose. Although I'll be quick to assure you that some of Ikea's chairs have more personality and spunk than a few of those boyfriends ever had!)

But still, tonight a friend and I were almost defeated by a bed named Malm. So we've decided that the Swedes definitely need more sun. They MUST be deprived of much needed oxygen or some essential vitamins during their dark, long winters.

Why else would they insist on explaining how you should put their furniture together by printing a manual without a single word in it? (Well, no words except for the name of your particular purchase. I think they're very proud of the fact that they pay someone to name their furniture.) Seriously, their instruction booklets are like the printed equivalent of charades. That is, if you are playing charades and you are the only sober person in the room.

I'll admit that they do a good job in their pictorial instructions, because most of the time it's relatively easy to decipher. But this time I was almost stumped, courtesy of two little pictures. One picture showed you the correct way of putting some parts together. Right next to it was the picture with the big X through it, telling you how NOT to put it together under any circumstances!

It looked EXACTLY the same as the other picture. (I'll provide evidence a bit later.)

Anyway, thanks to my very clever and capable friend, Malm is now standing, waiting patiently to provide comfort and rest to my jet-lagged sister.

And I'm happy to report that I don't have a single screw loose anymore!

Which is great news, especially considering that I'm older today than I have EVER been before.

Nanny saga still being written. (Promise, Kim and Kerri and Dee and Ensurt!)

While all three FOUR! of you wait with baited breath (yeah, right) until the day I finish that (and the travelogue AND the host of other things I still have in draft form. Yes, it's getting awfully drafty and cluttered here in the back corridors at Redsaid's! Can anyone say "Short attention span?"), here's something else for you to gnaw on.

Have to catch up? Well, you didn't miss much, and although I don't normally force more of my writing on people than is absolutely necessary - besides, usually even minimal exposure is sufficient to inflict the desired amount of torture - I'd still state the obvious and encourage you to read Part I first.

Now, before I continue the saga, I just want to ask you to please forgive me for telling this in such fits and starts. This is the first time I'm ever writing this story in full, and although I've already told it to a few people, these aren't memories I like to revisit.

People who have heard the story often encourage me to write it down. Not just for the therapeutic value of it, but they actually think it would make a good book! (Not unless I'd hire a ghost writer, though!) I've always used the excuse that it would be too blatantly indiscreet or disloyal of me to write this story. I've even used the feeble defence that it might not even be my story to tell, that I can't really claim ownership to it, you know? Truth is, it's always been just too difficult to face that part of my past.

So why am I writing it down now?

Well, I've been stuck in immigration limbo for so long and, even though I rarely write about any of that stuff on here, it's been weighing on my mind a lot lately.

And since these events were a crucial part of the journey that has brought me to this point in my life, and since I'm telling this story to explain how I became an illegal immigrant (by the way, this is NOT a how-to manual! Rather a How-NEVER-to, please listen-and-learn-from-my-mistakes story!), I've decided to finally release it.

I know it sounds really melodramatic ("MOI? MELO-DRAMATIC?!?" she says with fluttering eyelids, the back of her hand sweeping across her brow) to use words like "releasing", etc. Truth is, I actually think there might be a valid point hidden in all that "therapeutic value" psycho-babble.

But even more than that... my situation has had me feeling quite desperate lately. And if you'd ask any stalker, I'm sure they'll agree that desperation is NOT a good mental place to be in! So I'm hoping that in writing this down, an answer will come to me and I'll have a sudden, miraculous and clear revelation on what to do to get out of this tricky spot in my life, because right now, I feel rather stuck here.

I'm also hoping that I'll finally reach someone who is going through the same thing, because in all the years I've been in the U.S., and in all the years since I've finally filed with Immigration to become legal, I've never met anyone who is going through quite the same thing as I am. At times it's made me feel as if I'm all alone in this boat (or more like a rickety old raft, maybe) and so I'm lost in this seemingly endless sea without any nautical/navigational skills!

Of course I KNOW that I'm not as alone as I feel, because well, according to U.S. immigration statistics, my case is but one of 3.7 MILLION backlogged immigration cases. But more about that later.

I know I'm pinning a lot of hope on this little story of mine. Maybe, if nothing else, it will just be good to finally get it out of my system...

So thank you for bearing with me. If it's this frustrating for me to write this down (and it isn't even a literary description of the events!), I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for you to try and lumber through it!

And on that note, here, at last, is the continuing story.

Let me forewarn you: This is going to be my 'weepy' post. The one in which I indulge in melodramatic self-pity and sob and shout and shake my fist about.

So yes, it's a little bit like drunk-dialing, I suppose. And I believe everyone should be entitled to do it at least once (or so... let's not limit ourselves. I might end up enjoying it so much that I'd want to make a habit out of it).

As I sit here tonight, I feel drained and defeated. On the one hand, I have so much to be grateful for. For one, I've recently found out that my one sister is coming to visit me! She'll be arriving on my birthday and staying until the 18th of September, and needless to say, I can't WAIT, because I haven't seen her since 2000...

Yes, that's five years.

But that's not the worst of it. I haven't seen my dad in NINE years. My other sister in six years, my mom in four years, my other sis in a year.

This is why.

You've often seen how I refer to myself as an "outlawed alien," and recently many people (more than I could've ever expected, thank you!) responded to my appeal to sign that very naive Green Card petition I had written on my own behalf, but I've never really told you how I ended up being an illegal immigrant in the first place.

So, in case you've ever wondered how a person manages to achieve the same legal status as a Cuban cigar in the States - other than rafting in or outrunning the BCIS (formerly known as the INS) - here's your answer.

Back in 1996, when I was 21 and still living in South Africa, I was a recent graduate from journalism school and found myself working for the press office at the local Egyptian Embassy.

My room mate had just returned from Washington D.C. where she had worked as a nanny. I was forever interrogating her about the States. What is it like? What are the people like? Luckily for me, she had been seeking an audience for some time, so she was more than willing to talk about her experiences with me.

One fine day, after I had moved out and into my own apartment, she phoned me at work, almost too excited to speak. Eventually, I managed to decipher the gist of her news. A friend of the family she had worked for in Washington was also looking for a nanny. Since they had gotten to know my friend quite well throughout her stay in D.C., they wanted her to come back and work for them, but since she'd already 'been there, done that,' she told them about me instead.

"You absolutely HAVE to go!" she said. "You'll have the best experience, and besides, they are willing to pay for your ticket and everything, that's how desperate they are to find someone."

She eventually managed to persuade me. It didn't take very much, mind you, because I'd always dreamed of travelling and living overseas for at least a few years of my life. Since I've always been more of a dreamer than a doer, I recognised this as just the push I'd need to bring at least one of my ambitions to fruition.

So before long (and it all happened really fast... within less than three months) I was in touch with my future boss, and after exchanging a few e-mails, letters and phone calls, the deal was done. They were going to buy my ticket; I only had to quit my job, move out of my apartment and store my furniture, and then get on the plane.

The only time a visa was ever mentioned, was when I asked about how I should go about getting the correct one. My prospective boss was very quick to tell me that I needn't worry too much about such details and that I should just get a tourist visa and get to D.C. already.

I was bitterly, bitterly naive and didn't see any reason to question this. Besides, according to my friend, this family was wealthy and really well connected in D.C. So without much of a hitch, I managed to get a tourist visa valid for one year and on 9 November 1996, I left South African soil. Little did I know for just how long...

The transition from sunny South Africa to a very chilly Washington D.C. was incredibly tough.

For one, I didn't know a soul, so I was incredibly lonely. It also didn't take me too long to figure out that the couple I was working for (by looking after their only son) had not been happily married for a long time. In fact, by the time I got there, their marriage was pretty much on the rocks.

I lived in the house with them and sometimes the atmosphere in that mansion was chillier than the D.C. winter blustering outside.

It was awful. I received a very small salary - far below the minimum wage, which was probably why they never cared so much about my visa status - and I worked way more than 40 hours per week. Some weeks they simply forgot to pay me, and I never had the nerve to remind them. (Yeah, I guess one could say that I'm not much of a business woman.)

After three months of this, and what was probably one of the worst Christmases of my life (during which the FATHER flew into a rage because he hadn't received the gift he wanted!), I found employment elsewhere.

This is where you are probably going to think that I'm making this up, but believe you me, if I really did have such an imagination, I think I would've used it to crank out a best-seller a long time ago.

Even though my responsibilities increased by one child, two dogs, a cat and a few more household chores and errands, and even though my small stipend didn't increase, life with Family Number Two seemed like paradise in the beginning.

The atmosphere in the house certainly felt a lot warmer than I had been used to. Little did I know that they had a huge skeleton in their closet...

Please don't hate me, I swear I'm not doing it on purpose, but all this purging has worn me out. I promise to continue this later.

Until a minute ago, I was busy writing down all the fond memories I have of my trip to share with you on this here blog, but I've decided to interrupt myself so that I could bring you the following spamtistics (yeah, it's lame. But believe me, if you were being drowned in spam, what little creativity you thought you had would probably be drained out of you too).

Yesterday, Online Pharmacy overtook Online Poker and Roulette in the amount of spam comments left on my site. (If you still think I'm exaggerating, see The Opiniated somewhere to the left of this message.) But keep in mind that you don't see the Trackback Pings that still end up in my inbox.

Right now, my inbox amount stands at 3,379. Out of that, only about 4 are legitimate, wanted messages.

I honestly don't know what to do anymore. (Not that I had much of an inkling before, but still...)

UPDATE: Just in the amount of time that it took me to write this, the amount of spam messages brought my inbox total up to 3,382.

Anyone? Please help?

As I'm typing this, I'm being spammed to death. As in, one unsolicited, vile !@#$%^&* spam per every 30 seconds or so. Really, I'm not kidding.

Oh, my Spam police are SO fired.

I used to wield off the spammers by merely going into the comment e-mail (in this case, Horde) and then just clicking on the MT-Blacklist link from there. Once at Blacklist, I could then delete and blacklist comments and trackbacks to my heart's content.

Since early this morning, however, every time I got to the MT-Blacklist site and kindly and oh-so-willingly offered up a spam for them to kill, they diss me with the following error message: "Could not save your blacklist data: Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' bytes."

Uhhh, what?

So, now I'm stuck. I can't kill them as they're coming in, so now they're coming in as if I don't even have a blacklist.

PLEASE help! Because as you can see, after nearly a year of blogging, I'm STILL clueless about these more technical aspects of it!

On the bright side...

Pre-Update Update: Never mind the next Update... my very own web goddess Emily has saved my butt yet again! In my enthusiasm to block a few spammer trackbacks, I inadvertently blocked the whole civilized world from commenting as well. Sorry folks! Comment away (please?)! And Emily: THANK YOU.

Update: Something is terribly wrong. I can't even comment on my own site anymore! Anyone who is an expert on MT Blacklist, please extend a helping hand! I'm so desperate I've even considered deleting my entire blacklist, but then I look at my referrer page and see all the awful sites that have been trying to leave their spam and I just dread the thought of having to start from scratch and deleting all the smut that is sure to be left here if I unblock them all. HEEEELP, please!?!

She tried sending me a comment on my limesick post, but apparently some mysterious entity decided that she was a spammer.

I say "mysterious entity," because from the thirty minutes (at LEAST) a day I spent deleting friendly invitations to purchase potions and lotions to enhance and enlarge body parts I don't possess or already have enough of; or invitations to view families who love each other so much that their family trees go straight up; or invitations to view pictures of animals and people that... let's just say that it gives the term 'heavy petting' a whole new and nasty definition... So considering all of these things, it doesn't even feel as if I HAVE a spam blocker to begin with!

It's happened a few times before that precious real bloggers who wanted to comment were inadvertently blocked by my Spam Police. And my readers and commenters ARE precious because they're a rather rare commodity and should be protected and preserved at all cost, because man I LOVE my 'peanut gallery' and hearing what they have to say, even though they've proven to be a very disobedient lot. You see, I've ordered them (several times!) to please try and refrain from being funnier than the author - yeah, wishful thinking, I know - but they just can't seem to help it. (That's why, if you're new to this website and you want to be highly entertained, read the archives. But not of what I have written: read the comments!)

But back to the Spam Police. I know I'm not the most tech savvy person in the world (hahahaha, yes, I'm soo understated!), but I'm really puzzled. I don't understand why they seem to be looking the other way (or are they on their coffee-and-doughnuts-break?) when my comments and trackbacks get spammed at least a hundred times per hour by those sick sites whose names rhyme with 'feast and iality' and 'invest'; but when my legitimate and very welcome readers try to comment, they suddenly drop their doughnuts, dust off their Spam Police uniforms and whip out their weapons.

UPDATE: I've just taken a break to read a few other sites, and it turns out that today's Birthday Girl (who is no fool, by the way, despite having a birthday on this day) apparently tried to comment on my April Fool's Day post, but surprise surprise... she was blocked. Oh, but whadoyouknow: I've just been invited SEVERAL TIMES to a site where I can purchase prescription meds without the necessary doctor's note!

GAAAAH! Please help! I try to vigilantly block the spammers as soon as they strike, but I am very careful not to accidentally block any real readers/commenters in the process. I've just double-checked my blacklist and I can't spot anyone on there who shouldn't be there (I could've overlooked someone in my haste though). Helen and Kat are definitely not on there though!

This isn't the first time I've had the problem where people e-mailed me saying that they've been blocked. As far as I can remember, it's happened to her and her, but those problems eventually sorted themselves out, because I never did anything about it - I couldn't, because I didn't know WHAT to do, very much like now - and soon after they started commenting again without any further problems.

Oh, and I've just remembered: A while back she tried to comment on this post. She e-mailed me her comment and right fool that I am, I tried posting the comment on her behalf... UNDER HER NAME. (I TOLD you that today was invented for people like me!) And then I completely forgot about it until now. I'm soooo sorry Kimberly! Here, to try and make up for my idiocy, is your comment, even though it's probably a month after the fact! I'm sure your views haven't changed yet:

I tried to leave a comment, and was rejected because it thought I was a spammer. I was trying to post this to your post about Williams's song:

I would have enjoyed William's song I bet. I like tongue in cheek stuff
and have a wicked sense of humor (one I often have to repent over).

And Kat, here's your excellent limesick limerick now for all the world (that is, if the world has a population of three) to see. I'm posting it here, even though it's so much funnier and better than mine. But *sigh* I'll let it slide this once because of the brutality you've suffered at the hands of my Spam Police. (If they keep this up I'm going to confiscate their badges!)

Here's what Kat wrote:

Ack, I tried to post this comment, but your spambot wouldn't let me! I guess
it didn't like my limerick...lol

There once was a girl named Red
who was a lil sick in the head
She called it the flu
and cried out boo-hoo!
so we told her to go back to bed.

Thanks again, Kat! And you know what, I've been so upset about the Spam Police brutality taken out on my readers that I've completely forgotten about my flu!

Anyway, if anyone has any advice for me on how to curb the spammers without blocking any legitimate readers/commenters, PLEASE let me know?

Just: Es Aye Sea Kay

This past weekend, while doing a bit of celebratory seven* channel surfing (what... you didn't really think I was actually going to go out and shake my romp after my recent traumatising experience with an Arthur Murray Dance School instructor named Good Quality, now did you?), the boy and I tuned into a movie where a vicious fight scene - complete with the bad dubbing where the fake sounds of fists falling and karate "CHOP, CHOP, KA-CHOPPING!" were lagging just a tad behind the actual movements it was supposed to be sound-effecting - was in progress.

Being the cultured folk we are, we were instantly riveted.

The plot appeared to be quite intricate (as is usually the case with 80's films containing badly-dubbed sound-effects), but we managed to figure out that the two guys were beating each other up in order to win the affection of a girl.

I turned to the boy and said: "Except for one time when a male friend had to be dispatched to get rid of an overzealous ex-boyfriend, no man - or woman, for that matter - has ever fought for my hand or my honour. And you know, for just once in my life I would really like to see some teeth flying on my behalf."

For some unfathomable reason the boy didn't seem ONE BIT enthusiastic to make my dream come true.

So, girls (and boys! This is an equal-opportunistic website): Have fists and/or teeth ever flown on YOUR behalf?

*We get seven television channels on a GOOD day, when we manage to sit perfectly still on the couch, wire coat hangers carefully balanced on our foreheads.

Just after dark last night I noticed some lights flashing outside the kitchen window.

We live in a fairly quiet neighbourhood. Sure, there's the occasional neighbourly shoot-out (although the boy swears that those shots are just the guy around the corner's truck backfiring and therefore not really shots at all, but I like my story better because it brings back sweet memories of the year that I lived in Johannesburg), but other than that, it's really quiet.

Because after all, one doesn't actually HEAR stabbings. (Unless the victims live long enough to scream a bit.)

Anyway, I digress.

So since our neighbourhood is so peaceful and we don't often see any ambulances or fire trucks around these parts, I promptly grabbed the boy by the hand and dragged him to the kitchen window to see which vessel was the bearer of the bright and flashing lights.

Much to our surprise and - I admit - my slight disappointment, there was no shiny red fire engine in the alley behind the house. Also no ambulance. Or even a police car.

The source of the strobe lights piercing the darkness then?

The Towers.

You see, we live at the foot of a hill in Baltimore. The hill is home to the majority of the television stations in the city - it even has the very imaginative name of "Television Hill."

One of those television stations is famous for once employing a very young Oprah Winfrey as a cub reporter/anchor woman. She had some glamorous assignments back then. Nowadays, whenever the esteemed Ms. Winfrey is in the news for some reason, the station loves to repeatedly play a segment from their archives showing a flustered 20-something Oprah fending off a vicious parrot at the Baltimore Zoo.

But that hill isn't just home to the humble beginnings of Oprah's career. It's also the dwelling place of... The Towers.

Until now I've actually kind of liked these television towers. Never mind the fact that the images on our television screen gets all warped when we're watching a show and we dare to move even so much as an inch on the couch; or that I can't sit down to watch the one and only Ms. Winfrey chatting up various celebrities every afternoon at four, because Oprah coincides with rush hour and heavy traffic on one of the major routes just so happen to interfere with our television reception. Even though the major road in question is TEN MILES AWAY, and the towers are just one mile away.

So when I want to watch Oprah and not snow* (or blue. The screen sometimes go entirely and hypnotically blue), I have to stand on one leg while spinning a white saucer on the tip of my right index finger. If I want to have the luxury of standing on both legs while watching, I have to insert a coat hanger in... well, never mind.

Still, despite the fact that the television towers that are looming directly over our house does nothing to enhance our television viewing experience, I like the towers. Besides, I employ them for other things.

Like assessing the weather. On foggy winter days when I want to determine the thickness of the fog, I need only look out the window to see if the towers are visible.

Up until the night before last, I loved the nightly ritual of being lulled to sleep by the friendly, winking red lights at the top of the towers.

Those nights are over.

Right now it's just after three in the morning. But gone is the black velvet cloak of Night. Forever banished is the comforting darkness that had cradled me in sweet slumber a mere 24 hours ago!

In it's place, LIGHT.

Light brighter than the noonday sun in South Africa, penetrating the tightly drawn blinds and drapes and flooding the house EVERY TWO SECONDS and blinding my already bloodshot, bleary eyes.

A light that makes a powerful lighthouse beam seem like the innocent, weak glow of a children's night light.

A light. Probing. Flashing. Constantly flashing. NEVERENDINGFLASHINGFLASHINGFLASHING like a psychedelic disco light.

Robbing me of sleep.

Can't sleep. Can't. Sleep.

C...a...n...'...t

S...l...e...e...p

I've recently come to realize that rhythm isn't necessarily part of a person's birthright. Not even for those of us who hail from Africa.

Although I've had my suspicions about being rhythmically challenged for a long time (ever since high school when I was the only one to be barred from attending the open school dances, to be exact. Okay, so that was probably a BIG hint, right there, but never mind! ), I stubbornly clung to the belief that humans, like dogs, can be taught to do virtually anything.

So on the day that GQ - a stage name meaning Good Quality and NOT the fashion glossy unread by straight men the world over unless they really are metrosexual and/or a little desperate - danced his swaggering way from the Arthur Murray dance studio into my motionless life, it didn't take him too long to convince me that he could very well transform me into the next Ginger Rogers.

"I can teach anyone!" he smoothly covered my weak protests.

"Besides, doll! You already have the red hair!" he gushed.

I should have known better then, but somehow, after all these years of being in the United States, an unhealthy amount of the American self-belief that you can do ANYTHING if you're willing to try and/or pay for a really good teacher, had already rubbed off on me too.

After spending a sleepless night fantasizing about how I was going to strut my stuff in the starring role of a passionate tango opposite a Latino hunk, I showed up at the studio for my complimentary first lesson.

As I watched the twirling couples on the dance floor, I shook the recurring images of the hilarious Australian film "Ballroom" from my head and assured myself that the exercise would be good for me.

Upon seeing me, GQ performed a lavish pirouette.

"I have more left feet than the number of tentacles on an octopus!" I forewarned as he grabbed me by the hand.

The music must have been too loud, because he merely took one disapproving glance at my trusty Nikes and ordered his assistant to go and get me a pair of ... he literally recoiled when I whispered "Size 11. Wide"... stilettos.

Yeah, so I have gigantic feet. Bite me. Besides, you know what they say: Large feet means large... brains?

Once I finally squished my feet into a pair of 9 and a halfs (it's the best the assistant could do, she assured me as she tried to refrain from openly gawking at my freakishly large, flat feet), I shuffled over to the dance floor.

"But I can hardly WALK in them!" I lamented at five inches above floor level while desperately flailing my arms about in a shaky attempt to keep my balance.

"It doesn't matter, honey, 'cause you ain't gonna walk!" GQ said with relish as he flashed me his mile-wide grin.

It is possibly due to the trauma that followed, but I can hardly remember what happened next. One moment my body parts were being contorted into surreal shapes and I was displaying about the same amount of grace as an ox on speed.

The next minute I was truly airborne.

I just remember GQ's voice throughout the blur of sight, sound and pain going: "FEEL the music, Baby! Just FEEL it! And ONE, and TWO, and THREEEEE and LIFT and AraBESque..!"

I don't think I will ever forget the one rule of Physics that more or less states that a body in motion is bound to keep on moving. (Only until it collides with a dancehall mirror, of course. Then it can stop very abruptly indeed.)

Following its crash landing, said body remained miraculously unscathed.

But the emotional scars... Oh, those still run infinitely deep.

Whenever I hear an upbeat song on the radio and I am tempted to start tapping my foot, I can still hear GQ's voice as he told the assistant: "Man, that white girl wasn't kidding. She REALLY can't dance. I've never seen anything like it."

"And not to mention those FEET..."

Remember those 15 minutes of fame I was so worked up about the day before yesterday?

Good news is, my 15 minutes are all still intact.

Bad news is: Turns out that even though I have a face suitable for radio, I apparently don't have the voice for it.

Yes, I was cut from the segment. Do they even 'cut' you in radio though? What's the correct jargon for such a heart-wrenching and cruel act?

Well, if they don't "cut" you in radio, then let's just say that I was taped over, or whatever else those radio editors do to those fools like me who never make it onto the air.

If I sound awfully sorry for myself, it's 'cause I am. Bringing shame to the family name like this! (All my relatives were gathered 'round the stereo today in great anticipation of my international radio debut. To make matters worse (if that's even possible), the segment in question was saved until the very last fraction of the hour-long show. So my poor family had to sit through the ENTIRE show before discovering that I was... if not cut, can I say erased?)

I begged my mom to tell everyone that I had just played a little joke on them all; that I was never really going to be on the radio in the first place and that I had just wanted to make them get up at the crack of dawn on their vacation because I thought it would be funny.

But even if she would've told them that, I don't know how I would've explained the fact that I happened to know exactly what the topic of that particular segment was going to be!

Oh, the humiliation!

Anyway, so never mind what video did to the radio star. Radio avenged itself early this morning by snuffing out Red's star before it even had the opportunity to dimly twinkle.

And to add even further insult to injury?

Still sick. Please send soup.

Actually, even sympathy will do.

xoxo Pale Red.

... That people are unable to hear the true sound of their own voices, leaving them to believe - with a belief as steadfast as a child's faith - that they sound just as good as Oprah when they speak, and, more importantly, that they can SING.

Not only that. They believe they can really sing.

So they do what any reasonable person who believe they are really good at singing (and they have to be good at it, because they enjoy it just SO much) would do, and so they sing. (And in some instances, some of them even audition for American Idol.)

They sing with enthusiasm. All the time. And almost everywhere.

Except... in the shower.

Because some people don't like to get shampoo and soap suds in their big mouths, see. So therefore the shower is the only place where some people shut up.

Until one day, when those same people decided to postpone a hair wash until a later, post-exercise shower.

So right there in the shower, without the risk of eating shampoo suds - and while keeping a close eye on the soap suds - some people started lustily belting out a song.

A few bars into the song, a faint but horrendous sound was detected. Someone was trying to sing along in a most awful voice! The neighbour? Yes, quite possibly the neighbour. The walls are extremely thin in some people's homes after all.

So some people kept right on singing, deciding to repeat the song for the benefit of the poor soul who was trying so hard to sing along and failing sooo miserably.

About half way through the third repetition of the song, the shower was finished and the water was turned off.

As soon as the noise of running water stopped the realisation set in:

Did you know that some bathrooms, although small, has quite an echo..?

There was never any neighbour singing along!

Thus, after getting a vague but very disturbing idea of what my voice really sounds like to other people, I vowed to NEVER OPEN MY MOUTH AGAIN. I was left feeling so humiliated by my own echo that I decided to discontinue ALL forms of oral communication, effective immediately.

After all, Helen Keller got along quite well without speaking.

UPDATE: Surprise, surprise: I'm no Helen Keller. And so my self imposed vow of silence lasted about all of five seconds.

I'm a little sad.

After winning 74 times in a ROW and raking in a total record-shattering amount of $2,520,700, he finally lost last night.

Yeah, yeah, mock me all you like, but I am in awe of anyone who is able to do something really well. (Actually, I'm quite easily impressed, so even moderate talent is highly regarded by me.) And watching Ken in action on that quiz show was quite remarkable.

I know he's a bit of a geek (I love geeks, though!), but he was such a gentleman throughout his time on the show.

And last night, when he lost to Nancy Zerg, a realtor from California, he bowed out with his usual good humour and grace.

Goodbye Ken Jennings! "Jeopardy!" just won't be the same without you, and I can't wait to see you on next year's Tournament of the Champs, when you will continue to kick quiz show arse.

My horrorscope for the day says that I have to refrain from having "in-depth conversations" with anyone today.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HER! Have In-Depth conversations!" I hear you shrieking.

Don't shriek like that. You'll wrinkle.

And that is as deep as I'm going to venture today.

When you attend a buffet dinner theatre production staged and performed by NASA Goddard's theatre ensemble (known very appropriately as MAD - you know, since they're mad scientists and all? Although I was quickly told that their madness is most certainly not the reason for that name, and that MAD is merely an acronym for Music And Drama), you'll come to realise a few things:

1) Some of those rocket scientists could just as easily have swapped their lab coats for feather boas and made it as broadway performers.

2) Some of those rocket scientists, although very clever and enthusiastic, wouldn't make it to stardom unless they complete the astronaut program.

And finally, and most importantly, you'll realise that:

Ever felt as if every last creative thought has forsaken you?

No, of course YOU haven't. Grrrr.

Anyway, it's official: I've been forsaken, which is why I'm in the market for a few new (but I'd even settle for secondhand) bright ideas.

So I'm in desperate need of a Muse. Preferably one (or more. NOT that I'm greedy or anything) in handsome, masculine form (NOT that I'm shallow or anything).

Granted, I already have a boy, but he isn't always around when inspiration swiftly departs with a one-way ticket elsewhere.

So, any takers? The pay is lousy - okay, non-existent - the hours erratic; the employer's a procrastinating slacker who grossly overuses parentheses and almost every other form of punctuation sensitive individual whose creativity was stifled at a tender age; and even though you'd never say so from looking at said employer, the food pickings are slim (well, unless the boy's home, 'cause yes, along with his other talents, he cooks too); but there is always some coffee brewing and something hopping bee-bopping on the digital turntable.

I'm nursing a pet peeve.

This is news worthy because, well, I say it is (WHOAHAHAHAHAHA!), and because, apart from having-to-get-up-early-and-cold-coffee-and-people-who-abuse-animals-and-people-who-are-downright-mean-and-narrow-minded-and-tight-fisted-and-being-forced-to-do-something-I-don't-want-to-do*, I don't have any pet peeves.

None whatsoever.

Except for the following one: I don't like people who say (brace yerselves for this one darlings, for it is serious and NOT intended for the faint-hearted!):

People, we are all in grave danger.

That is the startling discovery I made when I paged through one of those Time/Life A - Z self-help medical books written in layman's terms especially for the general public, thus enabling us to diagnose ourselves with an alarming array of illnesses without any assistance from a doctor.

Quickly, over here: bob@y4569o.com

Got it? Good. Feel free to send him loads of his own medicine. I mean, really, after all, if you can't take it you shouldn't be dishing it out, now should you?

Is there a way to block this loser from spamming my site via his e-mail? If so, please tell me how? Because the bastard spams me daily, but from different IP addresses, so I end up having to blacklist all of them individually, and it takes up sooo much time. I know that she has the same problem, so all advice to us will be greatly appreciated, thanks.

You know, just as I was about to become super cocky and self-assured about finally being able to successfully upload photographs on this here site, my newfound inflated techno ego is rendered all fragile and pathetic and, with a few ruthless clicks of the mouse, entirely crushed.

"Why oh why all the melodrama again?" You may or may not be asking with interest real or feigned.

Oh, how can I possibly resist your persistent curiosity?

And so, once again, you manage to drag the heartbreaking tale out of me.

Summoning all internet gurus (aka all three and a half of my esteemed readers. Half, because some of you only read the post titles, I'm sure).

HELP!

Oh, yes... my manners: Help me... NOW!

(Please?)

Don't worry, I don't need money. Well, I do, but that, frankly is another very sad story and since I'm always as cheerful as Katie bloody Couric (how can anyone be that chirpy THAT EARLY IN THE MORNING?!) and you've come to expect that kind of cheer from me (that, and irregular posts), I won't lament my money troubles and my mental unhealth.

I do, however, still need your help, oh you web savvy folks you!

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.

Turbulent 20's no more.

At midnight last night, I officially entered my dirty 30s. I was at the cast party and doing way too many shots and chasers. (Oh, yes: the run of the play ended on Saturday night. We might be back though for another show. But more about that later.) Can't remember very much (thank goodness) except that I had drunken depression at one stage and calling someone in the middle of the night and talking (and hysterically giggling) a lot about a potentially new story character named Peter Panther (a combination of Peter Pan and the Pink Panther. Don't ask. No really. Don't. 'Cause I won't be able to explain it.).

So now I'm a "little bit" hung-over and in desperate need of a long, warm shower.

And yes, my bones definitely feel creakier today at thirty than they did yesterday at 29. Do you think my post-midnight stumble through the backyard in the dark could possibly have anything to do with my (deeply hidden) skeleton's state..?