Words live ...

I'm a metalhead.
I live in and am proud of this culture, with its high tolerance, forgiveness and general awesomeness... yes. Our culture is more layered and deeper than that, but that's for another blog.
I love the music I do because of its honesty, intellegence and the self reflection of it...

I don't listen to radio, other than for traffic reports, before switching right back to my homemade playlist.
The playlist currently on my flashdrive was rather "rush made", but there are true musical gems that I somehow remembered were important enough to have on here.
One of those songs kicked me in the gutts this morning and left me with calm and serenity...

Aerials by System of A Down.

The opening words MUST haunt you constantly if you are trying to make a better person of yourself:

Life is like a waterfall
We're one in the river
And one again after the fall...

I've had to work harder than I have in months to fight off the urge to use guilt trips on people.
This week I've also had to work even harder at being considerate and patient towards other human beings.

Other people may treat you like trash...but that's no excuse to allow yourself to become like them.

...this is a rather serious post for me to write...but fire and brimstone preachings can be therapeutic.

Now...onward to Friday and smiles.

Lingerings...

Three years ago, coming into the murky gutts of Joburg Central made me wince in disdain...
All the cars, taxis, noise, humans, buildings...
Most of that disdain and fear most South African's hold for this "once upon a time" great city....dissipated.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to carry my handbag casually on my arm and walk 6 blocks alone. But, I guess my eyes are just more open to the colour, diversity....life that this cemented estate holds.
Condemned buildings built in 1889 with their boarded windows and doors, between newer, more modern high rises...the contrast between old and new is starkest in the older parts of this metropolis.
At least half a dozen different cultures culminate on a stretch of shops lining busy streets, while below this city are underground parking lots, filled to capacity by cars driven by the enormous workforce that floods this city 24hours a day, 7 days a week.
As I drive through the busy streets, calling on customers, I pass street vendors trying to make a living, guys dancing to the music playing in their earphones, people sitting in the winter sun on sidewalks warming themselves before heading back into the old cold buildings they work in...

Students wearing the latest fashion, old men dressed in their 70's best to go draw their wages at the banks, women laughing and chatting as they wait for busses and taxis.
And inbetween all these oddly matched buildings lined up at eachothers sides....the sky rises above all this concrete and asphalt, clear and blue.

Sigh.

Parts of my life...

Not alot of people get my reference to "puppymonsters"...and its ok if you don't, but if you do...here are 2 of my 4 puppymonsters, my madness, my heartattack givers, my cuddlers and snugglers, my soulmates...
Left: Apollo (7 year old Labrodor X great dane) aka. Puppyfats/Fatty
Right: Loupa (2 year old Alsation X Boerboel) aka. Lionwolf/wolfylion/lion/girly/eater of feet/destructo

Satiated...but temporarily

As much as I was making stock for Wonder Struck.... I did nothing else.
My pj's and slippers became my most intimate of companions this weekend as I binged on coffee, sunrises, sunsets and puppymonster cuddles.
I also went through at least 3 episodes of Game of Thrones...... ahem.

Then Monday arrived and its been a mad mess of busy.

I also ended up writing a bio of myself for a craft interview on another Etsy crafter's blog. I haven't sent it to her yet... but as different as many of us are on Etsy...I think 99% of us aspire to become those crafters that make a living from the things we love creating.
Oh but to give up this rat race and craft all day........le sigh.

A girl can but dream!

Squander indeed...

Its taken many years for me to rectify my life...and to take responsibilty for my own part in it all...
However, in this song, I find so much relevance outside of me.

Squander - Skunk Anansie

Why take everything you see?
You have nothing left to squander
If you keep pushing me away
You have no one left to love
You throw it all away
Those ties you went and suffered for
you called disaster
squander squander squander squander
Why take everything you see?
You have nothing left to squander
If you keep pushing me away
You have no one left to do love
you're less than you should be
what runs so hard to finish I
you could contendement
squander squander squander squander
Why take everything you see?
You have nothing left to squander
If you keep pushing me away
You have no one left to looooove, looooove
Why squander squander squander squander
Why take everything you see?
You have nothing left to squander
If you keep pushing me away
You have no one left to, no one left to love

*play it for someone dear and wayward in your life*

False sense...

Ah... what a way to kick off Saturday (a day that I look forward to with such enthusiasm).
My good vibe want was all for nought when I got into my horse's stable this morning...and was greeted by destruction.
His blanket buckles were half undone (which originally thought was by some unseen force), a haynet was on the ground and.... his saddle was gone.
Yup. That's when it hit me that... as my beautiful little blondie barked her lungs out the previous night, at 7:30pm, it was indeed over someone helping themselves to my saddle and attemptingly to my horse. They got one half of the thievery right.

I was rather surprised to find that, though I believe we should report all "out of the ordinary" acts to the cops, I didn't expect our local police station to not only send one car out less than half an hour after my call.... but TWO cars.
The policemen were all very nice about being called out over a small saddle, but took the matter rather seriously...maybe because during the course of last night there was alot of shinanigans happening in and around the neighbourhood apart from a thief in my stable...
Thankfully, dogs weren't poisoned and horses weren't successfully stolen, though that doesn't mean I'm not sitting here at my desk at 1am being paranoid over the possibility of someone being by my horse right now, despite the silence from the puppy monsters.

Absolutely ridiculous though, right?

...right?

Photo editing binge...

More fun with my photo editing app.

Just to blow your minds on a Friday...

Eloff Street....

Eloff Street, Joburg Central.
On a winter Thursday morning...

I have...

I have found the raddest photo app for my delicious android phone...

Its part of my new bout of Happy

Midweek...wonderings

It never surprises me why I hold such a deep dislike for Sandton.

It just oozes hipster badness.
A pretentious social standing...even when you're sitting.

It's also where I lived for 6 months.
In a 2nd floor, 2 bedroom apartment on Grayston drive.
My roommate was a stripper working nights at The Grand...
Our neighbours were also my roommates colleagues...

...this seems almost a whole lifetime ago, and yet as I drive past the complex on occassion, as I head to Rivonia Drive, it's just too close for comfort.

*

Love? Is...

I've discovered...concluded, along the way, that sometimes words are really just words.

But this doesn't leave me *more* cynical of human nature...somehow I've been lucky enough to experience moments that give some of these mere words, some real existence.

I've learnt that blood and water are a matter of perspective.
When step mothers become moms.
When fathers turn their backs to oncoming danger so they can hold their children protectively to their hearts.
When stepgrandads (Oupas) leave you missing them when they pass away.
And when friends drop everything they're doing to rescue you from coffee shops as you watch the tow truck take away your steaming heap of a car.

Love is paying your son's rent when he hasn't, and not telling him about it (and not worrying that you can't *really* afford to help him out).

Love is eating greek pastries who's names you can't pronounce, as you sit at a dinner table surrounded by great friends and their family.

Love is taking your Terry Pratchett collection out onto the stoep on a sunny winter Sunday noon and reading the day away.

...love is eating the last piece of cheesecake in the fridge so as to spare your mom the temptation from wavering off her diet.

Love is fighting over who changed the settings on the toaster and who's turn it is to make the coffee.

Love is missing someone and knowing that they shouldn't tell you they miss/love you, if they don't mean it...and that its ok if they don't. Just as long as you tell them...because you mean it.

Its ok if someone that means the entire world to you,goes nuts and ruins their life... love is being that steadfast pole they can come back to and lean onto.

Love is giving your last R1.50 to the beggar at the robot...there's more coming where that came from...for you at least.

Love is watching your grandmother miss the man she was married to for 49 years and that she stuck by him through wealth, bankruptcy and seven kids.
Love is reminding her that its ok to be heartbroken...and cry with her.

Love is dancing in the rain barefoot while your horse eyes you from the shelter of his stable...probably thinking that humans are nutjobs.

Love is ...every moment that might just slip by without you even caring to take note of it...

<3