The dog ate my homework. No really, it did, she says, holding up
what look like gnawed sheets of A4 paper covered in random scribbles, which on
closer examination turn out to be badly torn up sheets of A4 paper covered in
random scribbles. I know, pathetic. What can I say? My lies are almost as dodgy as my blog. Almost.
Hello, my lovelies, how’ve you been? Good? Good. I’m not so good. Hell, I’m terrible. Bloody fatigued, battered, bruised and
scarred for life. It’s been hard, man,
hard. Well, not so hard.
Many rivers to cross,
And it's only my will that keeps me alive,
I've been licked, washed up for years,
And I merely survive because of my pride…
And it's only my will that keeps me alive,
I've been licked, washed up for years,
And I merely survive because of my pride…
I’ve just come off two weeks in the
scariest place on these our interwebs. I
was on twitter. Walalalalala… My friend, that shit needs to come with a
serious warning, and a user’s manual, who knew that 140 characters can be so
complicated? See, it’s not just the
incessant chatter of god only knows how many people all talking at the same time, there’s apparently some sort
of secret protocol guiding interaction within the chattering mob. You don’t just waltz in and start sharing
your uninvited opinions willy nilly,
no sirree bob! You need to be ‘someone’,
or have some cause, or a gimmick, or a very, very, very hot AVI. My AVI is that ka-picture top right. And my gimmick is stony silence (I can’t say
what I need to say in 140 characters, come now…). My cause was, is, random reading, my twitter feed
is my reading list, says so bottom right, see?
(Incidentally, turns out some buggers on twitter don’t much care for reading
and such like nonsense, judging by what they say, and how they say it.) It goes without
saying that I am not ‘someone’. Pity no
one told me before I waded into the fray, you bastards just watched me getting
into that pool without so much as a life jacket, bloody nkt! Not to fear, I made it out the other side,
but only just. The good news is, I have
rediscovered my love for blogging.
Yes, it was almost gone. No, I will not apologise. Yes, you can call me names when I’m
done.
When I left I was contemplating a hiatus, a
couple of months away from the endless foraging, maybe a chance to not have my
words be the thing that define me. See,
over the last couple of months, I’ve been fortunate to get to know a couple of
you in person, and while that isn’t a new thing for me, it’s been a bit of a
revelation. It would appear that in all
my rambling, I may have inadvertently painted the picture of a loudmouth mama
with a penchant for foul language, naked people and wine. I have no idea how. Stop laughing. Now whilst I am that woman, I’m also a lot
more.
But sometimes even I forget.
It took a fortnight with the most peculiar
people in this country, well, the minute part of this country that’s online,
for me to realise how easy it is to get sucked into the ether of monologues and
never ending drama. And bile.
I must detour here. I don’t know what it is about those 140
thingis, but these our internets are home to some of the most ungracious people
I’ve ever read. Now it’s possible some
of the people I saw talking six kinds of shit to each other have some long
standing issues between them, but the amount of bile spewed on a daily basis
is, frankly, shocking. You know how I
once called bloggers narcissist word whores?
I take it back. We’re just word
whores, aint got a thing on those narcissist buggers. Self gratification is damn near an Olympic
sport na huko, and that’s just in the
morning, in the afternoon they beat up on the poor idiot who drives a Subaru
(apparently a bad thing), or the girl who beat up on him for driving a Subaru, and then in the evening they talk shit about the
people they are not sleeping with (more self gratification). And then there’s the never ending bile
towards serikali. I thought I was harsh,
but those buggers have GIFs, and serious entitlement issues.
What the hell? Don't get me wrong, it’s
brilliant, but so damn rude, and without so much as a disclaimer. Shame man. Hang on, so you think this will earn me some
bile? Probably, no? Wait, I have barely any followers, I am not ‘someone’, thankfully.
Detour over.
It’s easy to believe that your online
persona is who you really are, especially after you go out of your way to craft
the persona you think best represents you; clever, witty, sexy, whatever rocks
your boat. Then you step out your little
cocoon and realise that it’s all a mirage.
Worse still, if you’re the deviant who chooses to be the local Dr Ruth
(that would be me…ahem), then allegedly upstanding people treat you like the
cousin from shags, choosing to see, and avoid, that which embarrasses
them. Useless story, a friend of mine,
blogger as well, likes to complain that I don’t comment often enough on his
blog, only to turn around and tell me that he can’t be seen here. That’s right, he can’t have his mafans see
him frolicking in the sewer, and he claims to frolic, because I am nothing but
a sewer, whatever will they think of him?
This is a friend, so think how much worse it got with strangers over yonder. Yup, that much worse. Seems my (not so?) big brain and (way too) extensive interests
don’t count for a damn thing when I write about sex.
Well aint that a bitch?
No, not really.
Many rivers to cross,
But just where to begin, I'm playing for time,
There've been times I find myself,
Thinking of committing some dreadful crime…
But just where to begin, I'm playing for time,
There've been times I find myself,
Thinking of committing some dreadful crime…
It’s easy to get carried away here, talking
to myself, wrapped up in my peculiar obsessions and laughing at my own
(hilarious) jokes, but this is not the real world, and this woman is not the
real me. She’s part of me, I suspect the
better part of me (she doesn’t have the mood swings and the parara’d legs), but she is not all of
me. I’d like to think that I am greater
than the sum of my parts. To put it
differently, I am not just the sewer lady.
You do not know me just because you’ve read me cry over a man, all you
know is that I cried over a man, in most embarrassing fashion, a couple of
times… Hmmm… Maybe you do know me, but not all of me. Promise.
And given what you do know, that might actually be a good thing,
no? Thought so. Folks, I blog to process my thoughts, but not
all my thoughts (even I am not that foolish).
I process in public because I figure others out here have similar
thoughts from time to time, and perhaps they’d like to see their strangeness
reflected, if only partially. Listen, I
struggle to find people that sound like me, and so I figure that other people,
possibly like me, are struggling too.
This blog is my way of saying, “Listen here world, we’re not all
…………….insert relevant stereotype that offends you most (in my case:
god-fearing, happily married with 2.5 kids, self-help book reading, women of
substance)”. Some of us like weird
stuff, like sci-fi, and porn, and politics, and economics, and science, and
sex, and art, and music that’s not on radio, and sports other than the
ubiquitous football, and, gasp, books not written by idiots looking to sell us
bullshit dressed as help (for real, I detest self-help books with a passion, if
it’s self help, why are you here, bloody idiot?
Nkt!).
I do have to apologise. I’d forgotten why I was here. I’d forgotten what it feels like to sit here
and take something apart, and put it back together again, just for the hell of
it. I’d forgotten that online is just
online, the real world is waiting for me when I log off. How mad is it that it took the insanity of 140
characters to remind me, the woman who routinely puts out 2000 words, what I
have here? It’s good to be back in my
house, been gone too long.
Yes, I've got many
rivers to cross,
But I can't seem to find my way over,
Wandering, I am lost,
As I travel along the white cliffs of Dover…
But I can't seem to find my way over,
Wandering, I am lost,
As I travel along the white cliffs of Dover…
Is it odd that this song sounds like coming
home to me? Jimmy Cliff
