New Millenium Lovers

"Love that is not madness is not love" - Pedro Calderon de la Barca

For the past decade and a bit, I was safely hidden in a world where I thought I understood love. Little did I know. In today's world, it seems I understand love even less.

Marriages are falling apart everywhere I look. My opinion on this subject is that unless you have completely stopped loving someone as your life partner, there is always a way to fix things. Call me naive. Whatever. It's when the love has been beaten to death and not even a defibrillator can bring it back that I can understand dissolving something as beautiful as a marriage. Unfortunately a lot of marrieds forget that once they believed the idea of marriage beautiful. When a marriage falls apart... well, it's one of the saddest things in life.

Here's what seems even more sad to me... falling in love in the New Millenium. It appears that each and every one of us has given our hearts to someone and been hurt. This is life. I find that the people from "my era" are being influenced just as much as younger generations by the instant gratification disease  that epitomises the times we live in now (Patience is a virgin. Yes, I said virgin. And we all know there are hardly any of those around anymore). When you add the two together, the results are not pretty.

The combination of hurt and instant gratification disease is leading to cynicism, scepticism, and fatalism. He's only with me because... He said so but... How long can love really last?... I want, now... Hell! I could expand on this theory for pages, but I'm not in the mood. If you ask me if relationships have any hope what-so-ever based on this attitude, I'd say don't fucking bother. This kind of love seems like a minefield... You can be blown to shreds at any moment. If that's your thing, good on you.

I look around and ask myself what happened to meeting someone (in real life, not on Facebook or Twitter), actually liking each other, then dating, flirting, falling head over heels in love, trusting, dreaming together, loving together, growing together... I feel really naive. For another world, another time.

Nothing in life is ever easy or simple. Yet it is.

I believe that if you want love that takes your breath away, moves your soul, frightens you a little bit, makes you happy, sets you on fire, makes you want to be a better person, gives you a glimpse of how beautiful the future could be, provides serenity, lifelong friendship and is better than any dream ...then you need to let go of the bullshit and learn to trust and have faith and be positive and visualise and endure and suffer and miss and desire and accept and be patient and believe and learn and communicate and be honest and passionate and courageous and yourself (as scary as that may be).

Or you could have moments that resemble these "New Millenium Lovers" and just say "fuck it", both literally and figuratively. I have moments when I get so vexed about love, and how difficult and painful it can be. In those moments I would rather just shut it off, disconnect, fly a million miles away and be on my own. The eternal party bachelorette, and eventually, the spinster mom and her cat. I like my own company, have great friends, am very sociable and would be just fine living that life. The problem is that I detest "fine", and as much as I like islands, I am not actually one. So what the fuck is a bird to do?!


I think the experiences I've had to date are different to those of my peers in that I have less time for being indirect. I know where I'm heading and how I want to get there. I'm generally life-loving, positive and driven and when I make up my mind, that is it. I realise that projecting this on to others is unfair, and so I work hard not to afflict my standards on those around me. I fuck up sometimes. That human thing.

There are moments when my passions consume me. Now is one of those moments.

Mush

This blog was meant to be a very specific short story. Once I'd finished writing it, I couldn't bring myself to publish it. I'm a wuss of a writer at the moment. Too many things going on in the background that I want to share, but just can't. And even though I can use dramatic license, there's the need for a soupçon of privacy, which I'm afraid my words would not provide no matter how much I abuse said license.

...In all honesty, this is like holding on to the juicest story in the universe. I swear if I don't tell someone I'm going to spontaneously combust. Ggaaahhhh! I need to get a grip.

Ho hum, twiddly thumb. Soooo... what shall I share with you instead? Thumb! That reminds me. I had a little accident last week. I was in the restrooms at The Zone in Rosebank, used the paper towel dispenser, and got my right thumb sliced through to the bone on one side, and all the way through the fleshy part on the other. The mall staff hadn't locked the towel dispenser and it fell and almost decapitated my thumb. I saw blood everywhere! There was a spurting fountain of it. I couldn't figure out where it'd come from, until I finally looked at my hand, then the floor, then the wall... I had to run out of the bathroom for help, leaving a trail of my DNA everywhere, then head back in to try and stem the flow while waiting for emergency services, which never arrived. I ended up wrapping my thumb in copious amounts of tissue paper, that turned red in seconds, and driving myself to the clinic in a state of shock with a bloody hand. I couldn't compress my hand and drive safely at the same time, so went with driving safely. It was not pretty.

Long story shortened, I ran from the hospital when they mentioned stitches and fled, with my bloody-wrapped hand, to a friends house who has extensive experience in such injuries. I arrived on his doorstep in a bit of a state, was given loads of TLC by his wife, and then they both put my thumb back together as best as they could. Did I mention the knight in shining armour who came speeding to my rescue? No? Well he soothed my frantic tears and made me feel a little calmer... and maybe slightly em-bare-assed.

I guess looking back at it now, it was the shock and pain, on top of not knowing the area I was in and trying to navigate my way around to find a hospital that combined together to freak me out a bit. Ok, a lot. Normally I would have called my father, but that's another story...

I sincerely hope you aren't eating anything while reading this. My thumb is on it's fourth dressing and the bone cut seems to be healing better than the one on the fleshy side. There will probably be scars, which I shall wear as badges of honour. Well, not really, but I always wanted to use that phrase.

See? I managed to distract myself and tell you a true (gross out) story without using dramatic license. Now I best go, before the feeling of spontaneous combustion sets in again.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

I'm home with the lurgy. Spent the night coughing, like someone with a 60-a-day habit. Very sexy. Just wanted to come online and share that with you.

With free time on my hands, I thought I'd do something productive, rather than give in to the work of the devil. I spent hours trawling through travel pics. They brought back some great memories! All the trips I've taken have been special, but a few stand out.

My first trip to Egypt was post the Al-Qaeda bombing of Sharm-El-Sheik. I felt quite guilty going on holiday after so many people had lost their lives, but the trip had been booked for ages. I spent my birthday travelling through Sharm (just another tourist destination), Dahab, Alexandria, Taba and Nuweiba. I snorkeled in the Blue Hole, had a local BBQ catered for by one of the Egyptian tribes in the Oasis of Mount Wadi Gnai, followed by a climb up the mountain itself. I rode a camel through the desert and then promptly passed out from heat stroke. I woke up a club-owner to belly-dance with local dancers at the Tree Club in Dahab, situated on the edge of the Red Sea, at 4 in the morning. I saw the sunset rise over Saudi, across the way. I slept on the sand of the Sahara, in a Bedouin camp. I remember lying on my back, listening to a fox howl, feeling the desert wind on my skin, and gazing up at a view of millions of stars before going to sleep. Breathtaking! All the photos in the world can't replace the memories I have of that trip.

Another memorable trip was to the US after having lived and studied there some years prior. I spent a few days in Big Bear, in the San Bernardino Mountains. I stayed in a log cabin, that overlooked the lake, surrounded by the mountains. I smoked vanilla cigars overlooking the lake, drank local wine and had the most amazing pancakes for breakfast at the Original Pancake House. I went hiking in the mountains, hoping to spot a cougar. Next time...

Laguna beach, on the west coast of the US, is one of my most favourite places in the world. I spent the afternoon watching Kelly Slater and Rob Machado on the beach, surfing. My friend, the original honky (aka Adam) lives in Laguna Beach. We went for lunch at Johnny Rockets after, where I had the best chilli cheese dog and curly fries in the world! Later, at Adam's place, we heard the sounds of his neighbours drifting in through his living room windows, in what can only be described as a display of mid-evening porno sex. Shameless!

As I'm writing this, I've begun to realise that there are quite a few memorable trips I'd like to wax lyrical about. There's Malta, where I went dancing at the St. Johns Co-Cathedral, built originally as the church for the Knights of St. John, and where Caravaggio painted the Beheading of St John the Baptist. Tunisia, where I went to try heal my soul a few months after Malakqi died. I went swimming off a coral reef in Hammamet, with a depth of over 30 metres! Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Hawaii, New Zealand... the list goes and on and on.

I definitely have itchy feet. Where to next? I'm dying to go to Cuba, before the architechure and the old cars are completely phased out. I want to learn to Tango from the old Cubans who teach on the cobbled sidewalks throughout the city.

A trip to Machu Pichu in Peru is next on the list. Then India. Then... wherever the travel bug takes me.

I think I'm beginning to get delirious. I better go and lie down so the visions in my head will stop. It's so hot and sticky. I can't breathe. That may have something to do with the head congestion. Who would believe I went through 9 months with not a single sniffle and now summer is here, I get sick. Ho hum. Catch you later!