When your girlfriend is being a cunt

Thank God Doritos have arrived in New Zealand. The cheapo Shortlant Street guys gave us a bottle of chardonnay and a box of Sol beer. Try drinking them warm, like 6 bottles and take a whiff of your piss- smells like prunes, ey? Project Runway is on- Nina Garcia is somehow disturbingly hot.

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Random Pic: Secret Medical Treatment

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St. Patrick's Day

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Dinner with The Reluctant Muse

Some of the best stories are hewn from real life- because where else would you get it from? And some of the best characters are real people who in real life, have no idea how fascinating they are. So I say, write on.

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Most Beautiful Woman in the World

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Jose, Pepe and the rest of the crew

The lost tequila weekend. Really sweet. Like a golden haze. 

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Chucks

I have my Chuck Taylor story. I was 17 and all agog over college life and I never ever had a pair. The truth was that at that time, they didn't appeal to me. I found them ordinary and utilitarian, but my taste level then was at shit level so I didn't know any better. I knew about peer pressure though and by the time it had gone through me, I was concocting a story that I had them for years and at the end, I was compelled to produce them - to produce an old, worn pair.

So I bought a pair and had someone wear them for two weeks to get the worn effect and guess what? I never saw the dude again or the goddamned Chuck Taylors. 

I never bought a pair again, or succumbed to the fickle whims of fashion (okay fine, I have and still do) but there are days when the topic of Chucks come up- and it always does- that I couldn't help but feel excluded. And then I realize that it's the story of my life- of exclusion and alienation- both by choice and circumstance. But that's another story- a very long one. 

Only recently, my nephew Matt has expressed the desire to have his right of fashion passage by what else- asking for his first pair of high-cut Chuck Taylors.

(The pair pictured above are by Diesel)

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Images

Been experimenting with macro, ISOs and yes, vanity. 

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Postcard from Hawaii

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Supermarket Item of the Month. Yum

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Signs

Scientists have reported that the 8.8 magnitude Chilean earthquake has changed the earth's axis, shortening the average day by 1.3 milliseconds. For a moment, I believed it to be some sort of important metaphor. What does a second mean to us anyway when we don't even think in quantities anymore? 

We desire things and buy them until we're deep in debt. We go through our 20th lover and never remember beyond our own catalogue of hurts and needs. 

Or could it be an ominous sign? A fattening up of humanity leading to a cataclysmic end underneath fire, water and rubble?

It's so much like us to always miss it- we're always on the look out for the big picture, the larger universe, the greater expression of love or loathing. 

But we fail to realize that life, like the earth, moves more significantly in small, almost invisible increments. An unuttered word; an empty space between hands resting on the same table; an averted gaze; a seemingly insignificant white lie. 

The earth moved. We didn't feel it. But it's already starting to feel as if we're looking at each other from opposite ends of the universe. 

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Randomness

* N was all set to go out yesterday to have a much needed pedi and mani when the straps of her gold sandals broke. It was like a sign from St. Aloysius. She limped back into the office and postponed the appointment. She sat down and gravely ruminated the remains of her sandals. I told her that we were so much alike- all we ever get from life is a random broken strap. It's all the drama and trouble we will ever get. It's not fair. We need to weep tears of blood. I suggested that she go barefoot but she didn't think it was a good idea. Not fashionable- which is worse than stepping on broken glass. 

* I know that B is hurting. The pain, the long stretch of warm weekends just standing at the edge of the green watching the guys do their runs. We once took our shirts off and ogled at our reflections on the mysterious Ab-Mirror. We marveled at lean, elongated torsos, at deep and dark ridges running from our flanks up to our backs. None of that matters. I love you, he says to a spoonful of gleaming yellow butter before thrusting it into a warm and welcoming mound of freshly cooked rice. 

*Even now, Richard thinks they missed each other by a hair's breadth, that some sort of fate wax deflected - though how or why or what, he cannot say. He thinks it might have been one of the closest misses in the history of the world. He has no regrets, only marvels. He wonders sometimes if there are not the ghosts or husks of their other lives living still, far back in the past, or far below, or even farther out into the future: still together, and still consorting; other lives, birthed from that strange reservoir of joy and sweetness, and utter newness. And if there are, how does he access that? Through memory? Through imagination? Even now, he marvels at how wise they were then, and at all the paths they did not take. Rick Bass, The Lives of Rocks. 

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The Weekend

There are certain weekends when all you want to do is just feed your humanity; and I'm not talking about giving something to charity, reading a good book, watching an artsy movie or maybe doing some extra-work. 

It's all about the realness of certain emotions and urges which you would otherwise just shoot down as being too crass, too beneath you, too undignified, too risque. Too anything.

It's about waiting for the bus and finding a warm and untouched packet of chips and chicken wings. Should you?

Sometimes, we get carried away by our aspirations. Lofty and noble surely, but sometimes, it's not all that it's cut out to be. Sometimes, it pays to watch out for yourself. 

It's about confronting a huge plate of noodles and huge slabs of beef and lamb and talking to someone who has never heard of Guam.

Is there such a thing as true selflessness? Unconditional love? Yes, but learn to know when it has outlived its usefulness, when the recipients prove to be, sadly, not interested.

It's about staggering home drunk and waking up at 11am without a hangover. 

Time to get real.

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