Or just Camp. Yes. let's stick to Camp. Explanation below.
I went to a braai in Parklands last night, in one of the few areas of Darklands NOT riddles with crime, where walking your dogs in the evening actually excludes the Tazer and the security spray. I was invited and taken by my friend N and her wingman. Now, the evening started out all nice and calm and stuff, but as is typical at gatherings featuring more than six queers, three quarters of the room knew each other and made no attempt to draw the three of us in. The hostess and her sister, certainly, but that's because they're actually nice girls.
So, the sister's girlfriend has issues, much of it family-orientated. It got a bit much to handle and she and N spent some time chatting in the bathroom ( luckily the house has two loos ). During that time, the girl for whom the braai had been arranged, also an N, was having her drink and her straight little brother went into the bathroom and asked what the fuck was going on? Man, was that the wrong thing at the wrong time to say for the Wingman to hear. From there things just sort of went south and very badly degraded. The next thing anyone knows the Wingman is enemy #1 and the other N wants to climb into him. If not for my N and the hostess, I do really think something would have happened. A compromise was reached that Straight Boy ( and he really is more like a little boy than a 20-year-old ) and the Wingman wouldn't even look at each other for the rest of the night, and yes, it took almost an hour, but finally a good time was had by all.
Or so it seemed by the time I left.
About an hour after I got home N texted me to say it's just as well I was home - the other N and her bedamned friend caused kak with N and the Wingman in any case! and the poor girlfriend wasn't left out of it either.
You know, it's things like this that really make me ashamed to call myself queer. I mean, really, we've tried so hard for so long to break out of the stereotyping of "guys are fem" and "girls are butch" ( you should know what I mean ) and that the guys run from fights while the girls go looking for them. I mean, my god, what the fuck happened last night? You didn't like the way he LOOKED at your brother!? Grow the FUCK UP!! Stupid woman, you and your friend give queers everywhere a kak name, and it's those like you, that look for fights and run towards the trouble and WANT to make life difficult for others that the world sees, that the world associates with the rest of us, guy or girl, and says, "Look at how terrible they are!"
So, the CTTA have a nice artistic project to work one: design your twelve favourite tarot cards using playing cards as the stock and build them up from there. I LOVE the idea! As it happens, I saw a blog entry somewhere by a lady who does just that, taking little things litke playing cards and building works of art onto them - it might even have been on DeviantArt. We have carte blanche to use whatever we want or can to create our tarot cards. We will get to develope a closer relationship with our chosen cards and can even use our cards of the year as our models ( your card of the year is your personal card for the current year, in case you're wondering - e-mail me for instructions if you want them :) ). Mine, for instance, works out to Key 11: Justice. Or Strength, depending on the style of your deck ( RWS or Marseilles ). Huh... I just had a thought: you could then use either card if your card of the year boils down to 11. Or the Key 2: The High Priestess if you REALLY want to reduce it all the way down.
HA HAAA!! Enough moaning and babbling now.
Have a blessed week - LOTSA LOVE!!
*D*
Sunday, 27 January 2013
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
Food. Period.
I like food. I mean, like, REALLY like food. Bearing this in mind, imagine for a moment how I feel with the smell of all sorts of delicacies happily cooking their way to edibility literally right around the corner from the shop.
I don't mean only the usual market stall fare that you can find from the Milnerton Flea Market to the Standard Bank building's trolleys, although there is one gentleman who makes the most mouthwatering burgers. No, I mean things like Chinese steamed buns with a barbecue filling and veggie-filled pyramid parcels. I mean things like traditional British Isles pies made with REAL pork and pastry whose recipes are centuries old. I mean veggies grown organically on a smallholding. I mean proper Cypriot food like dolmas with cacik, souvlakia, haloumi cheese and baklava.
(Oh, feck, the wind just blew all those smells past the shop's door!!)
For dessert you have the choice of cupcakes made with Lindt chocolate, brownies with LUMPS of dark, white or milk chocolate washed down with fresh coffee. Or, if you're the type who likes a bit more kick, one of a few types of beer they stock at the bar.
My point is, I will one day try as many of these dishes as what I possibly can.
Why?
I LIKE FOOD!!
Duh...
I don't mean only the usual market stall fare that you can find from the Milnerton Flea Market to the Standard Bank building's trolleys, although there is one gentleman who makes the most mouthwatering burgers. No, I mean things like Chinese steamed buns with a barbecue filling and veggie-filled pyramid parcels. I mean things like traditional British Isles pies made with REAL pork and pastry whose recipes are centuries old. I mean veggies grown organically on a smallholding. I mean proper Cypriot food like dolmas with cacik, souvlakia, haloumi cheese and baklava.
(Oh, feck, the wind just blew all those smells past the shop's door!!)
For dessert you have the choice of cupcakes made with Lindt chocolate, brownies with LUMPS of dark, white or milk chocolate washed down with fresh coffee. Or, if you're the type who likes a bit more kick, one of a few types of beer they stock at the bar.
My point is, I will one day try as many of these dishes as what I possibly can.
Why?
I LIKE FOOD!!
Duh...
The ramblings of a slightly mad tarotist...
As usually happens when I want to blog about something, my mind formed and released the thoughts, ideas and topics mayhap forty times before I even logged onto the internet. That means that I'll be winging it today.
I finally had my tattoo (of the Wheel of Fortune) fixed up yesterday. The marquist did a good job, but the original marque was done so badly that an hour's work turned into almost three. All the while he muttered about how badly "it" had been done and how the scars and lumps would remain even with the repair work and ink he's laid over them ( I know that there are some scar and skin treatments in which needles are used to even the skin, just in case you're wondering why I mention them ).
To say that he was un-impressed with Emma's skills would be an understatement.
Anyway, when we arrived at the address and were let into the back garden, the first thing my mother said was, "This looks f***ing dodgy." I had to agree. It was a "typically" Goodwood / Parow yard with no real garden to speak of and bits and pieces of things stacked in spots ( still quite clean, though ) and the marquist looked like he'd been put through the wringer: stained jeans, some black marks under his nails and he kept twitching his face. To say that I was suddenly nervous is putting it politely. But, I stayed. I mean, I made the appointment and I would never have fogiven myself for breaking it. Plus, I'm learning not to judge things or people on surface values alone. So, I texted my contact and told her all of this and she said she knows, but his work is good.
So, I stayed.
Eventually we sat down and the needle gun was switched on. As the buzz of the motor filled the little back room ( which is also used for wood-work and needle-work, amongst other things ) I started my deep breathing and tried to calm myself for the ordeal to come - yes, self-inflicted, but an ordeal nontheless. Then the needle touched my skin and he started fixing my marque.
As I mentioned, while the needle danced in and out of my skin a few thousand times a second, he muttered and cursed at Emma's bad job with the ink, making sure the Universe understood that she should never be allowed near a needle and ink again. Amma and Mel went and did some shopping at Lifestyle while we were busy, and I seriously thought we were only busy for an hour. After some time the deep breathing stopped being effective and I lit a cigarette. That helped. And then not that long after, I lit the second cigarette. It didn't taste as good, but I think by that time my body was starting to try and counteract the pain from the needle and harden my skin, so everything was a bit out.
Thankfully, after the second smoke, it wasn't long before we finished.
I'll post some pics as soon as our line's up and running again, but basically he thickened the original lines and added some shading to the marque. Now it actually looks like something instead of just being some crooked lines and blue-green blobs between my shoulders. Thickening the lines was the real bitch - he had to go over tiny little spots a few times with the needle to get the thickness and the general shape of the marque right. That's what threw my breathing out. And if anyone tell you that shading a marque doesn't hurt, please tell them to shut up, and for good measure, smack them upside the head! It was almost worse than the thickening of the lines.
Mel and I discussed this morning whether or not I'd go back to him to actually do the pheobus / solar design I originally contacted him for, and she's definitely not using him for her marques. I'm still deciding - I just know I won't use him for my scrollwork.
In my rather fragile state after this whole thing we had lunch at Mel's after we dropped her off, then Amma decided she's going throught Melkbos early to spend some time with the step-dad before bringing Cam home. J said he's picking me up for a braai, so I had a few minutes to myself to take my meds ( I had flu between Tuesday and yesterday ) and just relax a bit before he arrived and we were off. Let me tell you, if you're ever invited to a braai with the member's of BackBeat Band, plan for a LOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNGG night. It was going to be an early evening thing ( as I was led to believe ), but we only got back to J's house after 1.15 this morning. Hectic, I tell you. Being ill this week, I haven't been having the best sleep, and then to have to have a late night and work the next day ( today ), I'm not in the best frame of body or mind. Make no mistake, I really did enjoy my evening, and one of the highlights of any such braai is the spontaneous breaking out of guitars, vocal cords and song. I got to pass out in a mini-chair next to the fire-drum - after eating first, of course - and still listen to the lot do their musical thingamajigger, and then I got to fall asleep on the couch in the lounge while the others ended their evening.
However, I would have liked to have stuck to the early evening braai idea and then spent the night, or what was left of it, in my own bed. Or couch, as the case is. I know it isn't really anyone's fault either. I just really hoped to be home last night.
Wednesday, 9 Jan. 2013.
OK, so here's to continuing with the blog and hopefully publishing it today.
The marque's healing nicely. It still hurts a bit in spots, and my skin is still bruised from all the colouring in certain spots with the needle, but the itch has finally started and the scabbing has started slowing down with the whole flaking thing. Once it's healed I'll post some proper pictures of it.
I don't know if I've spoken about moving on before. I don't THINK so, but let's be honest, I have the memory capacity of a goldfish on crack with a sieve as a spare brain.
I bring this up because of the book I'm reading: "Lover Reborn" by J.R. Ward ( yes, the latest in the "Black Dagger Brotherhood" vampire novels ). The focus character of the story is Tohrnment, a Brother who lost his mate and unborn young to the lessers ( I didn't mention this specifically, but it happens in one of the earlier books, listed here ) and the female No'One, the mother of Xhex, mate of the Brother John Mattew ( named as a human because he was raised by them ). No'One was a noble-born female who was kidnapped from her father's mansion in the Old Country, raped and tortured, was rescued by Tohrment and Darius and gave birth to Xhex - and promptly committed suicide. However, the Scribe Virgin resurrected her at Sanctuary and No'One decided to come back to Earth to try and fix things with her daughter.
Anyway, Tohr's murdered mate, Wellsie ( or Wellesandra ) and her unborn baby are stuck in the In Between - neither going into the Fade, the vampiric version of the Summerlands, nor passing into Dhund, their Hell. The problem is, unless he lets her go, she'll become more and more a part of the In Between, until she and the young are no longer separate from it.
I think in many ways we do the same thing with friends and lovers we've lost, or situations we couldn't bare to let go. Ghosts aren't only formed from unfinished business, but also unreleasing living. We have to learn to let go of them as much as they need to let go of their business. I had that same thing going when I spoke about Hannes a few months back. I was so caught up in the "what if" between him and I that when I found out he'd died I couldn't handle not knowing what would have happened.
I've gotten over that in a huge way and I thank Lord Zedd and his Postulancy for that. I still have times where I miss my friend, and occasionally someone wearing his face walks past me, but I no longer hold him in the In Between - I have enough of my own karma to work through that I certainly don't need to work through anyone else's.
Right, so here goes the publishing. If there's anything I've left ou ( which I realise now there almost certainly is ) I'll try and add it in the next post.
Much love, guys and gals!
:*
I finally had my tattoo (of the Wheel of Fortune) fixed up yesterday. The marquist did a good job, but the original marque was done so badly that an hour's work turned into almost three. All the while he muttered about how badly "it" had been done and how the scars and lumps would remain even with the repair work and ink he's laid over them ( I know that there are some scar and skin treatments in which needles are used to even the skin, just in case you're wondering why I mention them ).
To say that he was un-impressed with Emma's skills would be an understatement.
Anyway, when we arrived at the address and were let into the back garden, the first thing my mother said was, "This looks f***ing dodgy." I had to agree. It was a "typically" Goodwood / Parow yard with no real garden to speak of and bits and pieces of things stacked in spots ( still quite clean, though ) and the marquist looked like he'd been put through the wringer: stained jeans, some black marks under his nails and he kept twitching his face. To say that I was suddenly nervous is putting it politely. But, I stayed. I mean, I made the appointment and I would never have fogiven myself for breaking it. Plus, I'm learning not to judge things or people on surface values alone. So, I texted my contact and told her all of this and she said she knows, but his work is good.
So, I stayed.
Eventually we sat down and the needle gun was switched on. As the buzz of the motor filled the little back room ( which is also used for wood-work and needle-work, amongst other things ) I started my deep breathing and tried to calm myself for the ordeal to come - yes, self-inflicted, but an ordeal nontheless. Then the needle touched my skin and he started fixing my marque.
As I mentioned, while the needle danced in and out of my skin a few thousand times a second, he muttered and cursed at Emma's bad job with the ink, making sure the Universe understood that she should never be allowed near a needle and ink again. Amma and Mel went and did some shopping at Lifestyle while we were busy, and I seriously thought we were only busy for an hour. After some time the deep breathing stopped being effective and I lit a cigarette. That helped. And then not that long after, I lit the second cigarette. It didn't taste as good, but I think by that time my body was starting to try and counteract the pain from the needle and harden my skin, so everything was a bit out.
Thankfully, after the second smoke, it wasn't long before we finished.
I'll post some pics as soon as our line's up and running again, but basically he thickened the original lines and added some shading to the marque. Now it actually looks like something instead of just being some crooked lines and blue-green blobs between my shoulders. Thickening the lines was the real bitch - he had to go over tiny little spots a few times with the needle to get the thickness and the general shape of the marque right. That's what threw my breathing out. And if anyone tell you that shading a marque doesn't hurt, please tell them to shut up, and for good measure, smack them upside the head! It was almost worse than the thickening of the lines.
Mel and I discussed this morning whether or not I'd go back to him to actually do the pheobus / solar design I originally contacted him for, and she's definitely not using him for her marques. I'm still deciding - I just know I won't use him for my scrollwork.
In my rather fragile state after this whole thing we had lunch at Mel's after we dropped her off, then Amma decided she's going throught Melkbos early to spend some time with the step-dad before bringing Cam home. J said he's picking me up for a braai, so I had a few minutes to myself to take my meds ( I had flu between Tuesday and yesterday ) and just relax a bit before he arrived and we were off. Let me tell you, if you're ever invited to a braai with the member's of BackBeat Band, plan for a LOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNGG night. It was going to be an early evening thing ( as I was led to believe ), but we only got back to J's house after 1.15 this morning. Hectic, I tell you. Being ill this week, I haven't been having the best sleep, and then to have to have a late night and work the next day ( today ), I'm not in the best frame of body or mind. Make no mistake, I really did enjoy my evening, and one of the highlights of any such braai is the spontaneous breaking out of guitars, vocal cords and song. I got to pass out in a mini-chair next to the fire-drum - after eating first, of course - and still listen to the lot do their musical thingamajigger, and then I got to fall asleep on the couch in the lounge while the others ended their evening.
However, I would have liked to have stuck to the early evening braai idea and then spent the night, or what was left of it, in my own bed. Or couch, as the case is. I know it isn't really anyone's fault either. I just really hoped to be home last night.
Wednesday, 9 Jan. 2013.
OK, so here's to continuing with the blog and hopefully publishing it today.
The marque's healing nicely. It still hurts a bit in spots, and my skin is still bruised from all the colouring in certain spots with the needle, but the itch has finally started and the scabbing has started slowing down with the whole flaking thing. Once it's healed I'll post some proper pictures of it.
I don't know if I've spoken about moving on before. I don't THINK so, but let's be honest, I have the memory capacity of a goldfish on crack with a sieve as a spare brain.
I bring this up because of the book I'm reading: "Lover Reborn" by J.R. Ward ( yes, the latest in the "Black Dagger Brotherhood" vampire novels ). The focus character of the story is Tohrnment, a Brother who lost his mate and unborn young to the lessers ( I didn't mention this specifically, but it happens in one of the earlier books, listed here ) and the female No'One, the mother of Xhex, mate of the Brother John Mattew ( named as a human because he was raised by them ). No'One was a noble-born female who was kidnapped from her father's mansion in the Old Country, raped and tortured, was rescued by Tohrment and Darius and gave birth to Xhex - and promptly committed suicide. However, the Scribe Virgin resurrected her at Sanctuary and No'One decided to come back to Earth to try and fix things with her daughter.
Anyway, Tohr's murdered mate, Wellsie ( or Wellesandra ) and her unborn baby are stuck in the In Between - neither going into the Fade, the vampiric version of the Summerlands, nor passing into Dhund, their Hell. The problem is, unless he lets her go, she'll become more and more a part of the In Between, until she and the young are no longer separate from it.
I think in many ways we do the same thing with friends and lovers we've lost, or situations we couldn't bare to let go. Ghosts aren't only formed from unfinished business, but also unreleasing living. We have to learn to let go of them as much as they need to let go of their business. I had that same thing going when I spoke about Hannes a few months back. I was so caught up in the "what if" between him and I that when I found out he'd died I couldn't handle not knowing what would have happened.
I've gotten over that in a huge way and I thank Lord Zedd and his Postulancy for that. I still have times where I miss my friend, and occasionally someone wearing his face walks past me, but I no longer hold him in the In Between - I have enough of my own karma to work through that I certainly don't need to work through anyone else's.
Right, so here goes the publishing. If there's anything I've left ou ( which I realise now there almost certainly is ) I'll try and add it in the next post.
Much love, guys and gals!
:*
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