(Hahaha, because in my case, it's true!)
As National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) draws to a close today, I am
following today's NaBloPoMo prompt to say what it was about blogging every day
that I have been struggling with the most. For me, it was DEFINITELY the whole
"quantity over quality" thing. That to me has even been MORE challenging
than making the time to blog every day, or finding topics to write about.
Since I write for barely-a-living, I take it extremely seriously, no
matter WHERE I do it. Sometimes, in fact, I take it so seriously, that I end up
writing nothing at all. (That old perfectionist’s excuse that
non-perfectionists find so hard to swallow.) Just as Gustave Flaubert so
famously once described his writing process, I’ve also been known to spend “all
morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out”. My nitpicking can
sometimes be crippling, making the task of even posting to my blog so daunting,
I often just leave it altogether instead.
But I really wanted to participate in NaBloPoMo this year. With serious
work-related writing deadlines hurtling towards me, I’ve had several legitimate
excuses NOT to do it. I knew that I wouldn’t have time to sit here and
carefully craft posts of epic proportions. (I would have loved to, but I wisely
decided to rather save the internal squabbling over commas for my work writing,
otherwise I’d still be stuck around day 2, which would have totally defeated
the purpose of this exercise, no?)
This kind of free-styling scribbling that I’ve forced myself to do here
has been liberating. Difficult, sure! (Hard to teach an old dog new tricks,
after all.) But it definitely has been freeing – and more than a little
refreshing - to just WRITE for a change.
Of course, if I were to go back and reread what I have posted on here
this past month, I would probably cringe and then just delete the whole batch
in one fell swoop. But I’m going to leave it up and proudly pin this badge to
this here blog.
I don’t know if I’m going to be keeping up this daily blog revival.
Probably not. But hopefully I will be blogging more than just twice a year in
future.
I have never forgiven the
French Huguenots for not wielding more influence and forcing their language on
the natives when they settled in D’Afrique du Sud. Maybe the heat was shocking
to their systems (which, hello, but what then was their excuse in so much of
equally hot Afrique where the natives were forced to become native
French-speakers?), but they seemed to not be bothered when the Dutch took over the
Mother Tongue department and allowed the creation of Afrikaans.
Forward to me at age 14, when
I heard that I had successfully passed my audition and that I was going to be
attending the performing arts high school in Pretoria. The thing that thrilled
me the second most was that I would finally be able to take French as a subject
– never mind the fact that I was barely able to speak English then.
Unfortunately, my plans
were soon foiled when one of the teachers advised my parents that, since I was
starting school almost in the middle of the school year, I should rather take
German, as it would be easier for a native Afrikaans speaker to catch up on.
Grateful to at least be in
the school of my dreams, I heeded the advice and took German instead. Perhaps
(and more likely) it was because I had no interest in it, but I did NOT find it
easy to catch up on at all. Whenever I walked by the French class, I looked in
with longing at all the lucky students as they “ecoute et répète” the flowery aural delights that so effortlessly flowed
from the young, beret-wearing teacher’s mouth.
I finally had my chance in
college, when we had to take a third language for a year. My choice was French,
of course. It was basic, conversational French, but I totally immersed myself in it. The result is that I can now, almost 20 years later, say: “Pardon me, I can’t speak French.
Do you speak English, please?” in French, with a perfect French accent.
I can do the same thing in
Egyptian Arabic, German, Italian and Spanish. It’s a nifty and impressive party
trick and especially with the Arabic, I managed to score a few free cab rides in D.C.
Last year, during a trip
to Taiwan, I had the amazing privilege to stay with a host family in Taichung
City for about a week and a half. The mother was unable to speak any English,
and I was unable to speak any Mandarin (except for “good day”, “thank you”, “you’re
welcome”, “South Africa” - accompanied by a gesture of pointing towards myself - and enthusiastically shouting - because there’s really no other way to express it - “I love
Taiwan!”). She would speak in Mandarin to her daughters, who
sometimes translated, when it was necessary for me to be privy to what was
being said. One day, during one of the non-translated conversations, I suddenly piped up and said: “Yes! I KNOW!” And then I added
something that was completely relevant to the discussion.
I was met by incredulous
stares and stunned silence. It almost seemed as if I had learned to understand snippets of Mandarin, here
and there. But it wasn’t true comprehension, because honestly, I know NO other
Mandarin except for those four things stated above. So it was more like somehow
– possibly via osmosis - catching the basic gist of what they were talking about.
Of course, they were far more sceptical about my continual denials that no, I
REALLY could not understand Mandarin.
And sadly, I don’t think I would
ever be able to.
I’m not done romancing
French though. I desperately want to wrap my brain and tongue around that language and read
and even possibly, one day, write in it.
For now, though, I have to focus on whipping L'Anglais into proper submission.

And on the
25th day, she was ill.
When asked
what is wrong, I would ordinarily be all tough and answer dismissively and airily (or as airily
as one is able to be when half of one’s airways are obstructed), using the rasp in
my voice to lend the toughness just that bit of a rockstar edge: “Oh, it’s just
a cold.”
But this?
This monster? Isn’t just a cold.
Oh, no.
After careful consultation of my trusty and beloved, dog-eared edition of the
Time/Life A-Z Medical Encyclopaedia, I have come to the alarming conclusion
that I have… the Man Flu.
Why that particular strain, you ask? And how does this Man Flu differ from your
run-of-the-mill cold and flu?
At first glance, all the symptoms are identical: scratchy
throat, runny nose, coughing, sneezing with such force that you can blow your neighbour's hair back from where you are curled up in a pathetic bundle in bed, feeling lousy, feverish, and achy. But
in the trusty tome, it says that when you are feeling particularly SORRY for
yourself on top of all of that, and act to your loved ones as if you are on the
brink of death? It’s definitely the Man Flu.
Yes, it IS mostly just a male affliction. But in VERY rare
instances, such as this, even the strongest women sometimes get weak enough to be overcome with it too.
It’s horribly shameful, which is why I would never have admitted to it unless I
WASN’T DYING AND FEELING ALL CONFESSIONAL DUE TO THE FACT THAT I'M DYING.
a-a-a-a-A-A-AAAAAAA-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Was that my last breath? It sure felt like it should've been. Can't see anything, 'cause it blew the glasses right off my face.
Updated to say: No, I also have NO idea why and how the font managed to change colour halfway through this blog post. (Yeah, got my glasses back.) Unless... I have given it my highly contagious and fatal form of Man Flu too!?
And suddenly, there he is. Simon Cowell, in the flesh and looking JUST as he does on TV. (It’s remarkable, that uncanny resemblance people on TV or in the movies have to their on-camera countenances when you see them in real life, innit?) Complete with his trademark, fitted T-shirt.
“And what’s
your name, sweetheart?”
“Red,” I
stammer.
“And what
will you be singing for us today, Red?” By now I should’ve caught on that there
is clearly something suspicious about this whole scenario, but unawares, I bravely
push on.
“BlackBird/Bye
Bye BlackBird.”
“Okay, let’s
hear it. Good luck.”
I sing. Flawlessly.
My voice oddly sounds JUST like that of Sara Gazarek, the amazing jazz
songstress whose rendition of that very song happens to be one of my favourite
tracks ever.
Since I don’t
sound like me at all, it’s no wonder then that he lets me sing it the whole way
through.
Afterwards,
he looks towards the other judges, but I’m only waiting for HIS opinion. I
think Randy Jackson is there too, which slightly niggles at me, since that
wouldn’t be right.
Finally,
Simon speaks again, about to hand down his career-altering verdict.
… And then
I wake up from the dream.
Could it be
time to axe all that obsessive X Factor viewing from my TV watching schedule?
P.S. Okay,
okay, I didn’t actually wake up before he told me. He said no. But he DID say
that he loved Sara’s voice, but just didn't think the "time was quite right for me" (never tell a procrastinator THAT, Si!) and so I left feeling elated. And then I woke up for realz.
P.P.S. It was really the dream I had last night and not just another of my incredibly amateurish writing tricks, honestly.
After almost a year of not
blogging – which is a long stretch, even for the self-proclaimed World’s
Laziest Blogger - those two of you imaginary readers who are still hanging
around (the third one defected at around July this year) may have noticed
that there has been a slight spike in blogging activity on this here blog
lately.
Okay, more like a major
surge; like the kind you get when you jumpstart a heart that has flat-lined.
It’s not that I’ve been
possessed by more inspiration or that I suddenly have more time than usual. And
no, I’ve not been abducted and my productivity been taken over by a bunch of
hardworking aliens. There is in fact a rather simple explanation for this
newfound enthusiasm. Scared that I would jinx myself, and not sure that I would
be able to stick to it, I have merely been holding out on you. However, now
that I’m on day 23, I think it is relatively safe for me to finally come clean
and tell you who/what is to blame for this blogging over-enthusiasm. Why it has been all about quantity and not quality around here lately. (Hahahaha, as if it has EVER been about quality!)
This. That’s right.
NaBloPoMo (or, in English: National Blog Posting Month). November might be a
time for Thanksgiving to the Americans, but to writers the world over, it has also
been the most feared and despised month, since it is also NaNoWriMo (National
Novel Writing Month), in which the participants accept the downright insane
challenge to try and write a novel in the 30 days during November. NaBloPoMo is
the somewhat easier alternative for those among us who might not be quite
dedicated enough for a novel.
In all the years it has
been in existence, I have always wanted to give NaBloPoMo a shot, but always
(conveniently?) forgot and only remembered a week or two too late. No such luck
this year. Don’t quite know what came over me, but here I am, three weeks in.
Let’s see if I can keep at
it for the remaining week, shall we?
No pressure…
As promised last night, here's the story:
It was a mid-winter's night when I was about 14 years old. The Pretoria Show (sort of like the US equivalent of a State Fair combined with a trade show) which ran for a couple of weeks every year, was in full swing.
I got to
hang out there almost every night during that time, because my mom was working
for a sewing machine company and running their stall at the show. The show hours
were brutally long – from early morning until about 10 at night – so I had no choice but
to tag along, help out and sometimes also to explore the enormous show grounds on
my own. There were several massive exhibition halls, tents, fields (where equestrian shows, pop concerts and other outdoorsy type things were held, with pavilions for
spectators) and of course, the large amusement park with the roller coasters, merry-go-rounds and all the other rides.
The sprawling show grounds are located in the western part of the city. Right around
that same time, girls my age had been disappearing in that very area of town;
vanishing without a trace. Sometime after this particular night, the man who had been identified as the kidnapper shot himself and his lover (who happened to be the aunt of one
of the kidnapped girls) while being chased by police. None of the kidnapped girls
were ever seen again, nor were any remains ever found to give their distraught
families closure.
Back to the
Pretoria Show: so on that particular night, I must’ve been wandering around
again on my own for ages. Eventually, I saw a poster advertising some sort of magic show. Intrigued (and probably somewhat chilled too from being outside), I
decided to enter the theatre and see what it was about.
I don’t
remember many details surrounding this particular show, but I do remember that
I found it dead funny. The magician/hypnotist’s routine included the usual shtick of randomly pulling
rabbits from hats, and then eventually, pulling people from the audience and hypnotising them. He made grown men crow like roosters and dignified
ladies act like little girls. The audience (myself included) was screaming with
laughter.
When the
show ended, I followed the rest of the audience out into the now-almost
deserted show grounds. I still remember telling the woman next to me that the
show must’ve run overtime, because all the other stalls and halls seemed to
have already been closed down for the evening. I was a tiny bit alarmed that my
parents would possibly be worried, but was soon distracted from that thought when I heard
the sound of a helicopter and saw a blindingly bright search light.
I looked up. It was a yellow South African Police helicopter and it was flying low across the grounds, sweeping the search
light back and forth. We shielded our faces as the chopper flew over
us, kicking up a gust of wind and a swirl of dust.
Moving
towards the gates, we rounded a corner and suddenly I saw a few hundred police
officers. And police dogs! The dog lover in me squealed with delight: “Oh, look
at all those gorgeous Alsations!” I remember telling the lady who was still
walking next to me.
I wondered
aloud what on earth was going on, what they were all doing there, when suddenly,
from a distance, I glimpsed someone vaguely familiar standing in the middle of
this massive crowd of cops and canines. When we moved closer, the figures
became increasingly clearer and even more familiar. The recognition finally dawned and I told the woman next to me, with some amazement and not a bit of excitement: “That’s my parents! And oh… wait, is my mom CRYING?”
It turns
out that all those cops (almost every single one who was employed by the Pretoria City Police
Department at that time) and that helicopter? They had been searching for ME! As I had
suspected when we left the theatre, the magic show had indeed run
overtime… by about an hour! So knowing that I fit the profile of the kidnapped girls,
my frantic parents immediately called for help when I didn’t appear at closing
time, as I had dutifully done every single night until then.
Even though
I had done nothing wrong and it wasn’t actually my fault, I was in so so SO much
trouble, it wasn’t even funny. Not with the cops, understand – they were just
happy that the case of one “missing girl” had for once just been a
misunderstanding, and that it had a happy outcome. I could’ve handled trouble
with the cops, I think. No, it was far worse: I was in seriously hot water with
my parents.
They were certainly
NOT happy. Especially not my dad. He was FURIOUS. In fact, technically, I
believe I am probably still grounded. That’s what “you'll NEVER EVER EVERRR leave your room EVER AGAIN, young lady, except for school and church” means, after
all, right?
So, that then concludes the true story of how a whole city’s entire police force was once looking for me.
*Bows*
Or you can
The Wish List (Because yes, she really does need more how-to books. Honestly!)
online







winner of best writing

retro dots skin designed with care by

liberty belle skin designed with care by

hosted with love by
Blogomania
script assistance by
scriptygoddess
MT Blacklist
one reader and counting... by
with these rings, I thee join

Blog Baltimore




Copyright belongs to the author (ha ha! She called herself an author!) of this website.