Proof The Further That I Am Irredeemably Batshit

          My cousin Carla surprised the funk out of me by telling me the other day that she reads my blog- and let me assure you, once the funk has been surprised right the fuck out of your soul, you need some slow and serious boogying to the rhythm of the beat to get it back. I mean smooth, muthafucka. All’s well now, I am once again up with Marky Mark and his bunch, and ready commence my story.

Carla noted that I had written a blog post Für Brenda, as it were, für when Brenda was especially sad. She asked if I would write her a blog post if she was sad, and before the word “yes” had even fully formed itself around my lips she bulleted out a sinisterly gleeful “I’msadnow-sodoIgetablogpost?”

I refused, citing that her Sad Blog Post would have much more meaning if it was indeed crafted for a particularly melancholy moment in her Carlasome existence, and while this reply did actually invoke a little bit of poutiness, it was not enough to summon the Ghost of Embarrassing Tales of Loraine’s Past, (That’s a very verbosely named Ghost. We’ll call him Getl-P, if we need to call him anything at all hereafter.)

But now we have come to a turn in the road. Wednesday last was the anniversary of Carla “Lady Phly”’s day of birth, and due to things going awry one way after another, she finally earned the Sad that merits a visit from Getl-P, the slightly Ukrainian shtetl sounding rapper Ghost.

So without further gilding the lily, and with no more ado, I give you, Story No.2 That Will Ensure Loraine Never See The Business End Of Benedict Cumberbatch Because Her Singular Weirdness Will Creep Him Out So Thoroughly As To Put Him Off Her For Life.

It was back when the word was young; you were either Team Brtiney or Team Xtina, Sabrina the Teenage Witch was a thing, and you could complete at least 27 revolutions on your dad’s swivelly chair whilst waiting for your Sabrina the Teenage Witch fanfiction world-wide-web-page to load. The salad days, days of yore, days of days, The Days of Our Lives, etcetera, etcetera.

Me and my sister Estelle were at this time near constantly at each other’s throats, being 2 ½ years apart and thoroughly intent on living up to biblical standards of sibling rivalry. If one of us didn’t make it out of this whole “family” thing with some kind of signifying mark upon on our brow, then we hadn’t done it right.

It was immediately following one such nuclear fart that my poor put-upon mother was mopping both her brow and picking up left over pieces of offspring from the resultant mess. She lamented as she so often did our inability to get along even on the level that strangers or casual acquaintances do, telling us how it broke her heart to see her two girls filled with such animal hatred for each other, forever locked in their own precocious Hunger Games. (She may not have been quite so wordy when she was lamenting, but the story isn’t going to tell itself, people.)

After the waters had cooled down a bit, Estelle went off outside or to her room somewhere, and I was left in the living room with the feeling of a dying Sunday afternoon ill-spent. I did not want to apologise for something I most certainly almost definitely was not at fault for damn near positively, and even if I was- which no rational thinking man could ever conclude me to be- I unquestionably had more pride and self-respect (read: arseholishness) than to go grovelling to a 7 year old anyway. What I needed- I’m sure you’ll agree- was a compromise in the style of Solomon.

All of this in mind, I have no clue by the wits of either human, wizard or warlock as to how I arrived at the following idea, but arrive at it the fuck I did, because who likes a half measure?

I would apologise to no man or beast. But also: I would apologise to that little beast- my way.

My plan was sheer elegance in its simplicity. I would dress my ten year old self up (yes, this was round about the time of the Eyebrow Massacre, perhaps a little before) to every nine they had, pencil in my still-robust eyebrows to a frankly Eugene Levy-like state*, and hooker lipstick my lips like only a motherfucking Brangelina can. For good luck (and quite frankly to balance out the can of hairspray that had occurred on my head), I threw in a Cindy Crawford mole, if Cindy Crawford’s mole was in urgent need of a dermatologist’s attention. I looked- well, pretty much like me, just in full colour. And also as though view through eyes tripping balls on some very serious and rather questionable ‘shrooms.

I was ready. With a little help from my ever more intrigued mother, I left my house in tottering-high stripper heels (no, really, that is exactly what these were), waited a little while, and then rang the doorbell and/or knocked on the front door. (What? It’s been a long time, OK? I can’t remember if we actually even had a doorbell, but I will admit ringing a doorbell looks much better on the little projection screen I have set up in my mind than just knocking.)

My mom opened the door and we have a brief but realistically unsustainably loud conversation.

“HELLO? MAY I HELP YOU, MA’AM?” (Mother)

“YES, IN DEED. I AM LOOKING FOR A MISS ESTELLE.” (Me)

“JUST ONE MOMENT PLEASE, I WILL GO GET HER FOR YOU, OH STRANGE WOMAN WHO I HAVE NOT MET BEFORE IN MY LIFE EVER.”

She fetched Estelle to the door and I introduced myself as the long lost third sister, who had come in search of her specifically to… well I’m fucked if I can remember the exact plot of my opus, but it was a real tear jerker, that much I do recall. She, I’m quite sure in her seven years of wisdom being not fooled for a cotton-pickin’ moment, escorted me out into the back yard, where I proceeded to explain that I, long lost sister, erm, Angela let’s say, had had some brief contact with the wanton and incorrigible Loraine, and had come because I knew my little sister Estelle to need my presence desperately. See I, Angela, knew that she was suffering under the oppressive reign of this horrible girl-monster, and was in dire need of respite.

Why yes! She exclaimed. To this day I’m still not sure how much of this she decided to believe for the fun of it, or how much of it was simply playing along, but she informed Me!Angela that she had in fact come under just such an attack from the brutal Loraine but a mere hour ago. This is where my masterful plan really took shape- I managed to convince her that Loraine, being the full and utter shit that she undoubtedly was, had intoned to Me!Angela that she actually knew the full extent of her sins.

I made it clear to Estelle that I had gotten the impression from Loraine that while she certainly liked… ok, looo- cough! cough! violent, retching cough!–oved her, (excuse me, nasty cold coming on) she was too self-involved and stubborn to ever admit defeat.

All of this went swimmingly, and it did the job a treat, which could even have been a slightly heart-warming if distinctly mental-institutiony story, if it wasn’t for the fact that I got really into playing Angela. After I had smoothed over inter-Birkenstockian relations, I stuck around in alter-ego form, and started answering Estelle’s questions about “myself” with ever more verve- I would not be surprised if you told me I had held several Master’s Degrees in various fields, had once shook hands with Flava Flav, summered in Switzerland and ran the largest online Sabrina the Teenage Witch fanfiction community. (Although, tangent: I did once write my own Sabrina story to post online, but since I couldn’t be arsed to learn to type the way my dad wanted to teach me, and capitalising at the beginning of each new sentence and name seemed such a fucking schlep, I just decided to CAPS LOCK THE EVERLOVING GOAT CHEESE OUT OF THAT BAD BOY.)

I think it was getting dark and my mother was staring to worry about having to dig up underground contacts to falsify a birth certificate and possibly PhDs for Angela before I could be moved to bugger off, which meant I had to exit through the front door again with many a promise to write and so on and so forth, and wait for Estelle to away to her room before I could sneak back in to take off my Angela face.

Of course then all that was left was to saunter into her room with so much nonchalance you might have thought me medicated, and to throw in a “Hey sis, what’s up?” She then told me all about Angela- whom I had of course had some cursory contact with previously, so I was to raise my eyebrows in mock surprise that she had actually ventured out as far as my house, and talked to my- my- little sister.

I asked Estelle if she remembers this, and apparently there’s a vague recollection but not much more than that. It took me a while to dig up something suitable for Carla’s mollification, to denigrate myself on the altar of the internet gods so as to offset her bad birthday vibes. Here babes, I hope it worked. X

Quick note of absolutely no importance: my dad and I have started watching The Walking Dead. Most of the zombies- or "walkers", as they're called on the show- look pretty much like your average zombie, but this dude popped up looking just like an undead version of my ex.

Don't see the resemblance? 

How 'bout now? Uncanny, isn't it?

And then, because there’s always more good news, I have a first! It’s a PiePappa review!

He got so invested in Friends when we were watching it a few weeks ago, asking me to get him some supplementary interviews with the cast so he could see what they were like in real life, that I thought he simply must write a Friends review for the Pielings! Perhaps it can turn into a feature, if we can find suitable material for him to review. (And no, Verdale, I can already hear you suggesting all kinds of lewd and lascivious material, but I already told you no one is interested in your collection of people having intimate relations with foodstuffs.)
Me and Carla have an unofficial little Friends club, membership of two, where we bandy forth quotes from the show back and forth seamlessly- sometimes we can have whole, functional conversations just by sampling lines from the show. At the last braai we had, my dad actually managed to quote from Friends rather enthusiastically- Carla and I were very drunk indeed at the time, so I'm buggered if I can remember exactly what he was referencing, but we shared such a proud and understanding look that no words needed to be spoken. Unofficial Friends Club, Membership: 3.

So here it is, straight from Leon PiePappa, a review of the hit show Friends after having screened all ten seasons and some bonus material:

Bonus #2: (Brenda already having been privy to the madness) I'll heap onto my delirious sex appeal for the week and Carla's schadenfreude by presenting you with my post-dental work stroke-face.

Don't say I never did nothin' for ya.

Starry Fingers Dream

           There was a room so dark, so black that even the night that was dreamt there was just a blush on the hands on the arms of the of people who dreamt. In the dark of the room they click-clack onomatopoeically to the sharp bitterness of their fingers on small typewriters; the glitter of shellac fingernails a thousand stars in a thousand thousand-night room.

They dream each of something specific. They dream well, content and happy, even blind as they are to the suffering of the dreamer at their side, a tunnel vision that will forever know only the dreams click-clacked like the hard coarseness of their skin onto the keys in front of them. They dream in deafness, in cruel hatred and know only the sorrow of the world they are collectively dreaming, blind to the beauty that consumes the dreamer behind them on every one of the thousand thousand-nights, each new thing of joy a rarity- a tear for the unbearable exquisiteness that dreams have given them.

One will dream the death of dreams in the dark.

One will dream the waters while another dreams lakes of fire that consume the world of ideas.

One will dream his death, and dream his death, and dream his death.

One will dream the ways of birth, and life, and family, and living, and will be a happy dreamer for the most part.

One will dream of one particular birth and life, and will never be happy for the want to reach through the thought and touch she who lives, and to know she is more real than dust and dreams and stars of shellac-nails in the dark.

And he will not sleep- not that the dreamers ever do, they are a different kind of function- but will start doing things instead that are entirely outside of his function, outside of his knowledge of the blackness, to prove to himself that she is more than dust and dreams.

He proves this by systematically doing small things that should not be possible for him to even conceive of. He knows of sleep because he has dreamt of sleep, and so now knowingly deprives himself of it even outside of his function. Now he counts the thousand thousand-nights, and he wonders- if there are the stars of a million dreamers click-clacking in this dark, then where is the day? He turns, spontaneously- having decided to understand the word ‘spontaneous’ and let it shatter his world- to the dreamer at his left and sees at her fingertips a world of war, of pain, of death and needless destruction; and he sees the salt water run from her face in rivulets over her neck and down her arms and drop from her fingertips into the world she has dreamt. For the first time in a thousand thousand-nights, she looks up from her weeping to see another face that she has not had to dream, and her world is shattered too.

And he dreams for the woman he so badly wants to touch, to hold, to make real- he dreams not a life as it would have unfolded, not as he knows it was written in him to dream for her- he dreams for her unimaginable joy, he dreams for her happiness so intense that at night she must sometimes lie in bed and cry simply to make sense of the brightness inside of her that has come from the sky. He dreams for her music, he dreams for her song upon song to write and to sing and to fall in love to, and he never, ever dreams a moment of hurt, or anguish or confusion.

He feels his own hard fingers and skin break with each keystroke, and with every dream he comes apart a little more. The dreamers are, after all, a different kind of function, and for every colour that he opens up in her he must break some writing carved into the stone of his being, into his writ, and fight the tide of the dark and stars and every dream dreamt in the room of nights. He can feel the eyes of blind dreamers turn to him as he laughs with every sharp pang, with every falling away of his part of the world, for laughter is not something anyone here was ever equipped to hear. The Dreamer of Wars stopped dreaming, her starry fingers silent for the one who had cared to share her suffering, but she could no more know what to do for him or herself than laugh with him.

So he dreamt, and fantasised for her an entire life, a birth, a family- love, being touched, being taken into every dream she had ever had and being allowed to stay there- until he even had to dream for her a death. He dreamt it warm, and peaceful, surrounded by love, and he dreamt it with the last of what was him, before he fell away completely. The first dreamer to have laughed, and loved, and died, in a universe so small it had space for you to only ever know one facet of a reverie.

And as he crumbled, hard face and skin and fingers and bone to ash, he went away. He could not place it. He did not know what it was he became, and he did not know where he went, for he had never known there to be anything outside of the room where dreamers wrote worlds that they could never touch.

But somewhere, in a room so dark, so black that even the night that was dreamt there was just a blush on the hands on the arms of the of people who dreamt, a starry finger found its way back to a key, and wrote a new soul a thousand thousand-daybreaks.