Friday 13 June 2014

Microsoft Word

I know this will probably sound like I'm trying to convince you that my Jack Russell mistook my homework for his red, rubber t-bone that squeaks when he suddenly seizes it in his jaw and shakes it around in a confused frenzy, but this story is completely true and I have a witness.

I spent a good two hours on a blog post about the wintertime today. I was feeling poetic and I decided to talk about something I like instead of something or someone I would like to send out on an ice flow in their crappy little vest. I wrote 413(ish) words about my favourite season.

If you're anything like me, you wake up grinning like an axe-wielding crazy person when it starts raining. Something about the winter makes you happy. The rain is like a blanket around your soul, keeping you safe.

In the piece, I remarked that I enjoyed the smell of rain in the teerpad as it breezed through the afdakkie tunnel side walks and trailed behind me on my way to get my boeretroos, that golden gift of the gods that fuels all this magical mystery mayhem, from the Kaif. Coffee has meaning in the wintertime. Side walks and street corners become monuments to our everyday existence.

I tend to get a little bit lyrical with the changing of the leaves. So much so that I wrote 400 words about winter and how (and also why) I prefer it over the summertime. Unfortunately, I was so distracted by all the other work that seemed to attack me from all sides because of exam season that I never saved any of it. I was about to, I really was. I had my flash drive ready and everything. I promise. At the exact second that my drive touched the USB port, my screen went blue. Everything gone. Die bus is vol. Cheers.

This made me very...disappointed.

I expressed my disappointment very...clearly. And also very loudly.

This indecent put a bit of a damper on my day. I just wish this futuristic typewriter had an automatic save function, or at least some sort of recycle bin area or something.

This blog shit can be traumatic.

Mornings

I had two very pleasant dreams last night. First, I dreamt I was surfing my favourite break and turned in for that one perfect barrel I have been chasing since I started surfing (despite the fact that I was on a bodyboard). In the other, I dreamt that I was drifting lazily down a warm river. There was no water, but my yellow, triangular, ambiguous tube boat floaty thing drifted along on warm clouds. Not real cold-ass clouds of condensation, though. It was more like what my four-year-old self would think clouds were made of. In both, I was completely at peace.

And then my phone rang.

We've all had the experience; you're lying in bed, sleeping like a baby after a bottle of warm milk and Ambien when someone phones you. At 7:25 in the morning. Five minutes before your alarm is set to go off. To ask a question about something that really could have waited eight more minutes before finally taking the hook out and throwing you back at 7:29. That last minute is a very angry one.

I'm not what you would call your typical "morning person". I don't wake up with a song in my heart - it's more of an extended groan in F# minor.

Due to my nocturnal nature, my mind tends to hit peak performance as soon as the clock hands tick past my bed time. That's when my brain starts to pull the day's thoughts into focus and I often find myself semi-sleepwalking around res late at night. This is my thinking time. Unfortunately, this cuts into the sleeping time that I need to be anywhere close to "functional". Mornings are like the harsh light of a fluorescent tube light that suddenly rips your eyes to shreds because it's too dark to see normally. It is safe to assume that 7:25 is not the best time of day to try for any kind of quality response from me. I don't know what this means for my exams, but that's another story.

At least I can see the sunrise thaw Grahamstown back to life on early winter's mornings when I'm standing at my window, clasping my coffee mug with two hands, re considering this whole "being awake" thing you all seem to be so crazy about.

Maybe I should go back to bed.