Chapter 48: It's clear I need to clone myself
TO MY READERS: If you get this as a straight email, and instead want the pretty formatting with pictures, check out my blogsite:
www.manabouttheworld.blogspot.com
Also, if you feel I've unfairly slandered you (or just tickled you so pink you can't stand it!), you you can leave a comment for public record on this blogsite. If on the other hand, you find me highly annoying and just want to get off this circulation list, just send me an email. I won't hold it against you! So, without further ado, on with the blog!
Forgive me, Father, for it’s been 2 months since my last confession…. Oh shit, sorry, this is not a confessional box in a Catholic church! Shit, yeah, sorrry, it’s a blog! Damn, sometimes I get the confessional and the blog a little confused. Especially since I’m in a very Catholic mood these days, probably the result of going to see the terrific flamenco artist Eva Yerbabuena (Say her name 10 times, fast, while rubbing your
stomach and see if your lips don’t melt and dribble down your chin! Try It! Fun Games to Play at Home with Children!). Anyway, I went mental trying to get tickets for this. Five shows, SOLD OUT! Who’d’a thunk it in Sydney? Generally, you say the word culture to folks here and it’s like you’ve personally insulted them. So I called frantically each day for returns until finally I got one for the matinee. Oh, it was great! Flamenco is raw, raw, raw passion. So much so, that I got quite stirred up and was a whisker away from biting the head off of a little girl seated next to me. She was around seven years old, very cute, freckles, blue eyes, long blonde hair etc, but, unfortunately, she was also clearly Spawn of the Devil. She did not sit still for even 30 seconds: put her sweater on and took it off 17 times, dropped coins on the floor, kicked the seat in front of her, hit me, chatted to her senile granny next to her, asked for candy and coughed. I was ready to call for an exorcist (catholic mood, etc, etc) but I refrained and gave her and her granny a gentle reprove after the show was over about the desirability of not disrupting other patrons. I smiled through my seething heart. Oh, but even so, the flamenco was absolutely great! Does anybody out there know if there’s a 12-Step Program for this, because I think I’m addicted to flamenco? I’m serious.
So why the long wait between blogs, some of you have been asking? Well, I've been ever so busy. The truth is, I need to clone myself (one Peter to write, one Peter to go to the beach, one Peter to laugh with friends, one to wash the dishes etc, etc). Then I could just stick a phone jack in my eye at night and data dump, instead of all this rushing around trying to do everything. It would make life so much easier. And it would also give me someone to talk to!
Truth is, I’ve been keeping a very low profile of gym, writing, beach and movies. And as for the writing, I’ve been focusing on writing my book, and I’m finally, finally, finally happy to report that it’s going well. Probably because I’ve utterly abandoned caring just how absolutely incoherent and dreadful my first draft is. I’m about half way through the first draft, but it’s not the book I thought I was going to write, that’s for sure. But I’m ok with this. Truly. Pass me a prozac with that glass of vodka, wouldya?
The beach has also been good recently: no flies. Honestly, earlier this year it was a scene from a horror movie. The insects were attacking in dive bombing formation. My friend Lance had just arrived and applied lots of sunscreen to his Germanically-gingerish skin and bald pate when something like 12 flies attacked and landed on him at once. We fled, ran to the pharmacy, asked for the strongest insect repellent that scientists had ever devised. We got it, applied it LIBERALLY, and went back to beach. It didn’t do anything. Within 10 minutes Lance had 50 flies struggling in the sticky goop on his skin. He was like a human fly strip. When one landed in his eye and another one fumbled onto his lip, he shrieked and fled for home. But now the flies are gone, and there is just the sun, the sand and the waves.
Also, I’ve been in a very dualistic frame of mind recently: I hate plane journeys but I love round-the-world tickets. Seriously, I was away for 5 weeks, in Vancouver for Christmas with Mum and Bro', Dubai with Max (What to say about Dubai? It’s something extraordinary, skyscrapers 
rising out of the desert like mushrooms overnight. As Max says, “Dubai is the city of the future” and he's absolutely spot on. Unfortunately, though I may have seen the future, I don't like the way it looks. Not a shred of nature anywhere, huge straight roads full of speeding cars.), Capetown (Still the most beautiful city in the world, but OMG, what a social whirlwind! Or do I mean whirlpool?), Perth (Research on my book. Libraries are sooooo Zen, no?) and finally home. Very happy to be back too!
By the way, coming home from Perth I took a budget airline. Has anybody noticed that they seem to underpressurize the cabins in budget airlines, perhaps to save fuel? Things were exploding on the way up. I’m talking plastic cups of yoghurt and bags of crisps, not heads! (Of course this is not to say that heads never explode, oh no! Check out the following reputable report: Exploding Heads And don't bother boring yourself by reading the Wikipedia report. They CLEARLY don't know what they're talking about on the fascinating subject of Exploding Heads.) And on the way down MANY people started crying because of ear problems and my empty water bottle crumpled up into a tiny little plastic pellet. Me, I felt all queer as the plane was landing.
Which brings me to another question: Am I Very Gay? I ask because I’ve bought some shower gel the other day and I instinctively opted for Palmolive Aromatherapy Anti-Stress with pure essential oil of lavender, ylang ylang and patchouli. It’s a very pretty purple gel, and I have to say that NOTHING in the world gives me so much pleasure as this shower gel. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being, say, Liberace, how gay is that?
I’ve been quite busy watching the Australian Open tennis. Men’s final: Gonzales, awesome forehand, great eyes, gorgeous smile. My flatmate Phil’s absolute coup-de-foudre LOVE for him, did not help Gonzales beat Federer, who is, well, the best tennis player ever. Oh, but ya
gotta root for the underdog! Did any body see unseeded Serena Williams destroy that Russian bitch Sharapova, the number 1 seed 6-1, 6-2 in the final? Awesome tennis, and all the more amazing since it looked highly likely that Serena’s training program over the last 12 months has consisted principally of stuffing Wimpy Burgers down her throat, followed by a few dozen chocolate milkshakes. How she was able to haul her gigantic enormous ass around court I do not know, but I gotta admire her, all the more so after her interview with a journalist:
JOURNO: “It was carnage in the bottom half of the draw.”
SERENA: “Whaaaaa? Carn… Carnaaa….. Whaaaa?”
J: “Carnage.”
S: “Whassaaaat mean? I nevah heard tha’ word before!”
J: “Carnage. It means lots of people dying.”
S: “[Giggle] Thasssa goooooood word. I gonna look it up. [Giggle]”
IF THERE ARE ANY OF YOU READERS OUT THERE, WHO ARE MOTHER TONGUE ENGLISH SPEAKERS WHO DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE WORD CARNAGE MEANS, YOU MUST SEND ME AN EMAIL (IF YOU CAN STRING TOGETHER ENOUGH WORDS) ASKING ME TO BE TAKEN OFF THIS CIRCULATION LIST. THESE MISSIVES ARE NOT FOR YOU AND WE ARE NOT COMPATIBLE.
Seriously, though, Serena was charming when she won, happily skipping on court, thanking Jehovah, and apologizing to her momma for sassing her earlier in the week. You could not fail to be won over, despite the ludicrous dress sense (check out those ridiculous earings!). And Sharapova too was so gracious and generous in her concession speech, that I’ve quite changed my mind about her. I like her now. By the way, did anyone notice that Kim Clijsters has EXCEPTIONALLY hairy forearms? She’s retiring to have children. Let’s hope she has sons.
Now, I want to tell you, my blog is not always about me being mean. Noooooooo! (Any, maybe I expunge all my meanness in my blog, and that makes me nicer in person?) But noooo, you don’t have to do something ridiculous to get a mention in here. Not at all! For example, I put my friend Rob Patrick on my circ list recently and he said “You won’t blog me, will you?” and I said “Naaaaaaahhhhhhhh, you haven’t done anything mockable. Yet.” But then he sent me a lovely email, to say he’d just dipped into my blog to check it out for the first time and then ignored his briefs (he’s a South Africa High Court Advocate or something fancy like that) for the whole morning. And he then sent me a lovely email (I’m quoting now) to say he found it “a cross between Bridget Jones and Bill Bryson". I’m gonna say that again, in case any of you have publishers standing nearby that you’d like to call over or forward this to: A cross between Bill Bryson and Bridgit Jones. So you don’t, in fact, need to do anything embarrassing to be mentioned in here. Flattery will also work. Or cash, for that matter. Text me if you need my bank account numbers. Western Union works too.
www.manabouttheworld.blogspot.com
Also, if you feel I've unfairly slandered you (or just tickled you so pink you can't stand it!), you you can leave a comment for public record on this blogsite. If on the other hand, you find me highly annoying and just want to get off this circulation list, just send me an email. I won't hold it against you! So, without further ado, on with the blog!
Forgive me, Father, for it’s been 2 months since my last confession…. Oh shit, sorry, this is not a confessional box in a Catholic church! Shit, yeah, sorrry, it’s a blog! Damn, sometimes I get the confessional and the blog a little confused. Especially since I’m in a very Catholic mood these days, probably the result of going to see the terrific flamenco artist Eva Yerbabuena (Say her name 10 times, fast, while rubbing your
stomach and see if your lips don’t melt and dribble down your chin! Try It! Fun Games to Play at Home with Children!). Anyway, I went mental trying to get tickets for this. Five shows, SOLD OUT! Who’d’a thunk it in Sydney? Generally, you say the word culture to folks here and it’s like you’ve personally insulted them. So I called frantically each day for returns until finally I got one for the matinee. Oh, it was great! Flamenco is raw, raw, raw passion. So much so, that I got quite stirred up and was a whisker away from biting the head off of a little girl seated next to me. She was around seven years old, very cute, freckles, blue eyes, long blonde hair etc, but, unfortunately, she was also clearly Spawn of the Devil. She did not sit still for even 30 seconds: put her sweater on and took it off 17 times, dropped coins on the floor, kicked the seat in front of her, hit me, chatted to her senile granny next to her, asked for candy and coughed. I was ready to call for an exorcist (catholic mood, etc, etc) but I refrained and gave her and her granny a gentle reprove after the show was over about the desirability of not disrupting other patrons. I smiled through my seething heart. Oh, but even so, the flamenco was absolutely great! Does anybody out there know if there’s a 12-Step Program for this, because I think I’m addicted to flamenco? I’m serious.So why the long wait between blogs, some of you have been asking? Well, I've been ever so busy. The truth is, I need to clone myself (one Peter to write, one Peter to go to the beach, one Peter to laugh with friends, one to wash the dishes etc, etc). Then I could just stick a phone jack in my eye at night and data dump, instead of all this rushing around trying to do everything. It would make life so much easier. And it would also give me someone to talk to!
Truth is, I’ve been keeping a very low profile of gym, writing, beach and movies. And as for the writing, I’ve been focusing on writing my book, and I’m finally, finally, finally happy to report that it’s going well. Probably because I’ve utterly abandoned caring just how absolutely incoherent and dreadful my first draft is. I’m about half way through the first draft, but it’s not the book I thought I was going to write, that’s for sure. But I’m ok with this. Truly. Pass me a prozac with that glass of vodka, wouldya?
The beach has also been good recently: no flies. Honestly, earlier this year it was a scene from a horror movie. The insects were attacking in dive bombing formation. My friend Lance had just arrived and applied lots of sunscreen to his Germanically-gingerish skin and bald pate when something like 12 flies attacked and landed on him at once. We fled, ran to the pharmacy, asked for the strongest insect repellent that scientists had ever devised. We got it, applied it LIBERALLY, and went back to beach. It didn’t do anything. Within 10 minutes Lance had 50 flies struggling in the sticky goop on his skin. He was like a human fly strip. When one landed in his eye and another one fumbled onto his lip, he shrieked and fled for home. But now the flies are gone, and there is just the sun, the sand and the waves.
Also, I’ve been in a very dualistic frame of mind recently: I hate plane journeys but I love round-the-world tickets. Seriously, I was away for 5 weeks, in Vancouver for Christmas with Mum and Bro', Dubai with Max (What to say about Dubai? It’s something extraordinary, skyscrapers 
rising out of the desert like mushrooms overnight. As Max says, “Dubai is the city of the future” and he's absolutely spot on. Unfortunately, though I may have seen the future, I don't like the way it looks. Not a shred of nature anywhere, huge straight roads full of speeding cars.), Capetown (Still the most beautiful city in the world, but OMG, what a social whirlwind! Or do I mean whirlpool?), Perth (Research on my book. Libraries are sooooo Zen, no?) and finally home. Very happy to be back too!By the way, coming home from Perth I took a budget airline. Has anybody noticed that they seem to underpressurize the cabins in budget airlines, perhaps to save fuel? Things were exploding on the way up. I’m talking plastic cups of yoghurt and bags of crisps, not heads! (Of course this is not to say that heads never explode, oh no! Check out the following reputable report: Exploding Heads And don't bother boring yourself by reading the Wikipedia report. They CLEARLY don't know what they're talking about on the fascinating subject of Exploding Heads.) And on the way down MANY people started crying because of ear problems and my empty water bottle crumpled up into a tiny little plastic pellet. Me, I felt all queer as the plane was landing.
Which brings me to another question: Am I Very Gay? I ask because I’ve bought some shower gel the other day and I instinctively opted for Palmolive Aromatherapy Anti-Stress with pure essential oil of lavender, ylang ylang and patchouli. It’s a very pretty purple gel, and I have to say that NOTHING in the world gives me so much pleasure as this shower gel. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being, say, Liberace, how gay is that?I’ve been quite busy watching the Australian Open tennis. Men’s final: Gonzales, awesome forehand, great eyes, gorgeous smile. My flatmate Phil’s absolute coup-de-foudre LOVE for him, did not help Gonzales beat Federer, who is, well, the best tennis player ever. Oh, but ya
gotta root for the underdog! Did any body see unseeded Serena Williams destroy that Russian bitch Sharapova, the number 1 seed 6-1, 6-2 in the final? Awesome tennis, and all the more amazing since it looked highly likely that Serena’s training program over the last 12 months has consisted principally of stuffing Wimpy Burgers down her throat, followed by a few dozen chocolate milkshakes. How she was able to haul her gigantic enormous ass around court I do not know, but I gotta admire her, all the more so after her interview with a journalist:JOURNO: “It was carnage in the bottom half of the draw.”
SERENA: “Whaaaaa? Carn… Carnaaa….. Whaaaa?”
J: “Carnage.”
S: “Whassaaaat mean? I nevah heard tha’ word before!”
J: “Carnage. It means lots of people dying.”
S: “[Giggle] Thasssa goooooood word. I gonna look it up. [Giggle]”
IF THERE ARE ANY OF YOU READERS OUT THERE, WHO ARE MOTHER TONGUE ENGLISH SPEAKERS WHO DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE WORD CARNAGE MEANS, YOU MUST SEND ME AN EMAIL (IF YOU CAN STRING TOGETHER ENOUGH WORDS) ASKING ME TO BE TAKEN OFF THIS CIRCULATION LIST. THESE MISSIVES ARE NOT FOR YOU AND WE ARE NOT COMPATIBLE.
Seriously, though, Serena was charming when she won, happily skipping on court, thanking Jehovah, and apologizing to her momma for sassing her earlier in the week. You could not fail to be won over, despite the ludicrous dress sense (check out those ridiculous earings!). And Sharapova too was so gracious and generous in her concession speech, that I’ve quite changed my mind about her. I like her now. By the way, did anyone notice that Kim Clijsters has EXCEPTIONALLY hairy forearms? She’s retiring to have children. Let’s hope she has sons.Now, I want to tell you, my blog is not always about me being mean. Noooooooo! (Any, maybe I expunge all my meanness in my blog, and that makes me nicer in person?) But noooo, you don’t have to do something ridiculous to get a mention in here. Not at all! For example, I put my friend Rob Patrick on my circ list recently and he said “You won’t blog me, will you?” and I said “Naaaaaaahhhhhhhh, you haven’t done anything mockable. Yet.” But then he sent me a lovely email, to say he’d just dipped into my blog to check it out for the first time and then ignored his briefs (he’s a South Africa High Court Advocate or something fancy like that) for the whole morning. And he then sent me a lovely email (I’m quoting now) to say he found it “a cross between Bridget Jones and Bill Bryson". I’m gonna say that again, in case any of you have publishers standing nearby that you’d like to call over or forward this to: A cross between Bill Bryson and Bridgit Jones. So you don’t, in fact, need to do anything embarrassing to be mentioned in here. Flattery will also work. Or cash, for that matter. Text me if you need my bank account numbers. Western Union works too.
posted by Peter at 2:54 PM
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