Immigration Stamps...

Nothing like flipping through your pasport to see where youve been.

Romania, Bucharest, July 1999 a horrible trip to visit family, and worse stay with them for three whole weeks. I saw my first naked football match, got shot by a paintgun manned by my obnoxious cousin, got into shit for beating the crap out of my cousin for shooting me with a paintgun, stuck my toes into a glacier lake and threw up at the sight of blood sausages.

Spain, Madrid, 2001 a horrible trip to visit family and worse stay with them for two whole weeks. I saw my first live football game - Real Madris Vs Valladolid at the Bernabeu SWEEEEEEEET, flirted with cute waiters and overpaid for coffee and juice, got drunk for the first time on a jug full of Sangria, started a family feud that still rages today over the good tickets to see the match, seriously bonded with best friend who went on trip too.

(hmmm i see a pattern)

United Kingdom, London, 2002 a horrible trip to visit family and worse stay with them for two whole weeks. I cant even remember what I did so traumatic was the trip. I think i went to
Manchester and smirked at Old Trafford.

Thailand, Bangkok, 2005 a fabulous trip, just me and dad living in a five star hotel witha kickass spa where i had many a fine massage. I bought a teapot, a wooden dragona and met a real cute guy on their subway type thing.

Etats Schengen, Italy, Uk, Switzerland, France, 1998 an incredible bloody trip with no family cept Mom and Dad. Bought TONS of stuff went everywhere, had my bum pinched by cute foreign boy. Chased pidgeons in Venice and Trafalgar Square, ate pizza by drifting gondolas, was scared pissless by Gumbo Prawns in Geneva, took the Hop-on Hop-off bus tour in London and went to the London Dungeons. Ahhhhhh fun...

No Title

It has been a long time since I have felt the urge to just sit here and talk. I have after all a captive audience, and even if my loyal few decide not to read this particular litany, I would never know!

The truth is, Ive been searching for something grand and explosive to inspire me. Something that will leave my fingers and colour this page and scream out what a fantastic piece of writing it is. It isnt like the old days anymore. Now the things that I write have to be 'real' writing, whatever the hell that is. And its all because of the fucking labels.

(yohan I know youre a fan of the labelling, and there is going to be some bashing of it here, so you might want to stop reading now)

We label everything. I sit down to write and even before I type out a singe line I have to think, "what will I label this piece? I cant write just anything, it has to fit into a label!!!" Not the most conducive to writng a masterpiece. Though honestly, blogspots over enthusiastic organistion sickness isnt the real problem. I have been compelled to label myself and I chose the label of writer.

So obviously, now I cant write a bloody thing.

Its so infuriating. I have always hated labels, because the minute you have one you have a content, a list of ingredients, a recommended use and, worst of all, a best before date. Do we really have to go through life being followed by an expiration date??

I refused to be labeled a gurlfriend by any boy for years because people always got this knowing look in their eyes when they heard you being called that. It drove me crazy. (I relented eventually because not being able to call the gurl youre 'with' your gurlfriend leads to massive insecurity and drama queen tantrums, which is much worse than being equivalent to your average canned good {Canned good because they are almost all label [My god my writing has sunk to this level].}, but thats a different post altogether).

My point, yes there is a point, is this.

Once youve been labeled, youre fucking screwed.

So in the spirit of rebellion, I declare tomorrow official Un-Label Day! Get together and burn your labels! Celebrate your metaphorical nakedness!

Please dont stop reading my blog. Ill get better I swear.

For Aaki (happy love?)

There was a young man from London
Who was hatched from the egg of a hen
He clucked like a chick
And got hit by a brick
Cos he pooped on the top of Big Ben

A Small Story

Amrai stared miserably out of the kitchen window at the courtyard below. It was full of her family, at their happiest and best dressed. Her mother and younger sisters bustled around offering mithai to the guests, pouring out steaming kulhads of chai and forcing them into the hands of the men and women seated on the family's best divans. They had all been moved into the courtyard the night before, so that today's proceedings could take place under the blue sky and the shade of the family's sacred old peepal tree. In the middle of the group of women sat Paali, Amrai's youngest sister. Her head bowed shyly as was expected, her red sari shimmering in the dappled sunlight under the tree. She was surrounded by the women who would soon become her family, murmuring softly as they asked her questions, and blushing prettily as they teased her. Watching her, Amrai's chest filled with the bitter fluid that she was sure had started running through her veins in the last week, since the engagement had been announced.

A glint of sunlight danced suddenly before her eyes, guiding her gaze across the courtyard, through the crowd of relatives and servants, between low tables weighed down with food and drink, gliding across the distance in a graceful serpentine dance until finally nestling below the feathers in his saafa. Amrai felt her heart, which had been beating sluggishly and painfully for days, break into pieces.

She turned away from the window, and sank her fingers back into the laddoo's she was making for the wedding feast. The batter squirmed under her fingers as she blindly pounded the yellow orange goo, watching in her mind the long corridors of a palace far away, where she had spent a childhood, growing up and falling in love. Tears dripped from her face, tasting strangely of the bitterness inside her, tracking clean channels of skin across the backs of her hands, mixing the laddoo's.

At the wedding feast Amrai's laddoo's were passed out to everyone. She could hear the laughter and singing from the corner of the kitchen where she still cried silently. She hadn’t been allowed to join the wedding or the feast; her presence would have been uncomfortable considering… Anyways, Paali refused to be married if Amrai attended so that matter had been settled early on.

It was after the laddoos had been given out that it happened. One by one the happy laughing people began to weep. Softly and slowly at first, but then, as the memory of the pain grew sharper they wailed and sobbed and beat their chests crying for a love that they had once lost. Everyone who had eaten those laddoos was overcome with the pain of heartbreak they had once felt. Tormented again with that unbearable pain, that many of them thought they had forgotten forever.

Amrai's mother beat her well that night, demanding to know what she had done, and how she had done it. Paali screamed herself into a fever over the ruin of her wedding, and it was only on the orders of their father that Amrai was not beaten anymore. The truth they didn’t believe, no matter how many times she said it. That the only thing she had added to the laddoos were the strangely bitter tears that she hadnt stopped crying.


**This is not an original concept. I heard this story at a reading some years ago, and tried to reproduce it. I dont know who the author is, but if you do, please tell me.