life lessons

Happiness is…

~ monkeywithgun ~ Leave a comment

‘They’ say that ‘happiness is earning more than your brother in law.’

If that’s true then I’ve just come back from 5 days of depression inducing hell…Easter with my 3 brothers in law and their families.

They’re all great guys and I’ve known them for years (including as friends, before I did the unthinkable and dated, then married their little sister…but that’s another story for another time.)

I’ll lay the scene; BIL (bother in law) 1 is on the board of directors of a bank; BIL 2 is a partner at a global law firm and BIL 3, one of my oldest friends (apart from the 2 years he wouldn’t speak to me because of the sister situation (see above)) runs a little business from his house which sees him earning more than BIL 1 and 2 combined. This trifecta, this triple whack with the ‘you’re worthless’ stick, this probe with the ‘what the fuck have you done with your life’ finger (and thumb) hadn’t registered before…it’s rare that we’re all in the same country at the same time…but this Easter it happened and happened in full force in a big rambling farmhouse we’d hired for the weekend.

The 6 kids ran amok and did what kids do. The wives drank wine, flicked through magazines and did what wives do. And the guys do what apparently guys with prestigious jobs and / or high amounts of disposable income do, and talked money…

By day 2 I was spending more time with the kids. By day 3 I was even considering starting work on a novel, simply to give me an excuse not to participate in the conversations I couldn’t really participate in, and by day 4 I was drinking heavily to dumb down the internal voices tearing sheets off me. I’m not a jealous person (although a couple of ex-girlfriends might beg to differ…especially the one whose dress I cut up after she screwed around on me with some floppy German fool in a camper van…) but it was tough. As many times as I tried to divert the conversation to anything other than money, business and finances (and cars I’ve never even heard of), they managed to slickly slide back to the point they’d been interrupted at. It was exhausting.

By day 5 I was feeling like the knock-kneed fat kid at a school sports day and my ego and self-worth were both punch drunk and reeling. I’d wondered out into the never ending garden with glass in hand. I was vaguely aware of the kids voices nearby, when a chubby little 2 year old hand grabbed mine and pulled me to the trampoline.

‘Daddy look. Do like this.’ She said, and I looked down and she had her head between her knees. I didn’t understand. The she dragged me onto the bouncy canvas, tucked her head down and executed a perfect somersault and lay on her back screeching with pride.

‘Daddy look. You do.’ and I did…the first somersault I’ve done in about 25 years,landing on my back next two my youngest daughter, the 2 of us laughing madly (and me feeling more than a little disoriented after spinning my gut full of wine 360 degrees), and I had one of those rare moments where life gets thrust back into perspective with such a force that your mind slaps you upside the head…and you realise that you’ve just spent wasted x number of days feeling worthless when really you’re OK…you’re a good dad, your daughters are healthy and all have the right number of limbs and eyes and don’t think you’re a fool all the time. You’ve got your health. You’re not eating somebody else’s Pot Noodles out of their bin for breakfast and in the rain and cold you’re dry and warm under a roof that’s not made from cardboard boxes or a plastic sheet.

Life is good…I’m just not rich.

Flinging of virtual faeces

~ monkeywithgun ~ Leave a comment

‘They’ say that the only thing you can be sure of is your own mortality. It’s coming. Like it or not, you’re going to die (as is everyone else by the way). That’s what ‘They’ say.

But I have another. I can, with as much certainty as I’m going to shake off this mortal coil, predict which of my Facebook friends will pounce at my posts. This is my new sport. I am the zoo keeper dragging my cane across the bars of their virtual cages.

For example I recently posted some quote by a dead Irish poet about ‘exploring the dark corners of your soul and so on’…I hit the post button, placed by bet and waited. It took a little longer than I expected (probably due to the recent change in time difference), but with pin point accuracy the flinging of digital faeces commenced from the predicted cage…this faeces was flung with such abandon and relentless vigor that contagion occurred…cages up and down the row began to vibrate, howling and barking erupted. More bits and bytes of faecal matter hit my screen and then peace and silence ensued. It was awesome. If I’d quoted that dead Irishman to the same people in a physical space – a bar for example – it would have gone unnoticed…

…and so I posit thus; humans are both more extreme and more predictable in their reactions when reacting from behind the screens of their devices…but I’m not sure what that implies. Do we feel more free to be extreme if we’re not face-to-face? Does the physical world dull our natural selves? Are we too afraid to be us in public, but totally happy to let it all hang out in full force when we’re operating in the virtual?

And in case you think I’m being unfairly judgmental, I’ll let let you in on a little secret. I too used to punch holes in my keyboard and let it all hang out over the dumbest of shit….sarcasm and dismissive ‘humor’ were my weapons of choice…this was until I caught myself in my own game.

All of the above is simply an observation…but 10 bucks says your keyboards have taken a bashing at things you wouldn’t have given a flying monkey’s about in the real world.

PS

For anyone looking to find a virtual predictor of future anti-social / deviant behavior, my theory (untested) is that the number of ‘I haven’t got a clue who they are’s as a percentage of one’s full set of Facebook connections would be a good place to start.

Cocaine, dwarfs and business associates

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Last weekend I find myself standing, swaying ever so slightly, in a throng of party people I didn’t really know. It was a 40th. I get a perverse pleasure welcoming others to this decade, so make a point of going to them. They go one of two ways. You get the ‘I’m 40 now, so I’ll throw a pseudo-sophisticated dinner party to show I’m grown up’…these either end bloody early as they’re boring as, or wind up slightly later with people throwing up in plant pots and arguing with their wives. The other way they go, which is the way this one certainly looked to be going was ‘I’m fucking 40 and I’m going to party like it’s my last day alive…mutha funkstas!’…my favorite of the two options, but that’s an aside.

I’m bouncing from one knot of people to the next and relaxing into the night. The little trip to the powder room has imparted a comfortable buzz. The night moves on and all things ratchet up a few notches. I’ve just extracted myself from the rant of some ex-architect who now makes leather bikes seats and my god had I seen his wife? Isn’t she wonderful and did you know she was black, you couldn’t tell by looking at her and look at those legs. Did I tell you I made a bike saddle for so and so and etc etc, and am taking a private moment when my focus pulls in on a short (ish) woman standing in front of me. She’s just called me by my name. My memory banks come up empty. I mentally scramble through recent occasions and events – still blank. I therefore assume we must’ve met in the desert recently…at that bastion of madness, Afrikaburn. That would make sense. Similar people. Similar vibe. That must’ve been it…but it wasn’t.

‘It’s me, X, we met at your office last week.’

I feel myself draw up straight and move into auto-pilot. The scrambled synapses find their sequence and we chat. When I say chat, we danced. We conversationally tangoed each looking for the opening to broach the ‘are you high?’ question. Neither of us allowing that opening to occur. Neither wanting to be the first to drop the pretense. How ridiculous, and I remember thinking this at the time, that two adults were struggling to be adults on their own time because of a link to their grindstones. This continues for a while until some guy (who turns out to be her husband) sidles up and offers us both some MDMA, and the faking and parrying ends and we have a blast and uncovered a whole lot of shared history.

As fun as it was this little encounter got me thinking: is there an etiquette in these situations? And if so what is it and what drives it? Surely as two functioning adults, what you get up to on your own clock is your business and not something that you need to hide? Is it though? I’ve tried to project our next ‘work’ meeting and wonder how it will pan out with the knowledge we each have about it each other. I’d like to think it will be more open. That we’ll each understand where the other’s coming from and that the level of professionalism will remain intact and be more authentic for no longer being clouded in fake funk. Has my view of her changed knowing that she tucks into the same recreationals as I do? It would be more than hypocritical if it has. I wonder if I’ll take her as seriously? We’ll see…

Anyhow, the night moved on to include a woman jumping out of a cake, a bunch of grumpy little Playboy bunny waitresses getting grumpier and the smallest dwarf I’ve ever tripped over wondering around, dressed in a ring master’s coat, with beer and cocaine on a plate for the party boy…but that’s another story right there, which I may, may not get around to writing. If I do I’ll call ‘Who’s exploiting who: the ethics of dwarf hiring’, or something similar, but right now it’s time for a swim. Over and out.

Kids know it

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You can’t hide greatness – especially from kids. We’d spent the winter solstice (+ 1) at a kid friendly wine farm. Weather was spectacular. Kids and adults had a great time. Loads of jungle gym type things to keep the daughters entertained. At various stages throughout the day I tried to get some photos of daughter 1 at play because I love taking them and more importantly because I’ve noticed she’s getting very shy as she grows up. She’s gone from wanting to be in front of whatever camera happened to be around to not wanting to be near one. Could be just a stage or she’s beginning to develop issues with her self-esteem. Who knows. She’s only 4 and a half. Every attempt to get a photo was thwarted with a turned head, pulled face, whinge. I gave up in the end. Skip to end of day and daughter 1 and I are walking to the car whilst everyone else  said packed up. To the left stood a 10 foot high statue of Nelson Mandela with one of his loud shirts and a walking stick in his hand. Daughter 1 grabbed me ‘Daddy please take a some photos of me with Nelson Mandela. Please’ She shot off and planted herself next to him, standing bolt upright with her little chest puffed out and smiling. I took a picture. Her head came up just above his knee. ‘Take another one. This time I want to hug him.’ She hugged his calf tight and I snapped away. ‘Now I want to stand in front of him and hug him again.’ I did what I was told, my mind racing. ‘Daddy I want you to put the pictures on Facebook so everyone knows I love Nelson Mandela.’ ‘Sweetie of course I will.’ She laughed and skipped back to me. Nelson Mandela died about 6 months after we moved back to South Africa. He was not a part of her life in Sydney. She hadn’t heard of him. So this well aimed love for a man she’d only heard about recently was staggering. She wasn’t fawning over One Direction or Katy Perry it was Madiba. How awesome is that? You can’t hide greatness. Especially from kids.

41 year old virgin

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I’ve got a gun in my face and a steely-eyed 21 year old at the other end of it roughing me up and barking orders. My t-shirt’s ripped and I’m sweating like a pig. He shoves the gun harder between my eyes, I grab, twist and lock his arm whilst dispatching 3 quick kicks to his groin…and nobody bats an eyelid, for I’m just another self-defense virgin having their intro session to the ways of Krav Maga. ‘What the fuck’s that?’ you say, ‘sounds like a Vietnamese sauce or some vengeful Hawaiian god.’

I’ll tell you. Here’s the skinny. Krav Maga is a is a martial art and self-defense system developed for the military in Israel. It’s a practical set of moves to help you get out of shitty situations like a gun being shoved in your face or some crack addict / pyscho / assassin bearing down on you with a knife…or any other scenario you can think of. The key is the ‘practical’ – you don’t need to be wearing silk pants and a rope belt, wheeling roundhouse kicks and flinging metal stars, or doing triple back-flips and running up walls. Krav Maga is practical, so practical that it hurts, and that’s what it’s designed to do, hurt alot and then incapacitate / break / kill your attacker. There’s nothing fluffy to see here folks.

Skip forward 30 mins and I’m starting to feel pretty handy. I’m disarming the 21 year old more often than he’s shooting me or I’m shooting myself and I get to thinking why it is that I’m doing this. I’m 41. I’ve never been remotely interested in  martial arts (not to be confused with marital arts which I’m not very good at either). I like to keep in shape, but I’ve not got a violent bone in my body…so I try to tell myself that I’m doing it simply to keep fit in a more useful way, which is kind of true, but sitting, niggling just below that veneer is the very real thought that one day, in this country I love dearly and have moved my family to, I could very well need to know this stuff. The stats are plain to see. South Africa is a violent place and enough of my friends have been touched by that violence for it not to be an abstract concept or simply stuff that happens to other people. I don’t ;like admitting that because that means I’ve accepted that I’ve put my family in a more dangerous location than we’ve been used to…and now it feels real enough that I need to do something about it, like get kicked around around by a 21 year old who could kill me with a flick of his wrist.

Looking around it’s a mixed bag – there’s no one type – women in their 30’s are tossing around men in their 40’s – Gen Y is well represented and seem to be quite nifty at it all. Early stage beer bellies flop against chiseled abs and forearms. The instructor has full control of this motley crew.

Anyhow, that was yesterday and today I hurt, and hurt a lot, but feel slightly less defenseless and a bit more useful than the day before, although I’ve never thought of it that way. I’m going to sign up. I enjoyed it but now feel obliged. Knowing that there is this super practical defense course available to me; something that will give me more of a chance to protect my family and me if one of those shitty, but not too rare, situations finds me / us. It wouldn’t feel right not to verse myself in it’s ways…and I don’t need to buy silk pants to do so.

Fathers’ day stuff

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It was the day before fathers’ day and daughter 1 came and found me in the study. She had something tucked behind her back and was biting her lower lip, her little cheeks puffed out. She does that when she’s proud of something. Thank God I was paying attention and didn’t brush her off with an ‘I’m busy’.

It was amazing, the little hand scribbled card that she thrust in front of my face. ‘For you Daddy. Happy Daddies’ day. I did it myself. Look inside it’s a heart and says I love my Daddy (wobbly lines over dotted letters my wife had drawn out). Crayon and felt pen spirals and lines all over.

‘Sweet heart, it’s awesome. I love it.’ Her little chest swelled and we hugged. ‘It’s from me Daddy…Just me.’ The point being made and the one taken was that her little sister had nothing to do with it.

‘Thanks. I’ll stick it in the special place where I keep all the things you give to me.’ We hugged and inside I chuckled at her making the point that it was HER gift to me and that it was NOT from daughter 2. Angling for bonus points so early in her little life.

Fast forward to the day after Fathers’ Day. I’m lying with a bottle of red by the fire and Daughter 2 waddles up to me, with the tripping gate of a 1 and a half year old with a full nappy. She has a big plastic bag which she drops on my face. Daughter 1: ‘What’s that?’ Me: ‘No idea Peanut. Let’s open it.’ Daughter 2 is pulling the cat’s tail and no longer interested.

Turns out the bag is laden with Fathers’ Day arts and crafts and cards and an ‘I love Daddy T-shirt. It’s just been dropped off by Duaghter 2’s nursery school teacher as I missed the Daddies’ Day morning they had.

I hug Daughter 2, who’s oblivious and look across to Daughter 1 who’s now busy making sure I know that all this stuff is from her too and that she told her little sister how to do it and my heart breaks for her. The little chest swollen with pride is now panting with the effort of jostling for a bit of this delayed Fathers’ Day action and all I want to do is to hug her and tell it’s not about how big things are  or how many things there are, and that nothing can take away from the incredible card she made for me a couple of days ago…but it falls on deaf ears.

It’s bed time and I’m popping Daughter 1 into her pyjamas and we’re getting ready for a story…’Daddy.’ ‘Yes Honey?’ ‘I didn’t help her with any of her cards. She did them all.’

My turn for a little chest swell and throat lump ‘I know. Now come here.’

It’s late and I’m turning in and my head’s full of thoughts about how much goes on in little, really little kids’ minds and how it’s so easy to unwittingly tread on their pride and what’s so important to them…too damn easy and to not even know…