An unannounced visitor

I love it when someone comes to visit. Somedays, it's good to have a quiet friend, too. One who appreciates what it is to fly into the light, and not think of the consequences. This one came to visit me today. It is about the size of a matchbox, but you can't see that...

Big Tree

Yeah. It's either a really big tree. Or a really small kid. Good times.

Airing the Dirty Laundry

So. I bought a washing machine the other day. Had to. It was supposed to help make life a little less dysfunctional. As is obvious, I haven't been able to get it to work. There was a book about the realities of life versus enlightenment (which I am not a follower of), called "After the Ecstacy, the Laundry", and I am hoping to find some kind of epiphany come to me as I rinse and squeeze, some epiphany would be good, round about now...

Box of Dreams

It's packed away- fairly roughly. None of the ceremony of its erection. It will stay in a box intil next year, when, in the impatient desperation of the children it will once more be made to dominate the room, the branches loaded with baubles and promises again. Special times, lying in wait.

Fridge Propoganda

I have rubber skeletons, dinosaurs and crocodiles. I have Batman in the kitchen. I have tiny chairs and strange stains on the furniture. I have children. This is a picture from a toy package, which I keep on my fridge. I love the words- they seem to come from the heaviest medicated state possible.

Lightbulb Moment

This is a stunning place. Cape Town, South Africa. It's the lighthouse at Mouille Point, quite close to the centre of Town. I was out there at a restaurant on 13/01/2010 having sushi with a group of people- most of whom I have never met. We laughed a lot. So lighthouses? Are they about shipwrecks or salvation? I'll take the latter, please.

I'm Gonna Take My Problem to Da United Nations

I work with an environmental law NGO. We work mostly with communities and governments, assisting them with the implementation of international regulations or their own rights. We're not really activists, like, say, Greenpeace, but it is important to be involved in major issues such as climate change. So we go to the conferences, sometimes we even get to speak and hold side events. Here's one of the forms I have to sort out, so that we gain official accreditation. Painful.

Squidsquirt's Choice

Got into work yesterday. There was a huge box of chocolates waiting for me. Thanks to Forrest freaking Gump, it is naturally a metaphor for choices. Lots of opportunities for that at the moment. Guess which one I chose?

Making Carrot Noises

Went out in the afternoon to the Arderne Gardens in Claremont. It's always been a favourite place of mine to go and read. Having children means you get to throw inappropriate food at the monster goldfish and the ducks, which is fun, too. We looked for the rabbits that were there once, but didn't find any, despite James claiming that the way to find a rabbit is by making a noise like a carrot.

I like the picture of the children- the contrast in their heights, and the picture of the bird is to remind me to duck- the end of the day was a morass of depression.

Cooking for kids

Hanging with the kid. James is ten. He likes my cooking. In fact, he eats pretty much everything. He ate the pasta I made with leftover boerewors, tomatoes and red wine. Some kids are like that. But cooking for them is this odd list of subtractions- one doesn't like this, the other hates that.

Backtracking 08/01/10

I forgot. You might not know me. So if you want more than random pictures of stuff- this is one of me. (Promise it isn't just some random picture of a handsome guy I pulled off the net.) One of those damned take-it-yourself pics, so your angles are limited by the length of your arms. I'm looking up. Call it symbolism-lite.

Sunny Day 07/01/10

A day at Maynardville Park, in Wynberg, followed by a birthday party for a friend. Loads of sun and colour, which made up for the more unsettling stuff going on.

Plotting and Planning 06/01/10

So I spent the day with friends planning something. Something so big it seems insane, but so exciting it's worth throwing in my lot. It's a bit complex to put down here, but it will most likely take up a lot of space here soon...

Picking up Stompies

There's a saying in South Africa. When you catch the tail end of a conversation and butt in, without really getting the whole context, it's called 'picking up stompies'. Stompies are cigarette butts. Clearly, I need to pick up a while lot. Actually, I need to quit smoking. Seriously. Maybe you'll get to enjoy the exquisite pain of that if you stick around with me long enough.

Last Week of 2009

Here are some pictures of my children. Just in case you were wondering where they are, as I seem to be out partying quite a bit... I share looking after them with my, what do I call her- estranged wife? She'd laugh at that. We are separated, but friends, and have managed to remain so, partly to protect our children from being exposed to ugly grown-up stuff. They are James, 10, Hannah, 7, and Jonah, 3. I love them without reserve.

04 January 2010

And again with the #pinkdrinks. This time, out for sushi, which is often part of the master plan to take over the world. We were with Rhett, a Twitter friend from Durban, and some great locals. In the picture of the restaurant, you can see my friends arriving at our table. I was outside having a smoke.

Later on 02 2010

I'm on Twitter. I am @Squidsquirt. Sometimes people call me Inky. I resisted it, but then they started tickling me, so now I go with it. Anyway, my friends on Twitter, who are now real friends, many of them, sometimes meet up for Tweet-ups. During these we drink #pinkdrinks. #Pinkdrinks are not just cocktails. It's a loose philosophy that describes just letting your hair down and escaping things for a while, and enjoying the best life has to offer- great people, great times. They've changed my life.

Nobody knows about this blog...

Yeah, so. At the risk of sounding like I am getting ideas in the strangest places, I have a few friends doing this- pictures representing parts of their lives on a journey through the year. So I thought I'd like to do that. Here's a couple from a trip to Simonstown, with, erm, pinkhairgirl, Marc and Andre.

A Window into a Strange World

This is where I live. This is my window on the world. In my bedroom there is a small round window set too high to see out of. If you hold your camera up high enough, it looks like this:

Which is just enough to remind me that something exists beyond these four walls, and it is alive, and changing with time. I live out there, too. But sometimes, it feels safer in here.