Posted on by crystal · 111 Comments

How I hate being wrong!

Especially when it happens twice in one day.

I had sworn, sworn, sworn not to watch the new karate kid movie. I liked the old one a lot, and was badly traumatised by The Next Karate Kid, which was lousy despite having a blonde female karateka. There was no way I was going to erase the iconic image of Daniel-Son from my head.

But yesterday I stumbled into the newer film on UTV while doing my bi-annual dish-washing ritual. I caught it partway through, when Jaden was busy playing with his jacket, and the jacket thing was a lot more fun than ‘wax on, wax off’ so I watched a little longer.

By the time I noticed Jaden himself, I was hooked. I’ve always had a crush on Will Smith, and Jaden is so much like him. They have this little-boy-lost look that totally does it for me. It’s like a permanent hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar expression. And I don’t know if it’s the looks or the gestures, but everything he did reminded me of his dad. I kept wondering if I’d have noticed those expressions if I didn’t already know who Jaden was. It’s like when you’re told two people are related and you suddenly notice just how much they resemble each other.

I’ll say this: Jaden being just like Will proves Will is a great dad. Jaden has so many of Will’s cute gestures and habits, and he could only have learned them by watching his dad. A lot. Or by chilling all day with Fresh Prince reruns. Either way, I’m guessing Will spends a lot of time bonding with his boy, and that’s the mark of a good father.

My favourite scene in the movie is when they’re at the dance machine thingie – I forget what it’s called – and the girl with funny hair is pulling Fergie-Beyoncé moves and Jaden is looking at her like that. I’d give a whole lot to have a guy look at me like that. Sigh. The boy may have the makings of a player though, because that expression is way too mature for a 12 year old.

The scene with the girl and the snake is pretty cool too. It’s funny when he tries to pull the move on his mother, and again in the match finals. And the black mother attitude totally made my day when she barked, ‘Pick up the jacket!’ She was rocking that red Chinese dress. Also, Jackie Chan is way more fun than Miyagi. He has this cheeky look that I adore, even though I barely knew him under the crazy moustache.

My second surprise of the day was How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. When it first came out, I decided not to watch it because I saw the preview and noticed that I’d done every one of those crazy things. And that was just the preview! How depressing. Yesterday I caught it during the bet scene, and continued watching because nothing else was on … and because I was still doing dishes. What.

I like the movie because despite being utterly insane, she still gets the guy in the end. Of course I kept wondering if he secretly liked the craziness or if the bet was that important to him. The whole movie is told from her perspective, so we see her secret looks when she feels bad for torturing the guy, but we never really see how he feels about it.

And I like that he comes after her in the end, not the other way around. The hair was pretty too.

So. Twice in one day. I still hate being wrong though.

Posted on by crystal · 18 Comments

Twitter, wedding rings, and Eagle Eye Cherry

It’s been one of those weeks. I opened this window with a great story idea, but then I got distracted by five other windows and lost my train of thought. I really do suck at the art of the multitask.

When I’m alone in the house, I like to put on rock music very loud and sing along. My neighbours can knock for hours and I won’t hear them, because the walls are pretty soundproof. I can’t hear them rapping [the door] and they can’t hear me booming my rock.

Often, when I’m on rock mode, I hold imaginary microphones and pull a fake karaoke. It’s so fun. But yesterday, after doing the rock thing all day, downloading gigs worth of Manga, and watching the Poltergeist alone at 2.00 a.m., I had a hard time getting to sleep.

When I finally did sleep, I dreamt I was a Japanese girl in semi-manga Catholic uniform and pigtails, and that I had to play a karaoke gig. For some reason, schoolgirls were not allowed to karaoke. We were called some unpronouncable Manga name that I can’t remember, so I had to wear this massive luminous yellow jacket to hide my uniform.

Trouble is … I kept removing the jacket to find my microphone and backpack, then having to sprint down corridors and escalators to escape the music police.

Yeah, I definitely need a new hobby. The hair was so cool though.

I was thinking of quitting twitter [again] but a couple of friends talked me out of it. One reminded me not to take it so personally. After all, it’s only 140 characters. You can’t do much harm with that, no matter how hard you try. As he keeps telling me, it’s never that serious.

The other pal helped me put things in perspective. We were talking about some ish that went down a while back. I hadn’t revisited it in a while, but I ended up crying as we talked.

Once we were done, I realised that compared to that, any beef I have now is mere cotton candy. If I lived through that, I can live through anything. My mum tells me that all the time, but then again, all mothers do. It took an objective person to help me really see it. The issues I have right now are nothing.

Thank [God, kharma, the universe, or whichever deity applies to your faith life] for good friends.

In other news, I’ve been doing some work on rings, and I’ve picked up some interesting trivia. You know that ring that has two hands holding a heart with a crown on it?

It’s called a Claddagh ring, and it comes from ancient Ireland. You wear it on your right hand if you’re available, and on your left hand if you’re taken. If the ring faces outside, you’re still slice-able. When your heart is gone, you wear the thing with the heart hidden, facing your palm, with the bottom of the ring pointing at the veins that lead to your heart.

According to Wikipedia, Claddagh rings are often used at weddings, where the ring-giving vows include:

  1. With my two hands I give you my heart, and crown it with my loyalty.
  2. You hold my heart in your hands, and I crown it with my love.
  3. Let love and friendship reign forever.
  4. With this crown, I give my loyalty, with these hands, I offer my service, with this heart, I give you mine.

I added one of my own:

With this ring, i crown you king of my heart.

Of course, I doubt he’d actually wear such a gay-looking ring, and even I have to admit it’s pretty ugly. It’s a nice story though.

PS: Ooooooooh Eagle Eye Cherry! I heart X Fm.

♫ Falling in love again ♫ Eagle Eye Cherry ♫

Posted on by crystal · 415 Comments

Dear Jesus, save me from men who speak slowly

I’ve been told I’m a fast talker. It doesn’t mean that I’m a con, or that my tongue can get me out of tight spots. It just means that I talk really, really fast. I disagree – I know people who talk much faster than me.  And I stammer when I try to speak Swa, so I don’t think my tongue is much good.

[I write pretty good Swa though, and in a previous life (read Dar), I even edited textbooks in Swa.]

But there’s something about guys who speak slowly that messes with my head. They always sound so much smarter than me, because they enunciate every word and  seem to think before they speak, while I just tumble over my words. I keep wanting to interrupt them, but they look at me calmly, wait for me to finish, then proceed with their slow, quiet speech. It makes me feel so small.

And when they’re not speaking, they seem so disapproving. There are guys who look at me and I just start apologising, even if I don’t know what I did. I feel like a five year old caught stealing sugar when all the guy said was, ‘Hi.’ It’s all in the speed my friend.

The only thing that freaks me out more is men who speak softly. Whyyyy? Whyyy would you talk so quietly? It’s scary! Be like me. Yell. Get angry. Raise your voice a little. Pretty please? How do you argue with someone who smiles and whispers back at you?

End of rant. Moving on.

Some months back, we had a mummies-and-babies day at Animal Orphanage. It was three mums and three babies aged 7, 3, and 2.

I learnt some lessons that day. One, pacing isn’t just for humans. I saw lions and cheetahs pacing while waiting to be fed, so it’s not just something people do in the movies.

Two, lions really are kings of the jungle. I saw lots of animals go … well … animal … when their food was delayed. Cubs were ready to rip the guy, and one younger lion was so angry that he was more interested in the feeder than the food. He ignored the cow meat and kept stalking the guy carrying it. I don’t know how the guy kept his cool. If a lion was following me like that, I don’t care if there was barbed wire between us, I’d have pissed myself.

But while the lionesses and hyenas drooled at the fresh meat, the Simba sat regally while the food was brought and waited a full five minutes before he strolled over to the dead cow and proudly nibbled at the meat.

Three, human beings are cruel. Bad enough we put animals in cages for our own entertainment, we have to taunt them when they’re hungry too. I saw some people poking hungry cubs and getting them to roar when they’d just been fed and were obviously not full. I kept wishing one cub would scale the fence and get live meat.

Four, animals in captivity forget who they are. I’m so used to leopards hiding in the trees that it was a shock to see one actually posing for pictures. It just sat there on the podium twirling its tail and didn’t even move when food came. Usually, the leopards hide in the branches and you have to crane your neck and pull kama sutra just to see the tail.

Five, mummies are silly. To see how we were telling our kids, ‘Look, a lion! Sweetie, what animal is that? You don’t want to see the leopard?’ The kids were more interested in getting outside for ice cream, since the warden wouldn’t let them have some inside the park. Oh Mother.

I did have a moment of amusement when the leopard started stalking a tourist. It followed him all around the cage, crouching in the grass like it didn’t know we could see it. The guy tried running to the other side, or standing in a crowd of locals, but the leopard just kept following him, ignoring everyone else. It somehow decided this meat was better than a dead cow. I suspect the man was wearing Eau de Wild Flesh.

The tourist thought it was all very funny, especially since there was lots of wire protecting him, but I was just glad to know the Alex the Posing Leopard was still a leopard.

I’ve never been an activist, but somehow, after that visit, I felt really, really sad.

I have to make a decision today, for the good of my business. In my mind, I’ve already made it, but I’m scared, so I’m second guessing myself. I’ve got one client hogging all my resources, and I need to free myself to work on other projects. But I keep hearing this mind chatter of birds in hands and birds in bushes.

I need my intuition, but it’s drowned out in so much fear that I can barely hear it scream. Yet even as I type, I feel a peace and a clearing of my mind. The thing about being a writer is that sometimes it’s easier to think on a keyboard.

The song on my play list when I started was ♫ Calm like a bomb ♫ by Rage against the Machine. The next time I was actively conscious of the music, I heard ♫ Still alive ♫ by Lisa Miskovsky. I went to answer a knock, and when I got back, iTunes was playing ♫ [You deserve much] Better than me ♫ by Hinder. Three guesses to what song is playing know. I think my iTunes loves me.

♫ Woohoo ♫ Blur ♫

[Pictures courtesy of iCon. Regular programming will resume tomorrow. Thank you.]