thisguy

rot that is.

i feel like my body, my mind - is rotting from the inside - such is the malaise of the three day weekend here in the desert.

after a brief sojurn back home, i found myself back on a plane once more for another month. stocked up on dvds, (babel, the queen, pan's labyrinth and syriana) which I'm determined to not watch all at once.

rediscovered the simple pleasures of cooking, cleaning and ironing. but after a trip to the gym and the pool, i'm forced to realise how i've been rotting my body away the past couple of months. i'd like to say this is going to motivate me to undertake further trips to the gym, but the reality of it is - i hate solo physical activities.

then we come to the mind rot - i've just joined facebook - social networking's most highly evolved perpetrator. i've also built myself my own google homepage - i highly recommend you get yourself one too - it soothes control-freak tendencies and is the niftiest thing since email.

anyway, food is on the way to my doorstep. gotta put some clothes on. wtf.

a hearty arab-styled delivery dinner and french hip-hop finds its way onto my tv screen. black men, rapping in street french makes for some really surreal viewing. but like they say - even cursing in french feels like wiping your arse with satin.

the idea of having this blog was to record as many moments as possible (with the proviso of it not having an impact on my career, reputation etc.) but i feel that i've been leaving too many moments out. i'm losing my ability to link things together. that's what happens, i guess, when your life gets too random - occuring in different time zones, with different groups of people/social settings. if i attempt to recall and talk about things in sequence, in a manner that makes sense, it all becomes too verbose.

i suppose the only way i can record -

• the delay/cancelation of my flight home which left me close to shouting at airport counter people (despite one of them being one of the cutest asian girls i've seen in a while)

• being put on business class by accident - the champagne, conversation with business class passengers (there's a reason why they're a class above the rest of humanity) and service

• the four really special days back home

• the blurry, dreary flight back to the desert

• the many many excellent episodes of west wing (stellar screenplay writing!) i've been absorbing

• the nights out with fellow countrymen out here in the desert

is to just bullet point it, in the manner above. hopefully each bullet point will suffice to trigger more vivid memories as they occured. i wonder if i'll grow old and end up bedridden for the last few years of my life, clutching printouts of these journal entries wishing i took the time to write more...

hmm.

---
aside : how come the sight of scarlett johansson kissing bill murray is 100 times sexier more acceptable than her kissing justin timberlake?

cnn's been breaking out with news of the worst school/urban shooting in american history. i don't like mondays - indeed.

forget the boomtown rats, tori amos's cover of the song is the most haunting.

in less than 72 hours i should be back home again.

2 months fly by, but instead of feeling comforted, i'm quite scared at the speed time can fly. opportunities missed, moments that never materialised and presence that was never quite tangible enough - slip away like that.

there's not alot to do here in the desert, but i've tried to be as productive as possible, learning new things from people i'd never have crossed paths with if it wasn't for this overseas posting. i'm nearly through the entire series of West Wing - picked up new words, ideas and lessons - who'd have thought you could take home this much from a tv series?

i didn't really go out as much as i thought i would. didn't manage to get that unique taste of local life here. so i don't think i've experienced anything more than the average expat, disappointing.

in any case, i'm set to spend another two months here. will try to squeeze in more travelling and perhaps play host to visitors (if things work out).

---

touch down thursday, back to work friday and off on a much needed break from saturday till monday - woohoo! then after that i anticipate a swamp of work and wedding co-planning. don't know when i'll have the capacity to update again and post some of the photos i took last weekend by the beach. just for fun (and self indulgence) i'll put up the most poseur looking one i have first.

it was windy!