The clock struck midnight (that was over an hour ago) and my computer’s clock said it’s Monday, December 1. Where has the year gone?  So much has happened.

Anyway, far from this being a soppy sentimental post about what was and what may be, it’s really just a celebratory post.  What am I celebrating?  The end of a mamoth posting marathon of course.

These blog entries regarding trips that I take are lots of work - the trip to Thailand took me a full week to complete. I should have been able to do it daily really, because I had my computer with me.  But it was for work, so time not working was spent away from the computer. Luckily I had loads of photos to reference, so it was easy to recall.

Anyway, 7 days, 15 posts and over 100 photos later Tour D Tom Yum has been documented.  The typos and grammar mistakes will get fixed up as I read through them again in the coming days, but for now, I’m shattered.

Off to bed I go.

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From a previous post on the topic it will be easy to see that there is no love lost between myself and a certain person at the South African High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.

Over the last 8 years I have had no choice but to interact with the face of the SA High Comm in KL, Komotie*.

*I didn’t change her name on purpose (although I might have misspelled it), because I hope she or her superiors discovers this post and do something about her attitude.

Komotie, I have no doubt, was once a diligently compassionate employee of the SA High Comm servicing the needs of South Africans and those hoping to do business in or travel to South Africa, whether it be silly questions or otherwise, pertaining to their status in Malaysia and their connection with South Africa.

That was likely very, very long ago.

From the post above you know that I first encountered Komotie in 2000 and few things have changed since.  It was then with little pleasure that I had to phone the High Comm again this afternoon to ask a rather simple question.

You see, according to my xyf, I’ve recently infiltrated the bureaucracy of the South African government and can now manipulate government processes at will. “Someone smells like a fish, isn’t it?” she said in her accusatory, but otherwise delightful SMS.

If she is to be believed, I have maliciously manipulated the passport application of my son and made it miraculously disappear.  Aside from being the most outrageous thing she has come up with this er, month, it is also patently false (let the record show).

As a point in case: My lawyer says I should should phone, so I phone the SA High Comm to find out what the story is.  Yes, like everyone else, I have to phone the South African High Commission in Kuala Lumpur’s office number (which btw is +60 3 2168 8663 or +60 3  2170 2400), because unlike what the xyf may believe, I don’t have a red phone waiting for my call.

I have formulated the very simple question: “what happened to the passport?”, with some pre-amble to explain who I am and what my involvement is with this situation.  I expect it to be an easy call.

Komotie’s not unpleasant voice answers the phone, and I recognise it immediately.  I know I’m in trouble, because she’s like a stone wall, and if at first she says “no”, that’s all you’re getting, whether you beg, cry or plead, the woman will bend not an inch.  I explain who I am. I always make the mistake of thinking because I’m South African and she’s working at the South African embassy, she will be happy to hear from me. “We were just dealing with this”, she says in a patronising tone of voice, “why now do you suddenly phone?”.

I struggle to not put my arms up in defense of her aggression. “I’m the boy’s father and my signature is on the passport application form, I’m inquiring as to what happened to the passport.”

“I’m not saying anything”, she says as if I’m a reporter phoning to hear what her personal opinion is about Jacob Zuma and his prospects as South Africa’s next president, “you can wait until Marianne gets back from Bangkok.”

“But,” I start, now a little more defensive because of her tone and blatant rudeness, “do you know what the problem is?”

“Yes,” she says, “I’ve already explained it to your wife so you can talk to her.”  I can only imagine the conversation those two must have had.

Now I’m on the offensive, “It’s my EX-wife”, I underscore, “and if we were talking I wouldn’t be phoning you, now would I?  Can you just tell me what happened to the passport?”  “No,” she says, wielding her unrelenting batton of authority making sure I’m well aware of exactly where I am in the food chain, “I won’t.  Sort it out with your EX-wife.”

“Let me guess,” I say in an effort to catch her of guard, ” this is Komotie, right?”.  There’s only half a second of hesitation.  “Yes,” she says with an audible full-stop.

“I’m asking you a simple question to which you know the answer, why can’t you give me the answer?” But there is no guard to catch her off off.

“I’ve already told you” is all she says.

Now, completely exasperated, I say “Komotie, are you naturally attacking and unhelpful, or have you been jaded by all your years with the South African embassy?”

And that was the end of that conversation, because after the question mark Komotie from the South African High Commission in Kuala Lumpur hung up the phone.  This was at about 2.30pm and the 4 consequent calls I made went unanswered, except for one particular long-ringing call, which was picked up but hung back up a few seconds later. I guess she’s alone in the office and can do as she pleases.

So, there you have it.  Not so in with the South African bureaucracy after all.

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You know, I may feel many things in my life are beyond my control, but my blog is not one of it. Nope, my blog is mine, completely under my control.  What I say goes, what I say stays.  My blog is my country and I’m the dictator.

I therefore feel not unlike Robert Mugabe when Morgan Tsvangarai went all democratic on his ass, when something that I didn’t explicitly OK’ed appears on my blog.

So it was then, quite by accident, that I looked at my own RSS feed and saw some new stuff that I didn’t rubberstamp appear there.  Sneaky YARPP (Yet Another Related Post Plugin) had unilaterally decided to not only insert some related posts into my feed (new feature!), but also to reward itself with a promo link back to its own website below every single entry - without asking or even telling me!

YARPP is a free piece of software from the Wordpress Plugin Repository.  It doesn’t require me to pay for it, it doesn’t even require me to link to it in exchange for using it.

Of course, it’s a great piece of software and we all have to eat, so donating a link is the least I can do to thank the creator for his hard work, right?

But for crying in a bucket, ask me first! Don’t go and be clever and write yourself into my country. Subverting a dictator will cause heads to roll.

When I auto-upgraded YARPP it came with these new features. One’s automatic inclusion in your RSS feed and two is an automatic link underneath every entry (which on an RSS feed with 10 items listed means 10 links to YARPP).  And it’s on by default - disable it in the plugin settings.

Here’s a link mitcho, please don’t take liberties on my blog like that again - there are other plugins that does that same thing out there.

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There are tons of self-help and self-improvement and self-you-name-it books out there about being positive.

And not for nothing either, because being positive has a major impact on one’s life.  It goes beyond a happy mindset, being friendly, cheerful and all those other attractive qualities.  Being positive impacts on health, it boosts the immune system, lowers stress and, with it, cholesterol levels; to name but a few that I have personal experience of.

There’s plenty of positive reasons to be positive about being positive. But I haven’t been all that positive recently.

The Slippery Slope Of Mental Depression

I caught myself recently, over the last few days especially, being rather negative.  Something I usually don’t dabble in, because I know it’s a pointless, de-constructive waste of energy.  But I’ve been criticising much, finding fault and wallowing in a generally depressed mood.

I swear depression is in the colon, because it’s a really shit place to be.  I associate depression with the colour and smell of dark, red-wine induced faeces; something I certainly want to get away from as soon as possible.

My emotional elevator doesn’t go down to the depression level all that often and when it does, it usually sinks to the basement only briefly, opens the door for a rapid glimpse at exactly why it doesn’t go down there, and then quickly closes rising back up to the happy, bright place of optimism and positive outlooks.

However, the emotional spiral staircase that leads down to the stinky, dank level of depression, is long and slippery.  Once you start down this staircase of despair it’s not so quick and easy to get out.  On the way down you will slip, slide down quick and once you’re knee-deep in that gooey, cold emotional excrement, it’s alarming how soon you can lose your way, get used to it, and worse, start feeling comfortable in it.

There’s two ways out.  Good friends who come down, pinch their noses and extract you from the stickiness of your emotional sewerage, or an image from your memory banks as a profound reminder why you should get out.

Image Initiated Depression Ejection

A miscarriage.

Hating so much you become depressed.  Emotional stress. Impact on your system so great, you eject new life.  Or the new life aborts by itself, not willing to face a world that invoke such emotions.

I’m male. Obviously I can’t ever experience a miscarriage.  Or hate, and not that much, for that matter.

But this is the imagine that forces me to eject from the septic tank that is my depression level.  The image hangs on the wall down there.  It’s the reminder of why I don’t want to be depressed, or why I don’t want to spend any energy on hating, loathing, plotting revenge or dabble in negativity or pessimism.

Nothing good can come from it.

Depression, along with all these other soot-covered emotional states and thoughts, is the inefficient combustion engine of the the mind.  You have to burn so much energy to use it, and all you really can show for it is emotional pollution.

Why bother? It’s not the way I want to live my life. It’s hardly living at all.

Positive Energy

Optimism, on the other hand, is the mind’s perpetual motion machine.

Optimism and a positive outlook seemingly draws energy from the ether. From other people. From your surroundings.  As if by being positive, seeing the good in life, being optimistic, you are somehow connected to the universal power-grid

Positive people have more energy. Positive people live longer.  Positive people are more popular, have less stress, get better service, slice through traffic, stand in the fastest queue, see turtles in the TAR marine park, are healthier, happier and find luck often.

People who claim to be on top of the world, are.  They are on the top of their world.  I know that the top few floors of my mind are the optimism floors.  When I’m there, I’m standing tall, looking out ceiling-to-floor windows with a wide balcony, looking over the landscape and seeing everything that is good.

It smells like freshly brewed coffee, warm bread hot out of the oven.  It’s cool in summer and warm in winter and there’s always fresh air coming through the window.

I like being positive.

I’m a glass half full kind of guy, the one who makes lemon meringue pie when life gives me lemons, I see the silver lining, the light at the end of the tunnel, the bright side, through permanent rose-coloured inlays, with the wind at my back in the sun in my face, already standing on the greener grass.

I may have been on one knee in the shit you created.

But you won’t get me down.

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Alcohol swabs. The rum had the distinct taste of alcohol swabs. Perhaps it was exaggerated. In contrast to the last of the whisky he had mere moments before.

He took another sip. With his palette cleared of the whisky he thought the rum might taste less of alcohol swabs. He was wrong. He took a third sip to be sure the whisky didn’t stick through two rum sips.

It didn’t. It still tasted like alcohol swabs. Like a nurse had grabbed his tongue, ripped open the little envelope with her mouth and quickly rubbed the alcohol swab across it. He took another sip. He was ready for the injection. Pure rum. Inject directly into the blood stream. Alcohol coursing through his veins on its way to his brain. Hoping it would reset his mind and rid him of this weight.

instead, it had a slightly psychedelic effect.

“Carrying the weight of the world”. Who would say that? Who could do that? If you carried the weight of the world on your shoulders, what would you stand on? The world? Surely not. If you did, the world itself would be twice the weight of the world. An infinite loop. Whoever conjured up that phrase must have been on something.

An injection of pure rum perhaps?

But his emotions where truly weighing on his mind. Like, he could imagine, the weight of the world. Only he had nothing to stand on. He felt like he was sinking. But into what, space? You can’t sink into space. Where would you go? Out of the solar system? Wouldn’t that be something akin to perpetual motion?

The rum was slightly hot now. A pool of condensation had formed at the bottom of the bottle. “Gotta keep the mouse away from that”, he thought out loud as he clicked the ‘next’ arrow on a MILF porn slide show he had running on the screen. He took another sip of the alcohol swab. At room temperature it tasted less like alcohol swab and more like the swelling welt where the nurse had pushed in the needle. Slightly salty, distinctly unlike alcohol swab.

This he imagined, because he had never actually licked the welt left by a needle.

He poured another from the bottle. The bottle was still cold. The little puddle of condensation slowly creeping towards his mouse. An optical mouse. The red eye flick-flicking on the table, looking for traction. Trying to get a grip on direction, orientating itself. Trying to establish which way is forward and which is back. Succeeding. Most of the time. Unless it hit something black.

He was an optical mouse and he hit a black spot. He lost traction. He was disorientated. He shook on the screen. He couldn’t quite focus on the icon. Jumped around just too much for the double click.

Maybe another thimble of alcohol swab would cure that. Make it sway, rather than shake.

He tried diluting the weight of the world with alcohol swabs.

He succeeded.

He passed out.

The world, diluted in alcohol swabs, floated before him for a while. Then separated. Piece by piece.

And disappeared.

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