Blerg, blarg, and bugger

The Four horsemen of Unsatisfied Staff are: Miscommunication, his brother, Dis-information, their cousin Assumption, and the bastard boy known as Total Self Centered Cunt. I hate looking up and seeing the four horsemen of this particular scourge. Miscommunication is the always the first to arrive, always keen to have fun with peoples minds. But, like that annoying cousin who just never leaves after a family braai until you've packed away all the dishes, washed the cat, and put on your pajama's, and finally told to fuck off and die (and then is hurt that you said such horrid things), Assumption follows.

Assumption is the mother of All Fuck-Ups, which means that Miscommunication is a distant cousin to All Fuck-ups. Now, Miscommunication and Assumption can be banished fairly easily if you say hold a meeting that clears up Assumption like a case of 24 hour diarrhea, and with a little line of questions like who, what, how, why, when, and where, Miscommunication will leave, having gotten bored. It's when dis-information comes along that the shit starts to slide towards your desk.

Dis-information is a military term meaning - to feed the press something not totally based on actual events. It keeps the general population from panicking when the aliens land. However dis-information in the office environment is a nasty little troll. It's bosses not wanting staff to panic, or worse yet, know the true state of events. Whilst certain bosses may feel dis-information about certain impending events is good in keeping the peons from forgetting about their present work, and instead daydreaming of a future full of bonuses and freedom, if the dis-information is allowed to join the party of Assumption and Miscommunication, dis-information becomes a wonderful weapon of malcontent. Instead of the staff blissfully continuing to work, rumours, scandals, and most importantly dissent begin to spread.

The quicker staff begin to look for ways to cover themselves, and begin to furiously send out emails to prove their innocence, and shift whatever potential blame to their colleagues, aka friends. The slower staff just get worried and wonder what to do. The smokers begin smoking more furiously, meeting in nervous little clouds of lung cancer, regardless of the torrential downpour to suck one another's dirty air whilst hyperventilating about the assumed miscommunicated dis-information.

Now, all of this goes away when the boss, the leader of these neurotic shit shifters, asthmatic smoke-suckers, and dim-witted drones, holds an 'lets unpack all this into useful bits, and form a collective plan'. Most often these work. People feel relaxed, comfortable that there is some reassurance that the shit is still a long way off, and not sliding in their general direction, and that their pay-cheque is in the mail (damn that's a dated saying; it should be: that their automatic EFT is being processed).

The total fuck-up comes when the spoilt boy arrives: Total Self Centered Cunt. This little arsehole will hold a meeting to discuss the problem. Not in terms of the company, but in terms of the staff themselves. Instead of realizing that everyone at the meeting is desperately hoping that the world will continue to spin, and that all they need is a little reassurance that although tough times are ahead, things will work out, the TSCC will blame the staff for all the worlds problems. Sayings like: Productivity is down, lack of self motivation from staff, no initiative taken by staff, lack of focus, general apathy towards work, and my favorite one: chairs spinning at precisely 16:30.

So the shit shifters feel like shit because their ploy didn't work. The smoke-suckers have fresh-air panic attacks, and spend even more time smoking. The dim-witted ones wonder just how they have lost focus, when all their work is done on time, and is duly accepted. In short, the TSCC has taken all the work of his companion horsemen and tripled the trouble. A month later the shit-shifters have sent so many emails covering their trail they don't know how to maneuver, have no friends, and are feeling miserable. The smoke-suckers are all ill, suffering from break-downs, and stress induced bad health. The dim-wits are carrying all the work, and have by now begun to think that perhaps with all this new work experience if they couldn't become a shit-shifter or a smoke sucker, and so make plans, however slowly, to leave.

Then when the shit does hit the fan, everyone jumps ship. The shit-shifters have lined up work in another city, they had to, no one in their current city would accept them, the smoke-suckers are off to rehab and lung replacement, or to another smokers click somewhere, and dim-wits are no longer dim-wits, but highly skilled and valuable employees, who find placement elsewhere with ease. The boss now finds himself alone on a sinking ship, with no allies, and a stack of bills. If he's wise, he'll realize his staff - although a bunch of self-serving people (and we all are when it comes to business) were to a large degree fairly important in the running of the business. Now without them the only option is to hire new staff.

And the cycle begins again. The company doesn't grow, how can it? If you keep pruning back all the experienced leaves, and keep importing new ones, you're not growing, you are staying the same size. When I find myself in a company that is beset by the four horsemen of Unsatisfied Staff I wonder how it happened. I myself being a bit forward, and perhaps a bit loud-mouthed and vocal about issues, tend to try to raise the issue with management. I am then seen as the herald of the Four Horsemen that most companies dread the most: Staff Empowerment, Increases, Bonuses, and Honesty.

I usually get told to politely go away, and usually I then leave the company because of disillusionment. When my students, boyfriend, and at one point complete strangers pointed out to me that my wardrobe was a bit old fashioned, out dated, and sucky, I had two choices: stick with it, or change. I asked myself: was it such a bad thing to change? Could I change? Was I perhaps over looking some fundamental of fashion? I honestly ... well needed to go to a therapist and only then could I answer those questions truthfully. My fashion has changed a little, updated a little, and certain items are no longer worn.

Bosses need to have the same ability to see when something is wrong, and not blame everyone else. I had to laugh. I was sent a mail saying: When people are like sandpaper, and just grind and rough you up, remember that you'll emerge later a polished and smooth object, whilst the sandpaper will be spent and torn. I had a good laugh. The individual who'd sent it clearly had not checked to see if before sending they were the polished knob, or the shitty paper. Consensus was shitty paper.

So my beloved reader: Are you a herald of Unsatisfied Staff? A shit-shifter, a smoke sucker, or a dim-wit? And if you're the boss, are you the TSCC? Or the solution? The knob or the grit?

Me? Relax?

Well the weight has now stopped falling off. But I'm not worried. Well I am a little bit, because I'm eating nothing but birdseed and cardboard, but I had my blood pressure taken the other day and it is I am delighted to say sitting at a cool 127/74. A perfect score. This means several things or nothing: either my new eating preferences are working, or my medication is working, or both are working. I'm hoping it is the eating preferences, as this would mean I don't have chronic high blood pressure.

That's the good news. Now the bad news. Brace yourselves: I want a holiday where I can just sit and relax, and do nothing. Plan nothing. Time nothing. Just arrive and do nothing. No computers, no cellphones, just perfect stillness. I found myself the other day laying in the sun on a friends rather shoddy veranda... well it is. But laying there with the sun slowly burning my flesh just feeling the slight breeze on my cheeks was absolute bliss.

And now it seems my brain wants more. I was stuck a couple afternoons ago as a wonderful Johannesburg warm wind blasted against me, carrying the hint of rain, the sweets of jasmine, and the aroma of my irises, and I felt such peace and contentment I wanted it to last forever. So now I find my thoughts turning to a holiday where I don't plan on visiting local historical sites, or learning something new. Or spending it locked up inside a room staring at my computer screen. I want to sit down in the sun and just be.

This is something I have NEVER, let me say it again, NEVER experienced. I hate not doing something. It's boring. There are a billion things more interesting than not doing anything. I just can't think of any at the moment... sigh. I'll keep this short because well I've run out of things to throw out into the digital clouds:

Dear reader, do you from time to time find the need to get out into the sun and just exist in the moment? If so, do you do it often enough, or can you even remember when you last did it? It's the weekend. Take a moment this Sunday, find a shady spot with a sprinkle of sunlight, and just... chill man. Chill.

FAT UPDATE

So it's been a couple of weeks - about three or four I think - since I made a vow to change what I can. Well. Here's my monthly update. Don't worry, it's not going to be boring - I'll put in some jokes to make it worth your while, I promise.

Well I've now totally given up milk, added sugar, as many processed foods as possible, and consciously attempt to by low-carbohydrate content, low fat foods. I try to eat fruit as often as possible, and I'm quaffing on average three litres of water a day. As a result of giving up the milk and sugar, I've also indirectly given up coffee and tea.

What is the result of all of this cold turkey you might be asking? Well it's interesting, as far as I'm concerned. My willpower has been sorely tested, many times. September is obviously the month a large portion of the planet (western world) was born. We've had four birthdays in our office. four cakes. Did I abstain? No. Did I eat two pieces of cake like I normally do? No. I ate one slice. Man it was good.

Most food tastes so much better as a matter of fact. I suppose it's because I'm not drinking sweet tea, or eating sugar every day. when we go out, I try to look for food that has a large portion of salady stuff with it. I leave off the skin, and most of the time any additional fat. Instead of snacking on biscuits or chocolate, I eat sesame seeds, or an apple.

The other day I was shopping, and accidentally walked down the milk isle. For those of you who know me, or who knew me, I could drink about two litres of milk a day without batting an eye-lid. Now, I'm drinking 0 litres of milk. I still have a yoghurt now and then, but not to excess. So I was walking past all these bottles of fresh milk, and I had to look away, I had to force myself not to stop. It was very difficult.

Now, when I walk past sweets, biscuits and so forth, I just look at the back of the box. If it's more than 50% carbohydrate I put it back. They usually give you the values in terms of 100 grams portions, so it makes life easy to do the maths. It's amazing how many things are full of carbohydrates. But look at this little bit of info I've gathered.

the next time you tuck into a standard pasta dish, know that the bowl pasta only contains 10 - 14% less carbohydrates then a bowl of maple syrup! Isn't that a gross idea? Instead of eating the pasta, just fill the bowl with syrup and down that. It's revolting to think that in terms of how our bodies see what we're eating, there is only a slight difference between a squirt of syrup and a spoonful of pasta...

Anyway, so I haven't yet started exercising. I've been in Durban, all over, running around like a mad man. There hasn't been an opportunity. Well at this moment in time, the willpower is so bent on keeping to the eating plan, that there is little room for adding gym to the equation sadly. I suppose once the food thing becomes a habit, the gym thing is next? I have resolved to go and buy some weights... yes I know the last ones I bought were used to prop up a bed and rusted into solid blocks of pig iron, but I've got to do something right...

So in the net result is that I've dropped a few kilo's... 4 to be precise. At the beginning of this enterprise I was 118, just shy of 120 or 240 pounds! Now, I'm on 114, which is what I was before winter last year. When I drop below 110 - which will be a weight I was in 2004, I shall be very happy. My goal is to crack 100 by the end of March or April next year. That gives me six months, or roughly 2 kilograms a month. I can, and will do it.

I have to. I made a vow. Next Gay Pride... I'm not going this year, but next year ... 2011... September I'm going in a speedo. Regardless of my shape or form. It will happen, and I will I know, have not an ab-washboard from heaven, I don't yet see myself as having one of those, but certainly as someone who is say around 90 kgs, and can wear a speedo without providing his own lower abdominal shade...

Fat, Lazy, Liar, know it all...

In about twenty two days and eight hours I'll be turning 30. This scares the hell out of me. Don't roll your eyes, this isn't one of those blogs... well actually it is. Sorry. I wanted to write this last night but my leg hurt to much. Yes. My leg. I was watching Boston Legal. It's a great show. But in it, was this huge - and I mean huge fat guy. He was sueing some drug company or something. But the episode wasn't about that specifically. That was just one theme. Danny Crane was taking some drug so as to not loose his memory. He didn't like what he was becoming, and here was a fat guy who didn't like who he was. Anyway, half way through the show the chair I was... the brand new fucking chair I was one. Shattered. One moment I was quietly sitting amused watching the show, the next minute - CRACK! FUCK! THUD! FUCK! ... FUCK!.

I was on my back, and my leg - as it has unconsciously flailed outwards in the hope of not ending in a foot (as it's done for nearly thirty years) but in a hand (as it's ancient DNA code once did) - had tried to grab hold of my desk. A lovely example of wooden 1950's desk-building. The leg is now bruised. The chair is now broken. This is the second time in as many months where my weight has caused my body, my person to fall uncontrollably to the ground. I am a big, fat, person. I am rapidly getting to that 120 kilo mark. And there is nothing in sight to stop it. As a matter of fact, just the other day I was at home working, and I ate on day 1 an entire box of Romany Creams. Day 2 saw me eat 8 twinkies. Am I depressed? Do I eat because I'm depressed? I suppose so. I do know that I eat for the taste or sensation. The sweetness or the smoothness, the tartness or the crunch.

OK so he's a sad fucker lamenting that he eats to much. Deal with it bitch. Eat less. Drink more water. And that's what I hate. It is SO simple. That's all I need to do. But then I got reflective, as I lay in bed last night. What do I dislike about myself. These are the points I came up with:

1 - Overweight

2 - Liar

3 - Financially inept

4 - No self control

5 - Unfit (different from being overweight imo)

6 - Being a know-it-all

7 - Not speaking my mind

8 - Not standing up for myself

These are basically the eight points that I don't like about myself. I haven't included not being able to play the violin, being afraid of snakes etc. As I feel that is next decades problem. If I am turning 30 in so few days I need to know that I'm going to want to continue into the 30's. The 20's have been one hell of a roller-coaster.

If I'd known what they were going to have in store... America, accepting my sexuality, coming out to everyone, having sex, moving to JHB, lecturing, starting a career, finding debt, buying a car, getting so drunk I wanted to die... it has been one amazing ride. And yet, when you boil it down, it really just has to do with accepting who I am.

So if the 20's are for accepting who I am, perhaps the 30's should be for restructuring who I am. Now that I roughly know my inner being, it's time to change the bad points. That is what my 30's are for. My 40's perhaps will be where I set up myself for getting older. The 50's, more of the 40's. The 60's, more of the 50's. The 70's, more of the 60's. The 80's - perhaps I'll have a little time to relax. But I like this game plan. I haven't had one before - apart from living to 121 so I can win a bet. But I haven't had a personal plan to achieve it. Now I do. I suspect I'll revise this blog in about eight or nine years when I'm facing 40.

Is 10 years too long though? Am I going too slowly? I don't think so. You see the first couple years - say 2 years you're trying to identify just how to change things. It takes time to effectively alter the previous 10 years of thought. Then after 2 years, you now know what you need to change. So you work on the change. But after another 2 years, you achieve your goal, only to discover that that was the tip of the ice-berg. Then you spend another 4 years in this kind of morphic limbo, finding, checking, correcting one's self. That leaves you with 2 years to relax, enjoy who you are, and find out that in a years time, you'll enter another decade, and another round.

When will I have time to have fun? All the time. The things I've listed can all be changed with fairly little impact to my world. I'm fat. So I need to eat less, cut out milk, and go to gym. But I also need to be financially stable. So that may mean cutting back on stuff at the house. Less internet time and more personal time for myself. Why should I accept hollow, digital victories when I could be accepting real victories on this planet. When I die, I don't think the great scales of worth will judge - lost 180000000 matches of Starcraft 2 to a 13 year old Korean. Right in you go. I think God's online gaming team wants better...

So I know most of my friends are staring at 30 or 40 coming up. Have you needed to change yourself? Have you needed to accept something about yourself? Or are you fucking perfect, without hang-up and the world is just peachy? Do other people out there have the same issues I do? Do you dislike/hate/loathe something about yourself and yet not ever get around to fixing it? Why not? What's so important that you can't be bothered to make your own world better by fixing yourself? Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go look at the milk in the fridge for a while, and have a little cry that it's silky, smooth, creamy, taste is something that I need to go without for a while... say the next 90 years or so...

Comedy, tragedy, racism...

Comedy, tragedy, racism. That is what I experienced tonight. As a worker in the TV industry I know that there are two types of programs: Lowest common denominator stuff (stuff people can zone out on) and then niche high-concept programing (stuff that requires attention and focus). I make lowest common denominator stuff - music shows. I want to make high-concept but we can't really compete with the American or British stuff because our high-concept stuff is well... standard concept next to the international stuff as we're on budgets that are ridiculously low.

The same must go for comedians. Stand-up comics. The funny people. The people whose job it is, the people we pay money to see, to entertain us with their witty, humorous, jokes. Tonight I went along to a friends 'gig'. It was in a pub, was poorly attended and competing with the alcohol. I don't think the organizers did a good job in terms of arranging tables to accommodate. So it was a 'tough' crowd. South African TV producers have the same problem: Put my show before, or after a multi-million Dollar product with international superstars and it's also going to be competing for attention. Anyway. The MC, some old bugger from Ireland starts off the show with a wonderful round of racist jokes.

Why should Afrikaans people drink Guinness beer? Because it's the only time the whites will be on top of the blacks again. He said this to a crowd of white people, with black waiters running around serving us. There was a collective plastic grin on all our faces. For the first time in my life I felt, I really felt ashamed that another human being could be so callous, and so out of touch. Sure he ripped off the Indians (rather poorly), the Brits, the gays, the blacks, the blacks... Now is it wrong that he attacked the blacks? No. Not at all. He should be free to make jokes about anyone. But to rip off the politics of black versus white and white versus black to me is just plain bad form.

Then once he'd finished putting us all on edge, another comedian came in who seemed more bored then we did. It felt like he was trying to make his mates laugh. They would laugh because they'd all be drunk. I know I wish I was. He ripped off sports commentators that I would hazard no-one knew about, because well... no one laughed. Oh we were a polite audience. We chortled politely. But like all good producers of TV, we know, it's not what you find funny, it's not what you like, it's what the audience wants that is important. This audience didn't want racist jokes, we didn't want sports commentator jokes. We wanted a few minutes of fun. Anyway, once the comedian had finished talking to his sock (and giving it to an audience member) on came my friend.

It was like switching to an American version of Boston Legal after watching the Hansie trials. Something decent. (OK so that wasn't a funny joke, it was old, tired and rather inaccurate as no one watched those trials, but I was reading in the urinal at the pub, I lingered as long as I could without drawing suspicion, not because there was some cute boy there, but because the smell of old urine, and the advert for laxatives was more interesting then the comedy, and one of the signs up above the really, really, high urinals was about Hansie and the devil or something.) Anyway, my mate goes up and he uses a self approach to humour.

Instead of attacking audience members/members of the public about their hand-bags, or their hair, or their skin-colour, he attacks himself. And the audience responded to him. As I said to a friend on the way home, he came across as a man doing his job, and doing his job with pride and dedication. His job is to make us laugh. If he takes it seriously and puts effort into it, and doesn't need to resort to one-liner rip-offs or hack jokes about gays/blacks/blondes, then he deserves to be rewarded with audience applause. And he was. He was a professional amongst hacks, and we all knew it. What did it cost him? Did he have a multi-million dollar effects budget? Nope. It just cost him some time thinking. Thinking...

So just what the fuck is the point of this post I hear you ask... although by now, if you've read most of my posts you'll have given up on looking for a point, and will only be looking for the PENIS or SPERM reference so you can skip it in case the boss catches you... the point is well. Just what is the point? Oh yes. Comedians. Comedians can teach us a lot about ourselves. The bad ones can show us our stupid, basic, cave-man side, the non-thinking side that just laughs cause our little brain when - hehehe funny noise go plop plop. Good comedians can remind us what is pure and noble about the human, insofar as creativity and performance are pure and noble. Because in order to find the joke, we as the audience have to be creative and attentive, as much as the comedian does. So we have a collaborative effort which makes us better people. And average comedians, or below par comedians can remind us to sometimes know when to just shut up and sit down.

So ask yourself - my audience (be it co-workers, partners, loved ones, employee's, employers, students, strangers on a bus) - are they waiting patiently for your to just die so you stop making an ass of yourself? Or are they nodding, looking at their watches/cellphones/shoes/paint job on the wall, and occasionally making 'ah, yup, huh' comments? Or, and this is the moment we should all strive for - are they watching, listening, and waiting for you to continue talking? I know I illicit (is that the right word? Or should it be ellicit?) all three reactions, often within the space of the same blog post...

If you can't sense when you're doing it, just stop talking and see what happens. That's a good test. If you stop and everyone nods and wanders off, you really need to work on your stories/jokes/small talk, and perhaps think before you start speaking. If they ask you what's wrong, it means they were actually listening and want to know more. If they go 'gosh. Well. Those annual report figures? Do you have them?' then you know they were just waiting for you to finish.(Or you're in the wrong company and should have turned left at the robot's and not right).

Are you a comedian, a tragedy, or just plain cave-man? Me... I'm sorry what was I saying? I wasn't listening.

Why old people scare me...

I love old people - plutonically of course - I really do. They are typically full of wonderful information and although sometimes yes I'll admit, a tad tedious; their ramblings can contain insight or perhaps useful information. I also find they are generally more interested in history then the younger generations, something which I sometimes find painful. Now where is this blog going you wonder? After all, it's titled 'Why old people scare me'.

Truth be told, really old people scare me. People who look like they should have died a long, long time ago. My only surviving grandmother is one of these people. She turns 93 this year, 7 days before I turn 30. She is wheelchair bound, looks haggard, and doesn't really remember things very well. Or so I'm told. I haven't spoken to her in about three years. In fact, on her 93 birthday it will be exactly three years - I last saw her at her 90th.

I didn't find her too interesting when I did see her, when she was younger. Oh she was a granny, a delightful old dear, but her stories were really just family news updates about uncle so and so and aunt Tilly, Milly, Willy or whatever. So I never bonded with her. Not like my other grandmother who shaped me, twisted me, broke me, formed me, inspired me, destroyed me, taught me. The reasons are very obvious: Living gran is from my fathers side. Dead gran is from my mothers side. I lived with Dead gran. Living gran I got to see once a year, maybe twice after my father divorced my mother, which was when I was 10. So Living gran didn't get much of a chance to make an impression.

Now it so happens that her daughter, my aunt, has had the responsibility (along with her brothers and my father) of taking care of Gran in her dotage. After all her pension and investments were never intended to go on for 33 years after her husband had finished working. And his planning didn't take into account that she'd outlive him by 28 years and counting. My father has terrible family relations. He doesn't talk to his sister or older brother. His younger brother screwed him out of a lot of money and there is no longer communication there.

So my poor mum is left having to take me and my sister to see Living Gran. We don't get on with the rest of the family - on my fathers side, or truth be told much on my mothers side. My sister and I are just not interested. Blame it on the divorce, call us horrid people... we just have our own problems to worry about and don't much care for theirs. Nonetheless my aunt has run out of money to pay for my living gran's upkeep at the frail-care facility she has to live in. So she's turned to us to help supplement the payments. My sister refuses point blank. Good for her. As she points out, although living gran is technically bonded to us via DNA, she has four children - none of whom really talk to us (and vice versa) all of whom have children who are actually close to Living Gran. Will any of them help us take care of our parents?

We doubt it. Possibly because our parents have alienated themselves from them, but the point is she feels it is our responsibility to look after our parents, and them to look after their's and so forth. I do contribute some small fee which probably covers a single day's costs. Why? Well I do it because I do feel some small measure of responsibility for Living gran... or is it guilt? Guilt that I'm not calling her once a month to chat. I don't call my own mother once a month... but the point is now that I'm a contributing member my aunt now includes me in the 'family e-mail' chain. So I get to see photo's of a family I don't know, care about, or am the slightest bit interested in.

But I get to see pics of Living Gran. I don't want to see them. I don't want to know about it. My Aunt writes inane little passages like: "Gran's been watching the new construction of the medical wing with enthusiasm. 'I bet she knows how many screws and nails they've used!' Says the matron. My God does anyone else want to puke at this statement? Here is a woman who is 93. She's survived through one son dieing of diabetes, through a daughter-in-law dying of cancer, through two son's divorces, she's raised how many grandkids (excluding my sister and myself)? And now this old woman gets reduced to sitting and watching nails being hammered into ceiling boards?

Her photo's reveal the sad truth that that's all she seems capable of. What the FUCK is the point? She can barely remember things, her words get muddled over time, she gets tired quickly. She needs to be wheeled around. How, explain to me, how is that living? It isn't. It's waiting to die. Or in fact, avoiding death for as long as possible. My dead gran was bed-ridden. But she was active. She was engaging. She kept herself busy. Living gran isn't living. To me when I see her I feel a terrible sadness. I don't know what to do with myself. I certainly don't want to be anywhere near her. Is that terrible? I think it is. Why do I not have the ability to cherish her, and want to make her days full?

Because it seems futile? Like a waste of time. Is my time so fucking important that I can't give some to her? Would it make a difference? I don't know. Part of me says perhaps it might bring something to her to hear of how her estranged grandson is doing 500 kilometers away. But wouldn't the world be better off if she just quietly passed away? With some mental dignity retained? Instead of being treated like a 'poor old dear who watches nails being hammered into wood for fun'. That to me is the insidiousness of it all. It's that kindness, that gentle 'knowing smile and nod' that her time is near an end and we must be nice and kind and belittle her because well, she's old.

I swear now to anyone who cares or who will be around - when I am so frail that I cannot keep myself going, I will end it. In some kind of wonderful display. I'll hire some beautiful young boy off the street to take me some stage, where I'll have organized as massive blow-out function. Something filled with an amazing spectacle - bodies, art, dazzling performance, whatever. Then I'll have someone slip some lethal poison into my drink. I won't know which one, but I'll keep drinking until I fall asleep and die. I will not be some incontinent old bastard whom everyone patronizes. At the first sign of 'poor old Guy. He's had a good run you know' - that's it spectacle and death for me.

Once I'm dead my Will will be opened. It will be a map. A treasure map. It will also be a TV show. Part of the clause will be that whomever takes up my treasure hunt must be filmed. It will be spectacular. An ultra-web broadcast. At the very end the treasure will be a copy of all my blogs, a digital download of my consciousness, and the rights to my TV show - The Gay Guy, Can you solve him? It will be watched by billions of people. My family - which would have to be my gay lovers family, my sisters family (if she starts one) will not have time to morn, because my Will will be released onto the internet (ultra-web) in one of the greatest media hyped events of the 21st/22nd century.

Anyone will be able to follow the map. It will be amazing. It will be worthwhile, and for one brief moment I won't be thought of as that old has-been, the once glorious now sadly only capable of wetting himself bugger who gropes all the male nurses (and female ones on bad days). Instead of going out remembering the good old days, I'll go out knowing that someone is going to be using my death to make themselves better, and that I could only hope and dream for. It will of course be a moot point as my body will be cryogenically frozen, or temporally locked, until they find a cure for death. At which point I'll come back to life, with the rights to the show about my death... MWAHAHAHAHAAHAHA...

But to die in bed, and then as a final word spoken over my corpse before it's burned to ash being 'he had a good run, or well we expected it, or poor fellow, it was for the best', that to me is the most miserable thing that could happen. Of course it could be worse - it could be: 'Another one's gone, change the sheets and bring in the next one...' or 'For fuck sakes, finally. Jesus he just didn't ever want to leave'. Or perhaps 'Thank God, that's over...'. Actually that last one would make me laugh. Anyway the point is, if you're a better person than I am, make contact with your old ones, hug them, cherish them, and for god's sake don't fucking patronize them.

Critical criticism is crucial...or so I thought

OK so you all know me. My brain runs at ten billion miles a second when working on some kind of creative puzzle, and about one mile a year on mathematical or logical problems. And I pride myself on my ability to 'insert a giant banana' into any creative problem and find a solution. Although of course last week I couldn't and that got me down. And all you wonderful people rallied and said that I'm sometimes to harsh on myself.

Now I want to know am I too harsh on others? For example this past week I've been writing proposals for SABC and company and working with a producer whom I only met on Wednesday. Each day he'd come into my apartment - thankfully clean now that the maid has returned - and we'd brainstorm ideas from 0900 till 1800. We'd attack one another's ideas furiously, looking for weakness, uncertainty, and most of all better angles from which to tell the story.

I like stories. I like hearing them, and I like making them. I think I do a pretty good job at both. So when I get presented with a story I like to make sure it works for me - which means it needs to be captivating, and niggly details need to be in place. But crucially the tale needs to told by someone who believes in their story. So this producer and I would make sure that we believed in the idea first.

Once you believe in your story you can fight out the details later. So when someone discusses their ideas with me - story, life plan or other idea - I look for the belief in the story first, and then the actual story. I know my boss does the same, and until I learned that is what he was looking for, I was damned irritated by it. I couldn't work out why he was interested in some minor point rather than the bigger picture. Now I realize he's attacking the small points to see if I remain true to myself. The correct answer of course to someone picking up a thread of uncertainty or weakness is: It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things because X.

However what I also learned, and what came to be painfully true but from another friend of mine was that sometimes those loose threads will unravel the whole plan, no matter how good it is. And the loose threads need to be tied up, sometimes before the rest of the plan can be put into action. In fact he was so negative about all my plans, that - and I remember it clearly - as he walked down my drive way I told him about some hair-brained scheme or other, and he shot it down. I remember telling him that if shot all my plans, my dreams down, I didn't need him in my world anymore.

Thankfully he realized that dreams, that plans, are sometimes all that we have. All that we can call our own, and genuinely believe it. Those little schemes, which might not lead anywhere, have at least opened us up to a different perspective, a different way of seeing things. And that might very well lead us to completing one of our dreams. Which would be fantastic. Now I'm forced to admit that I use my mental faculties far to often - again as some of you, and my therapist pointed out - and so whenever someone presents an idea to me, those little grey cells flare up, and begin building patterns of narrative, looking for angles, both good and bad.

What I learned today from my office staff, is that the good angles, the praise, is often put aside, and only the negative, the bad options vocalized. So instead of giving the originator of the story hope and encouragement, all that comes out is a barrage of possible weakness's, potential faults, and solutions to problems which may never arise. Whereas it should have been a barrage of encouragement, and of support, with the voicing of the negatives delivered later, or perhaps only upon request.

But that leads me to my dilemma. If I can see problems, shouldn't I voice them? As friend, employer, lecturer, general busybody is it not my responsibility to voice issues if I see them? The balance I suppose is called a shit sandwich. A term my students begged me to use, and take to heart. For those of you, like myself, the idea of a shit-sandwich, was a little repulsive. But this is what is means: It means you start with something nice, a supportive comment, then you hit them with the negative comments - the shit - and finally you finish off with a good compliment to bolster spirits. Now personally I think whomever came with the idea of a that was an idiot. Firstly, bread, almost regardless of the contents of the sandwich, can at best be described as neutral, not good. Secondly bread comes with crusts, which is a tough, nasty bit.

But I get the point. I sometimes just find it difficult to include the bread with the sandwich it seems. So to all of you who have presented me with an idea or a plan or a dream, that I've just shat on without providing any pastry (is bread a pastry? or is it a dough? or what? who cares? But for those who do, I encourage you to answer [see I can do it... although I think we all hear the sarcasm in that sentence... sigh, back to the drawing board.]) I do apologize. But then I think - and this is my last thought for the week I promise: Surely we should believe enough in our own dreams that the words of others, that the shit of others should count little? I know all that bumpf about us being social and genetically required to seek approval from others, but you get some people who can take shit, look at it, absorb some of it, and toss the rest back. OK I agree. Time for another metaphor, there's too much shit here...

When should we as humans step back and accept criticism, and change, and when should we defend to our dying breath our idea? Isn't that the problems with religion? Politics? Family? We can't define it. Some people are good at accepting criticism, some seek it out (some to their own determent), whilst others take it so personally that it causes great strife and rifts. Why are some more open than others? Is it all to do with self esteem? Is it to do with the fear of rejection? Or is it the ultimate fear that the dream is just an illusion?

I don't know, and I hope that when I get critical responses to my ideas that I am gracious enough to look at the criticism and learn or adapt or defy it. How one chooses which of the three options to go with, I do not know. So what are you then dear reader? A shit-sandwich salesman? A shit sandwich eater, or just a shit stirrer? Or like me just a shit?

(I am only joking about the last bit, I'm not a shit, I'm a pompous git... who thinks rhyme at this time of night is funny...)