Can any sane and comprehending human being accept the polarities of how we treat man’s best friend: from this to this?
Warning: Do not read while ingesting/ digesting food, gory pictures in second link - but what else would you expect when they’ve managed to turn 13 dogs into so many globs of mincemeat?
The dream is over, their campaign ended.
And so are my futile attempts at restoring the TV reception.
You see, the darned wire connected to the outdoors antennae blew down one night, unable to stand up to an onslaught of high winds, perpetual rain and the re-location of an entire wasp colony to this oh-most-desirable of locations.
I mean, SHEESH guys, show me some respect here, will you? Do you see me invading your papery nest of horrors? NO! So STAY AWAY from my TV antennae OK? It’s either that or a premature and very ugly death by Ridsect for you, got it?
*Ahem*
Anyways.
So the Australia vs Italy match was looming and there I was, out on the balcony in the freezing cold at 1am, trying frantically to remedy the situation with a torchlight, copious lengths of aluminium foil (don’t laugh, it works!) and A FORK.
Yup. Just a common fork I swiped out of the cutlery drawer. Which reminds me, I need to stock up on more al-foil, since I used up my entire supply that night *shuffles feet and looks embarrassed*
After a great deal of fiddling and fussing and ranting (on my part, while my sister sat on the floor, leisuredly constructing sailboats out of discarded bits of aluminium foil), we managed to get a picture that did not resemble a cross between that Paris Hilton video and a horror flick in which all the football players looked like they were being shadowed by a ghostly Doppelganger apiece.
But the match itself - oh, the agony!
In the words of the commentator: "It’s cruel, oh so cruel for Australia"
Indeed.
When they awarded Italy the penalty with 40 seconds on the clock, I was shrieking BULLSHIT! NONSENSE! IDIOTS! and sundry unprintable oaths so loud, it would have woken the entire neighbourhood up if they’d been sound asleep in their beds, slumbering away, dreaming of Rugby Union matches on endless replay and Fourex beer no doubt *snorts*
The first Australian World Cup campaign in 33 years and they’re in bed? They deserve to be woken up I tell you - heaven knows I’ve had to put up with their drunken (sex)escapades during the State of Origin rugby matches o_0
But grievously, before we’d finished venting our rage ala chucking cushions at the TV set and performing a war-dance of indignation in the middle of the living room floor, the whistle blew and the match was over.
Poor Socceroos!
Those guys deserve some luvin’ I tell you!
NO.
Not that kind of loving, you sick freak. By luvin’ I mean: cheering-crowds-packed, streamer-strewn, maniacal-fan-laden, ear-piercing-screams-of-adulation, endless-autograph-signing kinda loving.
Which they’ll get. In abundance. During their ticker-tape parade through Sydney in August. One hopes, that is.
(You never know with Aussies, they seem to love their rugby, all three codes of it, but everything else is peripheral, in their opinion)
I don’t profess to be the biggest soccer expert ever, but IMHO, these Socceroos are some players of note (the great and the stinky alike):
The Hands of Calamity: Zeljko Kalac When you’re a goalkeeper, you’re supposed to keep the other team from scoring goals. What you’re not supposed to do is to trip, wobble, fumble like an inept drunk with coordination issues and perform acrobatic tumbles that achieve jack-all while leaving the ball free to roll perilously close to that whitewashed line.
Mr Solid-As-A-Rock: Mark Schwarzer Grace under pressure, cool under fire. Enough said.
The rugby player wannabe who didn’t make the cut for the Wallabies/ The Socceroo who most resembles a rugby player: Brett Emerton Boorish, Neanderthal-ish and IMHO, completely deserving of every single yellow card he’s been awarded.
The player who is most likely to end up on Australian CLEO’s Top 20 Hottest Aussie Males List within the next 6 months, if he hasn’t already: Harry Kewell All my Aussie female friends who purportedly tune in to *ahem* watch some good football (riiiiiiiiggghhhhttt) are really there for only one thing. Him.
The player which every Italian mamma would love to love and call their son: John Aloisi and Mark Bresciano
And if you were interested, some absolutely hilarious Nike Joga Bonita ads aired in Australia:
History (that’s the old guy in the dressing gown heckling the ‘Roos) gets taken out by the Socceroos
The Socceroos can be proud. They made it into the Final 16, scored their first goal ever during a World Cup match (the first of five) and STUFFED HISTORY alright 
l have no Internet access for the next five days.
Adrift. Abandoned. Beleagured. Marooned.
And worse of all, insignificant.
But the excuses I come up with are so puerile, they even embarass myself:
Excuse 1: I need it to keep in touch with the outside world. It’s called a newspaper, my dear.Or even the idiot box, if you’re that way inclined.
Excuse 2: I need it to chat to my friends. Seeing as how we’re all grown adults here, I’m sure they have better things to do than chat to you.
Excuse 3: I need it to surf random websites that have about as much impact on my life as the state of Paris Hilton’s nostrils. Enough said.
It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. Nothing I do is important enough to make any difference to anyone, least of all on cyberspace.
And so as I re-access the portals of the Internet this morning, I feel an upsurge of relief and a sense of hidden shame at my need for it, like a junkie after a fix.
And looking slightly foolish, I realise I was right.
Nothing’s changed. My tread upon the world is so light that it leaves nothing behind. Not a shadow, not an echo.
How can a fistful of paper and a string of ink-black alphabet dancing across them cause so much pain?
But my neuroanatomy task analysis is done.
FINALLY. Holy macaroni a-doodle-Rooney *Ooops, sorry guys, bola kaki season*
Now, time for me to fall outta of my chair and into bed.
I stare at their photo on-screen, all bright pixels and freshly minted happiness.
It takes my breath away how well they fit together - not for them the awkward fumblings of a newly welded unit, or the excessive physical demonstrations of an insecure couple.
They just look right. As though, when they were placed next to each other, everything else in the world re-aligned on their axes, then fell into their needful places.
They both gaze into the camera contentedly, serenely. Both relaxed and comfortable. Faint smiles etched on their faces. He has his arm around her, gently, tenderly, not his intention to possess but to protect. She fits into the line of his body, leaning back into him ever so slightly. They look more like friends than lovers, which at one stage, they were. But the completion of each by the other is unmistakable.
Their body language says: I am at peace with this person. He/ She is the missing piece to my puzzle. My world is different from the moment they first entered it. Today, I am a changed person.
No words are needed. No confirmation. No need for fulsome declarations of passion. Or physical materialisations to bestow upon the other. Or the constant ooze-ooze-ooze of gushing sentimentality.
They just are.
Where did it all go? How did it all fall apart? When did this picture of placid devotion start to disintegrate at the edges?
When. How. Why.
Pointless, needless questionings that only serve to prolong the agony.
Thus, another one bites the dust.
And people ask me why I am afraid to trust. Not just in love. But anything.
Well, it’s failed. Another one. And another. And another. And yet, another.
That’s why.
I was never going to get away with it forever.
Fool’s paradise. Naive innocent. Ungrounded dreamer.
All those sinful indulgences have finally caught up with me.
O, arteries. O, endocardium. O, liver.
Forgive my late-night raids on the fridge.
Forgive me my trespasses into the realm of junk food.
Forgive my preference for fast, cheap and nasty rubbish over time-consuming, expensive and quality sustenance.
I will repent. I will reform. Please give me another chance to redeem myself.
ps: My blood tests results are back. As you have probably guessed, my total cholesterol counts weren’t too crash-hot
Oh, and btw, I also have Gilbert’s Syndrome.
So if you’re wondering why I look like the wrinkled, jaundiced, grumpy old auntie that I am (yeah, hitting the quarter-of-the-century mark qualifies me for auntie-hood OK? :), that’s why.
It’s nothing major though, honest.
I’m off to make good on my belated assignments and re-tool my eating habits. And possibly exercise *shudders*
Blogs out.
Today, the weather outside matches how I feel.
It’s all grey skies, overcast clouds and endless rain both without and within.
It’s not the cold that bothers me, although I’m prone to whingeing about it anyway :p
It’s the bone-penetrating, all-pervasive chill damp. I know, I know, I’m a wuss (Agent R: You’re probably choking to death with laughter by now if you’re reading this. I have not forgotten that where you live, winter occassionally means having to dig your car outta the snow)
I have on two-t-shirts and fluffy slippers and the most disgusting track bottoms known to man, but to no avail.
It’s all I can do to restrain myself from throwing me into a boiling-hot shower every two seconds just so I can feel my extremities again. I swear I’m getting arthritis in my fingers from the cold and typing’s getting harder by the minute. I need a portable campfire or something
An idyllic Caribbean cruise, anyone? 
The closest distance between two is a trembling inch apart, the gap between them barely sufficient for daylight to filter through. So close that it would be easier, more natural, for them to make contact than not to touch.
At their feet a precarious precipice, which one could tumble into too easily - heedless, headlong, headstrong.
And in their heads a voice which repeats those words, those rash, impetuous, devil-may-care words with their seductive syllables.
For once, let us fling caution to the winds. Live in the moment. Dance. Laugh. Embrace. Live. For who knows if tomorrow will come after all?
They do not move towards each other, but neither do they move apart. Something crackles across their skin like electricity, breaching the chasm, leaping from the basest of one element to the other.
In their heads, they hear a sound like static, the muted buzz of a thousand winged insects taking flight at once. It is a moment of instant recognition, the involuntary acknowledgment of one seelenfreund by another.
But still, they hesitate, delaying with the physical body what the soul has already claimed for its own. Why is closing that last, tremulous inch between them more difficult than besieging a barrier built of mortar and stones?
But denial creeps in. Slyly. Insidiously. Silently.
Words, which are but broken sounds strung together, have yet the power to drown out the thrumming pulse between two seelenfreunde.
Each turns their head wilfully aside, pointedly refusing the call of the other.
The distance grows and the chasm widens.
Until, finally, the shimmering connection is severed.
Soon, even the memory will fade.
But dimly, in the quietest hour of the night, they may find themselves growing strangely restless. Perhaps they feel breathless, like a hush has descended over their world, waiting, straining, listening.
For what?
The sound of two seelen searching for each other?
It didn’t have to be like this.
Where did the warmth, the camaraderie, the closeness brought about by the sharing of secrets go?
This chill, it is apparent even through means remote, it penetrates through the barrier of distance.
Look away then, for I am not here.
In those sleepless hours before dawn, the silence is deafening, almost suffocating.
I sit here, talking to myself in a room constructed of javascripts and html commands, the words lost in the babble of cyberspace.
That’s the thing with blogs - you can scream, but no whisper of an echo ever returns to your ears. You are, in effect, talking to yourself. And perhaps, so is everyone else.
