My very fake musings

I guess it's hard to believe i can be happy going to a casino and not gamble. But I really am. There are such a variety of people I could be here for hours, just inventing stories for them all. The slot machine players who are just out and out gamblers because there's no strategy involved. The roulette players who think there's a strategy. The back jackers who take it all too seriously and the pokerers who are the most intense of them all. 

There are the lads, in head to foot Top Man. Quickly they are overcome by the loss of money BUT it's never their fault. 

There's the older lady who maybe comes every two weeks (so it's not a habit or an addiction). She only plays roulette on a real table and believes one should dress for a casino like you're off to church. She casts her beady eyes with derision over the girls with their glitter and plastered on make up - forgetting that once it was her in the ten inch platforms and mini skirt (with gut hanging over) shrieking when red hit the table. 

There's the "pit" boss who knows he'll never play a slot machine but is looking longingly at the poker room. He'd wipe the floor if only he was allowed. He has a full tilt account, and lives in fear of discovery. 

More to follow......

Yes I like not gambling at casinos around the country. 

Time away

Reading. 

Nothing to do with books. 

The city. 

It's nice. Very Cardiff like. Chilled, clean and calm. Exactly what I ordered really. Complete with rather quite divine weather and its the break we needed. Added to that: TB starting his world wide domination and thus the future of success and its the winning formula for time away. 

Kind of makes me realise how absolutely adaptable I am. I believe I could go anywhere and be ok. Thrive. 

I have an immense amount of fodder for people watching and writing. I feel relaxed, almost rejuvenated and definitely ready. Ready for what? More of this? Yesh. 

Laugh every day - an order.

I laugh so much at stuff. I wish I could put it all to paper. I've done Mama and the Octopus. I've touched on a story of my Nana - none of us were there but the mental image is enough to crack me up. The times my family tried to drown me (true story and more than once). When Dad told CG Bewl water was Scotland.

Or when I got chucked out of bed because I was being protected, when my nose was pinched in order to save my life! I just say the word Southampton and I'm clutching my tummy, consumed with giggles. When TB does a cat impression.

The time I had a bath with a glitter bomb the day before a routine lady check up (glitter everywhere - mortifying).

I laugh a lot.

The time my dad put a note in a book referencing lobola. When CG confused Schwarzenegger with Swastika.

It's so good for the soul and I'm so very fortunate to have people who surround me with laughter and the ability to have me convulsing with it.

It's important. I should share more.

Words

I wrote the below at the casino on Wednesday - I wanted to write about a sign that was outside but every time I tried to take a picture, or note it down, someone was blocking it. So I wrote some prose instead. It's a mish mash of words (which I reckon works well for me). It's not brilliant but I can read it and know how I was feeling, the mood and the stuff that was going on. I was happy..... I like reading it now as it has no indication that a mere 24 hours later, the following 12 hours was going to be somewhat more rubbish. But isn't that life? It goes along quite nicely, and then a few sentences and whoosh, all of a sudden, you're treading water, insecure and freaked out completely wandering about the next curve ball. Whoever made up the saying about sticks and stones hurting you more than words, was never more wrong. Damage from sticks and stones can be healed, words leave marks inside. I refer to age 15 when I thought a boy called Neil said I had thunder thighs, he was calling the girl behind me, but I didn't know that until a decade later. I spent more minutes than necessary inspecting my thighs for thunder in many a pair of shorts. But what I've realised about words is that they should only hurt when they come from people whose opinion means something. Therefore, I'm a little annoyed I shed a valuable tear over an idiot who doesn't have a braincell to call his own.

 I'm happy with the choices I'm making in my life. I'm happy in my personal life and I choose to stay that way. It's about positive choices and I choose to be happy. TB makes me happy therefore I choose TB (and sunshine and Coca Cola). I think it really is that simple. Which is why the below piece of work isn't brilliant, it isn't going to be interstellar but it's a reminder of how I felt in that moment, which was great.

And you know, that's my natural disposition... to smile and enjoy and laugh and stuff. So.... therefore I will. Head up, chin up, smile on.


10.06.15 AJG
The night
Is beautiful
The sky
Indigo
The sea
Whispers
Waves on pebbles
Lights faintly
Glowing
Traffic driving
Air con chugging
Smooth criminals
Playing

On bands, bars and sunshine

Incubus.
I forget how much I really like them. I recapture a bit of that from song1 of the CD I have. Why is this never on the top10 of my charts? It really should be. I put them in the car earlier this evening and boom! all of a sudden, I want to be dancing and letting my not so longer hair down. To really let go and be wild. I don't do that enough.

I remember finding this band way back upon a time and listening to them on repeat, then forgetting them a little bit. A year or so later I was sitting in a bar in Cape Town - Chilli 'n Lime to be precise. I heard them crash through the speakers and I was instantly at ease. It was a night, I was feeling more socially awkward (read shy) than usual. Isn't it bizarre that hearing them in that bar gave me a little bit of confidence and I ended up quite the social butterfly that night. Fell out of a dingy nightclub at 5am sunrise...a place so far removed from the original bar. The tequila probably helped as much as Incubus. Although I think the album gave me a bit of familiarity in a place which was all trendy and swish and full of the beautiful people. I'm never going to be a trendoid (and I'm not upset about that) but I didn't want to be a dork either.

I kind of love that music can do that to me. Can relax, can inspire me (I'm doing this blog aren't I?), can invigorate me, can lift me and also recapture a memory that I had all but forgotten. And also muse on how much I've grown and how much less of a shit I feel to conform. And that was a great night in the end...in a few dingy rooms pretending to be a nightclub, rock music pumping, with people who wanted to rage the funky machine and dance until we collapsed outside in a heap, with the sun coming up. I don't think I could find that place ever again - I don't even recall the name of it.

And sunshine does that to me as well - it pushes all my buttons and makes me want to do stuff. It makes me restless in a way I can't put into words, but it's a good restless. I wonder if it's the African in me? That requirement to have at least a few hot days a year to have the sun seep into my bones and wake me up. Coffee tries but doesn't reach the spots a touch of heat does.

Bring on this summer, I need to dance and be alive.