a diddakoi and her travelling caravan

I guess the worst thing about pain, is that it makes us want to 'curse God and die'. Nietsche, who famously said that 'God is dead', apparently suffered through long periods of illness and pain. Now I didn't know that, and people, especially christians, when talking about him, don't mention that part of it. But knowing his context, I can understand much better why he would think God was no longer there. There's so much raw pain around. I think if we took all the pain there is, and put it in a unverse, there'd be a big bang, because the universe could not contain it. I don't understand pain at all. So much of it seems so desperately pointless. When I see it in someone I love, or even in a stranger on a bus maybe, who does not consciously know she is in pain, I wish I could reach out and wipe it all away. Sometimes, I wish I could bear it instead, because it causes me more pain to see another person in pain. Yet I am dead afraid of pain. I live with va...

Diddakoi is tired, over-worked, has a migraine, but recieved a grateful one liner from a more tired person, and so does not find the world so bad after all. Maybe the footprint story is true?

The new uni students were rabbit hunting tonight. They were chasing the bad bunnies all over the grounds. I experienced a thrill of voracious satisfaction, & had I not been a sedate, dignified, almost 35 year old woman, I would have whooped around the grounds with them, giving myself to wild abandon.

I like the story about the footprints. Just about everyone may know it. A man dreams that he looked back at his life, and at the most troubled times, there is only one set of footprints in the sand, compared to two sets at other times. When he asks God why this was, he is answered that this is because he was being carried. I like the idea of this story, but I disagree. At the very lowest of my low times, I don't think I am being carried. I am feeling every ounce of the pain, and trudging through, inch at a time. If I was being 'carried' in any sense, the pain would never be as intense as at those moments. The disappointment and loss of faith in humanity would not be as complete. The cry to the God above, where are you, why am I forsaken to this extent would not be as passionate, in the honesty of it. At our lowest, we carry ourselves. Some people carry themselves during this time, hanging on to torn and shambled peices of courage. Some people don't even have the strengt...

Diddakoi is trundling along, doing the boogie woogies, and feeling just right.

I vaporised them! My facebook 'non-friends'! I went through my friends list, and removed all those that I never had considered friends. And my friends list is neater, trimmer. I sacrificed diplomacy and replaced it with honesty. The way I made my choice? If we had not had a single conversation between the time I added the person, and now, then Bam. I questioned my inner motives for having them on there. Was it perhaps some degree of curiousity? To see where they were in their lives now? To not really care, but get that delicious thrill of pleasure of seeing private things that I might never see in the 'reality' of their lives? Of course my other criteria was, do I really want them to know what I am thinking, what I am upto, now? Do I want to let them into places I would never take them to, if it was a face-to-face interaction? I like the smell of settling dust, and gunpowder. Ghandi must be really dispairing of me.

In my last post I was examining the motives of a person who seemed to be taking certain actions for altruistic motives, but was not really getting there. Though I love the thought of altruism, because it seems to me the most pure love of all, I hardly ever get there, possibly never. Take my experience at my recent employment. It was an Indian restuarant, and the employer was a pretty mean chap. He paid wages below minimum wage, and in addition cut my wage when I made a few mistakes. He was angry and impaitant with me, and showed it quite well, despite it being only my second day. The shop was understaffed, so it required a genius work of taking orders, totaling bills, cooking samosas, bhajis, whatevers, wrapping and packing, and making sense of the non-english of the punjabi wife. So, when I sent him a goodbye text, I danced with glee inside myself. I said 'take that, you mean bastard', as i pranced. Yet to him, I said nothing, I gave no reason for leaving. The problem I have w...

The following is a conversation on facebook sometime last week: person 1: drove from 430pm & arrived home from vavuniya @1115pm to discover someone has parked their car in the middle of the road blocking my access to my house!!! not happy at all.:( but not mad either. :) i parked behind them & left a note! they will wake me in the early hours of the morning 2move my vehicle so they could move theirs! i will NOT shout at them ;) i hope they learn never to do it again! Person 2 well said machang. how can u share Christ after chewing someones head off...Ha? Person 1 ... exactly...i must demonstrate the love i am talking about! what a different place this would be if only we did that better? My comments: hmm....now I had to really restrain myself from commenting on this. Hard to have an honest discussion when at least one of the people are completely unknown to you. This is the thing with the internet, we get to sit in on conversations we would not have otherwise heard. But at the ...

Diddakoi wishes, just this once, to upload her photos of her married life onto facebook, for all the world to see.

I saw the perfect bow the other day. The entire thing. The bow, the arc and the bow again. But the problem is, I couldn't enjoy it as I thought I would. After a vengeful crushing out of not just humanity, but a mass extinction of biodiversity (which had nothing to do with what the humans were doing at that time), there is a promise and a rainbow. It sounds to me though, pretty much something like bringing your girlfriend flowers and chocolates after a particularly nasty argument, not to mention the collateral damage of obliterating her pooch, her goldfish, her pet hamster, and that boa she keeps in the bathtub. Ok, she deserved the argument in the first place, because of the way she's been acting recently, and on and off, she does well with a pretty good telling off. But...flood the earth, and then make a promise? Burn her house down, drown her parents and sisters, and then say never again? I know I'm contrary, but I just can't enjoy a rainbow as I suppose I should...

How do I respond to and protect myself from the evil and corruption of others? Ok, the standard 'christian' response is 'turn the other cheek', and forgive using the 7 times table for the calculation. There is a God of vengence as well. Crushing, purging out, 9/11 ing it all out, traditional Noah style. I have a problem with both views though. With the cheek turning method, I often get that 'coward of the county' feeling. Like I am selling myself out, selling myself short. Worse still, I may be, by not keeping my face perpendicular (no cheeks exposed), allowing the evil of the other person to propogate itself. Lesser evils, (rudeness to a customer, small dishonesties like the docking of a day's pay for the small mistakes of a trainee), feeding on the 'getting away' of this experience can grow into larger ones, harming much more people. Will it be a sin of omission for me to therefore let it go, unadressed/cheeked? I am pretty much with Ghandhi all th...

Diddakoi is cold, but likes to stay in the cold because she has a ridiculous masochistic streak. .................... Diddakoi has had a tough weekend, and needs another weekend to recover from it. .................... Diddakoi has left the clothes out in the rain, and is too stubborn to ask God for a miracle to dry her laundry. .................... Diddakoi thinks there are far too many planes crashing these days, and thinks that the Burmuda triangle is slowly expanding to encircle the earth. .................... Diddakoi should sleep, but is too self-absorbed with writing up her existential status for the anonymous, but kindly readers. .................... Diddakoi's favorite nephew is leaving home, and the country for the first time tonight, and so she is filled with a mix of apprehension, excitement, worry, and sadness. .................... Diddakoi should really, really, AND I MEAN REALLY, get some sleep now, because she is a dead loss the next day, otherwise. ...................

I like that message line at the top of my facebook profile, in which I can say, (my name!) is... Since I first used this, it gave me a sort of different way of seeing my reality. I can get out of myself, and observe from the outside. The thing with voicing your existential status is the audience. You need just those particular people to see it, but the problem with facebook is, it has got out of control. You have the uncle who's not that welcome at the christmas table, the gorky acquintance at work who believes he/she/it is your friend and so on. Managing facebook is balancing on that fine line between self revelation, privacy and diplomacy. There's all this etiquette to think of as well. You can't quite refuse to be someone's 'friend', but you don't quite want that person going through your wall posts either. I've settled for privacy and diplomacy. Meaning that I don't make wall comments, don't upload my private photo albums with my partner s...

There was an English bloke, maybe late forties. At the bus stop. Charming, and a gentleman. We had a bit of a chit chat, waiting for the bus, and also in the bus. Nothing profound, earth-shattering. I detected a slight burr of a scottish accent, but when I said so, he told me that his scottish friends would be scandalised to hear that. The value of the moment was the transitoriness of it. Just five minutes in the company of someone you never met before, and would never meet again. After a long slog of work, it was like a cup of hot tea, made with just the right cream and not too weak. Like the man I meet when I run at night, I actually wanted this to be a one-off encounter, because I think these meetings are getting to be one of the constants in my life. Their value is so great I think because of the purity of them. They have no other motive rather than a pleasant exchange, be it a nod and smile, or a bit of a chat. I wouldn't want them any other way.

Reading 1984, George Orwell. Been thinking about Big Brother, changing language, paring words out of language, minimising vocabulary. Instead of words like good and bad, or terrible, or excellent, or brilliant, language is to be reduced to a derivative of good. Ungood, Plusgood, doubleplusgood, and so on. The goal is to wipe out the existence of certain kinds of experience, by taking away the language to describe it. So taking away, the words independent or free would take away the ideas that go with it, including being out of the control of the Big Brother. Would it have been the same in the garden of eden for Adam and Eve? Would they have had only 'good' words in their speech? Obviously, 'naked' wasn't in it for a while at least. Did they not know swear words? Perhaps they didn't? Nature was not 'uncomfortable'? It didn't rain when Adam wanted to go let's see, elephant/dinosaur/rabbit naming, so that his plans were not foiled? (they didn't ...

Rabbits. Everywhere. At night, as I walk back, they dart through the brush, the undergrowth, the lawn. And I, as I look at them, all I think of is, 'Meat'. Which is profoundly disturbing, but I just can't shake it off. See, thing is, my perception of this species changed since coming to the great Oz. Rabbits here are seen as pests, like we see crows, lizards, cockroaches. Okay, not cockroaches, perhaps I am exaggerating. Rabbits are not native to Oz. When the Brits came here, with their cons, they brought livestock, and also game for hunting, including rabbits. Nature here was not adapted to rabbits, and their instinct for survival was far stronger and more competetive than those that are native here. So they started eating up the grass, and breeding, breeding, breeding, until the natives started to go extinct. They even built the longest fence in the world, right across Australia, to prevent the rabbits reaching the other side, the great 'rabbit-proof fence'. Heari...

It's called Freedom Church. The music was like I sang back in my youth. Why is it is that I equate many things that are similar to what I knew as a child or teenager with good? A lot of my favorite foods are what I ate as a child. Par-boiled egg, liver fried in onions, cold milk. Yet I mustn't digress. The church. Well the pastor was an exhibitionist and entertainer. He knew how to tell a story, and get the audience going with him. But he was alright. The one thing he said that stayed with me, was 'we pray not because of our faith, but it is our faith that makes us pray'. I met a Singaporean lady who sat next to me. She was friendly, and yes, intelligent! What a find! A woman with a brain. A christian one at that. And my age! She was a Roman Catholic, married to a Hindu. When she wanted to go to other churches early in her marriage, he didn't allow her to. He said he married a catholic, and she must stay that way. So she read the bible at home to herself, and tried ...

A chilly evening morphing into the night, Neil Diamond, and a sweaty run. Trees that have been around long enough to know that exact point in the circle, where perfection meets imperfection. Trees that stand in contrast to perfect lawns, their crowns like the hair of wild children, adding a brush of rebellion to the cosy suburban homes. I have never seen a poem as lovely as a tree . Hot tea, a gentle household, and quiet thoughts.

I like the random relationships I have built up with people I don't know, and will never know. Ok, don't get me wrong. I don't mean anything to do with promiscuity or that sort of thing. Let me explain. There's the guy I meet when I run at night. We meet at almost the same point on the road every time, as if we are orchestrating this meeting. He's a big burly guy, he uses public transport (which distinguishes him from 99% of the males in Perth). He wears a red and black plaid overcoat. He has a round face, little hair, and a friendly face. We always smile at each other at the same time, he tips his hat, and then we go on. He to whatever his home is, I to the rest of the run, and the run back. I don't want to know him anymore than that. Yet I look forward to seeing that burly figure walking down that path, I feel good and happy to see him. I'll miss him if I don't see him. Maybe I know a part of him, no-one else knows about, I observe him on that long, ti...

Wolf whistles are fun actually. This is the first time, ever, in Perth, I had a couple of guys whistling at me. Never mind that it was at Midlands, the suburbia of the suburbs, and as deep north as texas is deep south. But I felt pleased, I walked straighter, and I settled my hair a bit (once out of eyeshot). What a change from obscene sexual comments in Colombo, where my shoulders hunch up some more, I wear less attractive clothes the next time, and try to look like a crack in the pavement, so I don't get any attention.

They call it Evangel, it's on campus, it's 9am Sundays. Which makes it not going on too late to eat my Sunday away, but not too early that I have to induce insomnia so that I can get to it. When I walked past the first time, they were singing a song I knew, which made me nostalgic. So I walked in, thought I'd take a look. Standing for 45 minutes singing and clapping. Well, ok. Then was the sermon. An old old Australian, with the thickest of accent. I only knew he made a joke when (only) his wife behind me laughed loudly. And he was there to cast out the demons of sickness. They trouped upto him, back pain, neck pain, depression, those sort of things. I am dead curious if these people are healed (this was 3 weeks or so ago). But I feel it might seem in bad taste if I asked them. I stayed on for the service, more because I am trying to (in parellel to finding a church), have interesting experiences. This was one. It was super when one of the 'healed' lurched backward ...

Recently, I heard a woman say, " I want to thank God, because I asked him today to not let it rain, and he did, when it had been raining non-stop for the last 7 days. Praise God that I was able to dry my washing." I take exception to this remark on a few levels. For one, I knew, the previous week that it would actually rain all week, and be dry on Wednesday from the weather report on the internet. So I planned my washing based on this. I think this lady could have done the same. She needn't have fretted, she could have used widely available simple science to plan her life. What I feel in this case is, that she falsely attributed the non-rain to a miracle from God especially for her to dry her clothes, when everyone else knew all along, from the weather station that it was going to be sunny because of meteorological conditions that had been calculated far before the woman sent this spontaneous prayer up. So even if she didn't pray, the so-called miracle would have occu...

Don't misunderstand me. This is not penis-envy. It's my wishful thinking for that Harry Potter invisibility cloak. You see, I would like to experience Sri Lanka as a man. Preferably as a dark-skinned man. This is because I feel that my experience will be significantly different, and much more pleasant as to the memories I carry, being a woman. I think the country will be far more enjoyable in male form. Respect, no harassment, being able to walk on the pavements without being gawped at. No rude and vulger comments. No intimidation from male drivers. I could go for walks in the park with the dog, I could run on the beach early morning, I could drive on the road with my window down. I'd become invisible, and even anonymous. You see, as man, I'd have some stirrings of loyalty, a few roots maybe, at the very least nostalgia for what I've left behind.