Daily Prompt: Far From Normal

Latest challenge on WordPress: Many of us think of our lives as boringly normal, while others live the high life. Take a step back, and take a look at your life as an outsider might. Now, tell us at least six unique, exciting, or just plain odd things about yourself.

# i like to drink Top Deck chocolate from the bag – second best option is breaking chunks into smaller pieces and microwaving, but a far higher and i honestly believe tastier method is to leave the slab on the dashboard of your car in the sun or on a window sill til it melts and then make a hole in one end and drink to your heart’s content – INCREDIBLE!

# i like to bend the english language to my will as i posted about here. i spell some words differently on purpose like ‘thankx’ and ‘thort’ and use a minimum of capitalisation and promote some nouns into adjectives which i promote to verbs which i promote to nouns and so on. i think i came up with the saying ‘vibing a vibe.’

# as a hobby i occasionally put together short video clips for a made up you tube show titled ‘Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect’ – while the majority of people who watch them seem to think they’re pretty funny, they have not come close to going viral yet and sit more hesitantly at a spot i would assume they call ‘virus’ rather. my favourite one at the moment is probably the latest one i did on sax and violins but i guess other people didn’t think so as much cos at the time of going to press it has only had around 218 views.

# i have a yellow and white stuffed dolphin called ‘No_bob’ [i was going to call him ‘Bob’ but he doesn’t] – in many places around South Africa he is more famous than me – i used to feature quite prominently on the local Christian speaking circuit for youth groups and on two occasions i was introduced and about ten people clapped and as i started speaking i introduced No_bob and when i took him out of my pocket a good third of the room [few hundred people] started cheering. people try to convince me that No_bob used to be blue but he wasn’t. people will probably swear he was but i have pictures from the time when i won him on the pier a Brighton. a Cape Town Christian punk band called Serving Suggestion performed ‘the No_bob song’ and it became one of their most popular songs…

# i hate raisins with a passion – no i mean REALLY, not just like you pretend not to like them but you will eat them only by themselves, or only in things. i mean i started the ‘i hate raisins’ group on facebook, i once went with a friend to a park at night and burnt a bag of them just to do the world a favour. i have recorded two songs so far titled ‘the Squishy Fruit Conspiracy’ and ‘Sultanas’ which was a parody of the old Snow ‘Informer’ song…

# the word is traffic circle. if you enter at one point and leave before doing a full 360 degrees then what you have taken part in is called a traffic semi-circle or a half-moon or something. if you are going to insist on calling it a ‘traffic circle’ then like me you must go THE WHOLE WAY ROUND and usually not just once cos you have to make sure… three or four times is fun with first timers while the record with a full combi and trailer at the big Free State circle is i think 13 times with petrol attendants standing cheering at the side of the road and overall it is the 53 we did in Stellenbosch after cell group one nite. like a record playing, right round round round.

honourable mentions must go to biting people [which i used to do the first time i met people as a sign of affection, but the older it gets the creepier it gets so i’ve largely stopped] and cycling the 109km Argus cycle tour in either pink tights or fish net stockings [best way to keep yourself cycling when going up Suikerbossie – no ways i’m getting off in front of those crowds wearing pink tights!]

just a regular normal guy, really.

“Weekly Photo Challenge: (Unique)”

this is one of my favourite pics ever and it comes from the days of cameras with actual removable film and this particular photo is clearly a mistake of double exposure, but one that works so powerfully.

so the people worshipping in a weekly church service appear to be standing beneath the heavens and it creates such a powerfully artistic expression:

…which to me screams of something that is completely Unique.

[For the previous Photo Challenge on the theme of ‘Love’ click here]

How to Save a Marriage… before you need to. [part iii]

Continuing the series where I asked a bunch of my friends who I think are in healthy marriages to share a key or two about what they have found helps make their marriage work well. Here are thoughts from my brother-in-law:

We communicate about everything, no matter how trivial it might seem.

We clear stuff up immediately, a small issue which is resolved immediately remains just a small issue but many unresolved small issues build up and cause problems down the line.

We don’t refer to past disagreements, they are dealt with in the moment, then we move on.

Always use ‘we’ language, it helps us to remember that it’s us against whatever issue we’re facing, not me against you.

Last but not least, we are unique individuals and a unique couple, what works for other couples might not work for us and what works for us might not work for other couples, never feel under pressure to do what others do.

Ewald Witthoft [married for five and a half years]

continue to the next part here…