I am making dhalpouri tonight.
I'm making dhalpouri tonight.
What's dhalpouri you ask? Well - Dhalpouri is yet ANOTHER reason why you need to find a nice Trinidadian and marry her. But I'll let you in on a secret, from me to you: Two very vital ingredients are salt, and black-pepper. None of which I had at home, I realized after coming halfway into seasoning some chicken. I headed off to the store instead to see if I couldn't rectify that.
As is usual in tales like these, I found that the point of interest wasn't the destination but the journey. During the journey I kept my head somewhat down. You never know when someone is going to throw a cup or something at you from a passing car (and I'd rather not lose an eye to a projectile straw), so I usually keep my eyes glued on the path directly ahead of me. No hassle there, I don't mind my shadow for company. Except this time I noticed something peculiar about the Shadow-Me spread thin before me. It swayed in a very, very particular way.
"Shit," I though. "This is how Andreas walks!".
Then I thought HA HA HA LOLZ!!1
Then I thought: "No, seriously. Shit. This IS how Andreas walks."
That effectively stilled the temporary joy of using internet-speak in my silent monologue. See, it wouldn't be the first time I'd copied someone's walk.
All the time I lived in Trinidad people would comment on how I had my mother's walk. I was happy about that. I quite like my mom, and if I could choose to inherit anything less substantial than her ass but more substantial than her cooking, then her walk seemed a good compromise.
After moving to Sweden though, I needed a new Me. The old me wouldn't do. Clothes seem a good start. Luckily I had my aunt's old cast-offs in the attic that I could pillage as much as I wanted. Sad thing being that in the late ninetees, the early eighties had yet not come back into style. As is often the case, I was both after and before my time.
I scored the highest points in every god-awful fashion mistake you could think of. Leather jacket and home-made dreads, check. Carpenter pants that my aunt had had during her third trimester, check. Highlights that bought out the sick yellow glow of too little D-vitamin, check. And the Bell-bottoms! God, the bell-bottoms were my staple. I wore bell-bottoms with the leather-jacket like some West Indian Fonzie, I wore bell-bottoms with short dresses, I wore bell-bottoms with long dresses. I wore bell-bottoms with bell-bottoms.
Atrocious as they were (in retrospect), I had gotten new duds. Now for a new walk.
The walk came from one single three-frame comic strip I read on the bus on the way to school one day. It was too long ago for me to remember the content of each individual frame, but the general gist was that these two girls were walking down a sidewalk, but the way they walked, oh!
One of these girls looked very Dutch and very much a pothead. Now I knew that there was nothing cool about being either Dutch or a pothead, but by Jove: She was wearing bell-bottoms. I wore bell-bottoms. This was no coincidence. The comic strip seemed to justify - assume the essence of ALL the fashion crimes I was committing.
And the walk, stilted and frame-wise as it is in comics, was the walk of someone who was pulling off bell-bottoms, and pulling them off well. Her upper-body was thrown back in a casual, obtuse angle in relation to her legs, which moved like autonomous creatures, while the upper body simply rode along, casually looking to this side or that for a car or a joint, who knows. She rode her legs like her legs were a horse. A fine horse.
So I started riding my legs like they were a fine horse. The trouble being that I always look down into the ground when I'm walking. So my walk, basically, turned into that of a person hunched over, with legs thrown out as far as possible ahead of her to give the illusion of their being independent entities. I was the perfect acute angle, if nothing else. And I wasn't unhappy with it. Looking into the ground and scowling while not caring where the legs were going implied a sort of double-blaséness, effectively topping that cool suave of even the stoned Dutch comic-girl. What a feat.
When I was much older, and slightly less rebellious and desperate to fill the requirements of a man ( who I wished would fill me) - having this walk laughingly labeled the walk of a lumberjack saddened me a bit. It was the first time I'd heard that and its negative connotations, and it wasn't the last. And to be quite frank, I believe that Andreas is the first person not to have an opinion about my walk. He really is the perfect man.
As for Andreas being the perfect man - well. It was pretty inevitable that I should come to copy his walk. Steal his cool, sway his way. And with this sudden realization that hit me on the way to pick up some black pepper, what happened last Tuesday starts making a whole lot more sense.
Last Tuesday Andreas and I went to see Supergrass. Supergrass was amazing, but this is not the point. As the two of us approached the bouncers guarding the illustrious Supergrass concert-doors, the one greets us in a loud and clear voice, such as bouncers do when they try to show that they've already sized you up and that your reply is integral to you chances of getting in.
My reply was one of an explosive "WHATTHEFUCK?!". Instead of turning me away, the bouncer looked shame-faced and waved us in.
But that was last-week-Me.
"Today's-Realization"-Me would have probably not responded with "WTF", but would have mustered a brave but sadly sweet smile for the bouncer who had greeted Andreas and I with the very enthusiastic : "Hello Boys."
Right! Time to roll some dough, Ta.
What's dhalpouri you ask? Well - Dhalpouri is yet ANOTHER reason why you need to find a nice Trinidadian and marry her. But I'll let you in on a secret, from me to you: Two very vital ingredients are salt, and black-pepper. None of which I had at home, I realized after coming halfway into seasoning some chicken. I headed off to the store instead to see if I couldn't rectify that.
As is usual in tales like these, I found that the point of interest wasn't the destination but the journey. During the journey I kept my head somewhat down. You never know when someone is going to throw a cup or something at you from a passing car (and I'd rather not lose an eye to a projectile straw), so I usually keep my eyes glued on the path directly ahead of me. No hassle there, I don't mind my shadow for company. Except this time I noticed something peculiar about the Shadow-Me spread thin before me. It swayed in a very, very particular way.
"Shit," I though. "This is how Andreas walks!".
Then I thought HA HA HA LOLZ!!1
Then I thought: "No, seriously. Shit. This IS how Andreas walks."
That effectively stilled the temporary joy of using internet-speak in my silent monologue. See, it wouldn't be the first time I'd copied someone's walk.
All the time I lived in Trinidad people would comment on how I had my mother's walk. I was happy about that. I quite like my mom, and if I could choose to inherit anything less substantial than her ass but more substantial than her cooking, then her walk seemed a good compromise.
After moving to Sweden though, I needed a new Me. The old me wouldn't do. Clothes seem a good start. Luckily I had my aunt's old cast-offs in the attic that I could pillage as much as I wanted. Sad thing being that in the late ninetees, the early eighties had yet not come back into style. As is often the case, I was both after and before my time.
I scored the highest points in every god-awful fashion mistake you could think of. Leather jacket and home-made dreads, check. Carpenter pants that my aunt had had during her third trimester, check. Highlights that bought out the sick yellow glow of too little D-vitamin, check. And the Bell-bottoms! God, the bell-bottoms were my staple. I wore bell-bottoms with the leather-jacket like some West Indian Fonzie, I wore bell-bottoms with short dresses, I wore bell-bottoms with long dresses. I wore bell-bottoms with bell-bottoms.
Atrocious as they were (in retrospect), I had gotten new duds. Now for a new walk.
The walk came from one single three-frame comic strip I read on the bus on the way to school one day. It was too long ago for me to remember the content of each individual frame, but the general gist was that these two girls were walking down a sidewalk, but the way they walked, oh!
One of these girls looked very Dutch and very much a pothead. Now I knew that there was nothing cool about being either Dutch or a pothead, but by Jove: She was wearing bell-bottoms. I wore bell-bottoms. This was no coincidence. The comic strip seemed to justify - assume the essence of ALL the fashion crimes I was committing.
And the walk, stilted and frame-wise as it is in comics, was the walk of someone who was pulling off bell-bottoms, and pulling them off well. Her upper-body was thrown back in a casual, obtuse angle in relation to her legs, which moved like autonomous creatures, while the upper body simply rode along, casually looking to this side or that for a car or a joint, who knows. She rode her legs like her legs were a horse. A fine horse.
So I started riding my legs like they were a fine horse. The trouble being that I always look down into the ground when I'm walking. So my walk, basically, turned into that of a person hunched over, with legs thrown out as far as possible ahead of her to give the illusion of their being independent entities. I was the perfect acute angle, if nothing else. And I wasn't unhappy with it. Looking into the ground and scowling while not caring where the legs were going implied a sort of double-blaséness, effectively topping that cool suave of even the stoned Dutch comic-girl. What a feat.
When I was much older, and slightly less rebellious and desperate to fill the requirements of a man ( who I wished would fill me) - having this walk laughingly labeled the walk of a lumberjack saddened me a bit. It was the first time I'd heard that and its negative connotations, and it wasn't the last. And to be quite frank, I believe that Andreas is the first person not to have an opinion about my walk. He really is the perfect man.
As for Andreas being the perfect man - well. It was pretty inevitable that I should come to copy his walk. Steal his cool, sway his way. And with this sudden realization that hit me on the way to pick up some black pepper, what happened last Tuesday starts making a whole lot more sense.
Last Tuesday Andreas and I went to see Supergrass. Supergrass was amazing, but this is not the point. As the two of us approached the bouncers guarding the illustrious Supergrass concert-doors, the one greets us in a loud and clear voice, such as bouncers do when they try to show that they've already sized you up and that your reply is integral to you chances of getting in.
My reply was one of an explosive "WHATTHEFUCK?!". Instead of turning me away, the bouncer looked shame-faced and waved us in.
But that was last-week-Me.
"Today's-Realization"-Me would have probably not responded with "WTF", but would have mustered a brave but sadly sweet smile for the bouncer who had greeted Andreas and I with the very enthusiastic : "Hello Boys."
Right! Time to roll some dough, Ta.
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