Verbal Diarrhoea

It all started off innocently enough. I sent forth yesterday’s Google image search results and expected nothing more than, “Wow, that’s crazy!” What I wasn’t expecting was for Barry to vehemently support Google’s search engine. It got to a point that Mad Phoenix had to ask if he had stocks in the company.

Anyway here’s a snippet of yesterday’s email conversation:

Dizzy*:   On a now unrelated note, if you update your search query to: surfing + female + surfboard, you’ll get better results:

Dizzy*: I’ll go with the highlighted girl on the right. Not only because I haven’t seen many black surfer chicks*, but also, cos she actually looks like she’s been surfing – smiling, happy, relaxed, and oh yes – WET. Which all those other posers seem to forget about!

Barry: She’s carrying a gay minimal, obviously can’t surf. The one right next to her… hubba hubba.

Me: Gay minimal?

Mad Phoenix: Shhh [insert my real name]! Barry is trying to tell us something… No need to have added the last item Barry. This is a safe space…you can talk to us.

Luckily Barry took the jibe quite well.

* Dizzy’s right. I’ve spent every weekend at Surfer’s Corner for the last year, and I’ve yet to see a black surfer.

Whenever I have a nightmare (which is often enough) and I want to tell someone about it, I’m reminded of the following quote in Sue Townsend’s latest novel, Adrian Mole: The Prostate Years.

Adrian Mole’s wife to him, “When we first married, we made a promise that we would never talk about our dreams. I expect you to honour that agreement.”

Anyway, I was planning to on writing a book review on the novel but realised that I have nothing to say other than, “I loved this book. You should buy it. These are my favourite lines from the book.” What? I’m just not that great at heaping praise on things I love. I’m way better at finding and articulating what I think are imperfections.

*

And in other things that made me smile:

• Barry’s recent gchat status: Twilight – The story of a young woman’s choice to practice either bestiality or necrophilia.
• In a wonderful effort to mock Rupert Murdoch’s claim that he owns the “Sky” in “Skype”, Kulula came up with this brilliant advertising campaign.  

Can we all breathe a collective sigh of relief? Can we all raise your fists in victory, whilst the song, “Eye of the Tiger” plays? Can we all donate R200 to my ever growing shoe collection? No? Well, it was worth a try.

So … I’ve been a little stressed at work, tying up loose ends of big ass project.

The initial idea of the project was that I was simply supposed to swoop in with my tights and cape and provide a colleague with guidance. Guidance soon morphed into “you fucked up so badly that I need to redo everything AND still meet the deadline”. The result is that I’ve been so stressed that I’ve been mainlining coffee and scarfing down so much chocolate I’d make Willy Wonka proud.

And whilst my fingers moved swiftly and confidently over the keyboard, the unavoidable thought that I was wasting my life stuck behind the glare of a PC, struck me. I wish I could say that this was simply a momentary thought; that I simply shook my head and went on my merry way, but I simply couldn’t help thinking of all the things I could be doing. I thought about how I should be standing barefoot on the banks of a river, the blades of grass prickling the soles of my feet. I thought about sunshine, laughter, friends, hammocks, books and road trips. I thought about all the things that made life THAT much sweeter.

Anyway, I’ve just completed THIS project (just handed the last of the reclassified datasets to the web developer) and thought I’d share something funny with you guys.

Saturday night

Barry: Sid, your cat’s sitting in the bathtub.

Me: Oh yeah, you’re supposed to open the tap for the cat. The cat only drinks FRESH water. She won’t drink water that’s been in a bowl for a few days.

And then Barry gives me this look like he simply can’t fathom the words coming from my mouth; as if I’d suddenly started speaking Klingon.

A month or two ago, Barry and I attended a farewell party for his American friend.

The setting for the party was one of the most palatial houses I’ve ever been to. Seriously! With the house situated on the mountain and overlooking the ocean, the view was spectacular. And if this wasn’t enough the house contained a pool, two huge TVs (at least) and a projector. The whole time I was there I couldn’t help thinking, “Is this, what American dollars gets you?”

At some point during the party, someone brought out an American board game. The name of the board game escapes me, but I do remember that it was similar to 30 Seconds in that each person had to describe a term on a card and his/her team members had to guess the word.

Me: It’s something that you blow up. You can use your mouth or …

American man: Inflatable mattress?

Another American man: Penis?

Me: Erm … inflatable mattress is correct …

Looking back at the whole thing, maybe I shouldn’t have said, “You can use your mouth”.

I’d arrived at the ocean already clad in my wetsuit. The idea was that as soon as I parked my car I’d delve straight into the ocean, board clutched firmly under my arm. Of course this is winter, so a more apt description would be “cautiously wading into the ocean whilst maintaining a constant stream of “Mother Fucker Barry, it’s cold””.

Upon arrival I immediately noticed that conditions weren’t optimal for surfing. The ocean was as flat as the table on which I dined each night. The energy within each wave would not be sufficient to propel us to shore. So after conferring with Barry we decided that the best course of action would chill for an hour or two (in the hopes that by that time conditions would pick up) before braving the icy Atlantic.

So Barry and I drank coffee, chatted to surfers and walked into various local stores. Now most other women would probably have wriggled out of their wetsuits before window shopping. Not me! I was all too happy to waddle around looking like an oversized penguin. This prompted a slew of comments, the most “amusing” coming from the second-hand book store owner who, please note, looks as if he has daughters older than me.

Book store owner: Mmmm. Girl wrapped in rubber. Nice.

Before I even had the opportunity to start blushing, Barry comes back with, “Makes a nice change considering that men are always the ones wearing all the rubber.” And with that, any embarrassment I felt was quickly replaced with images of Barry dressed up like the gimp from Pulp Fiction. It was only later when Barry re-enacted the above exchange that I fully appreciated (comprehended) his joke.

Of course this wasn’t the last of awkward moments brought to us from the sweet, grandfatherly-looking book store owner. As we exited the store his parting words to Barry were, “Yes, go dip her in the ocean. Dip her in the ocean. Dip her in the ocean.”

Barry, as soon as we were out of earshot, “Why do guys talking about you to me like you’re not even there?”

I don’t know Barry. I don’t know.

How fucking awesome doesn’t this look? Fuck I’d give anything to half this good.

Yesterday I opted out of my Wednesday 6km run and joined Barry and his Friend With Hair (yes, I know I’m getting really creative here with nicknames) for the movie, Kick-Ass instead.

Barry: My fingerless gloves are losing elasticity.

FWH: Your momma’s losing elasticity.

Me: Anyone wants some Corn Nibs?

FWH: Anyone wants some popcorn? Salt and Vinegar?

Me: Who puts Salt and Vinegar on their popcorn? I’m totally judging you. This is my judgmental face. Don’t confuse it with my happy face.

FWH: We went to the aquarium for New Year’s once. There was alcohol. We drank beer while sharks swam around.

Me: Do you know what I’d like to do at the aquarium? Eat sushi.

During the movie there’s a scene where the male lead applies self-tan on his crush. She was completely naked save for a pair of panties.

Me: Wait! I get why she has to be naked. But why is he walking around in just a pair of briefs?

*

A reporter on America’s Golf Channel mistakenly said Tiger Woods dropped out of the last round of the Players Championship because of his bulging dick. What the reporter meant to say was “bulging disc”.

Have you guys heard? On the day of Eugene’s court case in Ventersdrop, the cops had to separate various race groups with barbed wire. All the whites were singing “Die Stem”, the blacks “Kill the Boer” and the 6 coloureds …

well, they were singing, “Make the circle bigger.”

Thanks to Ms Yon for sending the above material through to me.

Thanks to Barry for sending the above Zapiro cartoon to me.

Man, was that one motherfucking depressing movie. There I was lounging on the couch, thinking, “Oh here’s the female version of Rocky. I bet she’ll be drinking raw eggs and running up those stairs to “Eye of the Tiger” soon. And before you know it she’ll be beating the black right off of that smug heavyweight.” Yeah well, it turns out that Clint Eastwood had other ideas.

Anyway, I was bitching to some of my girlfriends about the myriad of things this douchebag has done to annoy the fuck out of me and was surprised to by their response.
Me: Blah, blah, blah. Jackass.
Girlfriends: Oooh. Maybe he likes you.

Seriously??? Are you guys on something? Crack, perhaps? Since when do we give guys a free pass based on a hunch that he might be interested in us?

See this is why I like Barry. Barry gets it. It is irrelevant as to whether or not a guy is interested in you. What really matters is how he treats you. And if you think that the guy is a complete arrogant piece of shit then it is YOUR duty as a friend to hate the guy with as much intensity as I do.

Crystal Pool’s, Gordon’s Bay. It’s a 45 minute drive from Cape Town.