Verbal Diarrhoea

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.

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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.  

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”.

Never too soon
Oh reckless abandon,
Like no one’s watching you

Sweet Disposition – The Temper Trap

Let’s go back in time when I was a freshman* at university and Britney Spears bothered to put on panties before leaving the house. Yes, the early 2000s was a time of innocence. Back then I still believed in soul mates, the healing power of chocolate and that a good job was all that was needed to OWN a house. Now the only thing I swear by is the healing power of chocolate – unless of course you’re diabetic, then you’re screwed.

Comic from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Anyway, the following story takes places a few months into my first year at uni. I’m in the Bolus Herbarium (Botany Library) searching for my BFFs (En-dee!, Fahiema and Goldilocks**). Not finding them I decide to share a table with a group of black students, one of whom I recognize from one of my classes.

So they’re sitting there having an interesting conversation, none of which I can understand because they were speaking in Xhosa. Of course I wasn’t going to let something as silly as the language barrier stop me from participating in a conversation that appeared to shock the audience.  

Me: Wait? What? I don’t understand you guys. Please repeat in English.

Girl: I was just telling them that I watched this series where a black mother caught her gay son having sex with a guy. She them poured boiling water onto them while they were still busy in the act.

Everyone shakes their heads and mutter something or other. And then the boy said something that shocked me.

Boy: Homosexuality – the white man’s disease.

And I just sat there, wide-eyed and disbelieving as everyone else seemed to agree with him. Until that day I’d always assumed that it was only the uneducated that thought this way – now I know better.  

*South Africans don’t use the term freshman so I have no idea if I’m using the term correctly.

**Goldilocks would later stop speaking to us after we screw her over but that’s a story for a whole different blog post. Actually I think I already blogged this story.

Ever since the Caster Semenya debacle I have been weary of using the oh-so-witty comeback, “Suck my big black cock.” Once said, the oh-so-witty comeback should invariably be accompanied by the disclaimer, “I don’t actually have a cock. No need for gender testing here.”   

Anyway, over the last few days I’ve suffered from the dreaded “writer’s block”. I’ve spent hours staring at black pages, willing pretty phrases to spring from the ink in my pen but all I can manage are disjointed words.

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Yet another photograph of my trip abroad. Think this was taken in Pisa. (Yes, there’s more to see than just a Leaning Tower.)

Okay so Mickey tagged me. Now if you know anything about me at all it’s that a paycheque is the only thing that will ever motivate me to complete a task. Moral of the story – show me the money Cuba Gooding Junior. But I have decided that my 26th year (my real age in a few days time) will be one where I am slightly more generous, reliable and understanding. I will buy the Big Issue (it’s a magazine that sold on street corners by willing, unemployed and marginalized adults). When I say I’m going to do something I’ll do it and I will not be so quick to snap at people. Of course I will also live up to my current motto of not allowing fear of preventing me to living life to its fullest.

Erm … I think I got slightly side-tracked. Anyway, Mickey’s meme was that I tell you 7 random facts about myself. I have done this before but I can’t seem to find the post. Agh anyway I guess it really wouldn’t hurt me to talk about myself some more. By the way I should probably warn you that memorizing this list will not assist you in acing your quantum physics exam, lowing your blood pressure or getting the girl (unless of course that girl is me then please go ahead).

1) Have you ever noticed how close to each other the c and x are situated on the keyboard? And that it’s really, really easy to instant message someone ask them to give you sex instead of a sec.
2) I’ve been listening to Lauryn Hill’s song, “Ex-factor” for three years now and it is only until I had recently googled the words that I realized what the fuck the grand poet was preaching. As I had correctly guessed she wasn’t say depository. She was saying, “Tell me, who do I have to be to get some reciprocity”. Yet another sterling example of how one word can change the meaning of a sentence.
3) I arrange all my books in alphabet order according to the author’s surname. This way I can easily spot when someone has taken a book from my shelf. I actually have a mental catalog of all the books I have leant my friends.
4) Individuals of the female persuasion keep asking me if I shave my forearms. I don’t! The hairs on my arm are just really fine. People also always ask me if the reason my legs are so smooth is because I use Veet on my legs. No people, I’m just the type of girl who shaves her legs every time she wears a skirt of shorts even if she’s just shaved her legs yesterday morning.
5) Sometimes I have difficulty falling asleep so I play some Vivaldi (four seasons) or the song track from City of Angels on my iPod on repeat. I basically fall asleep with music blaring in my ears.
6) The first thing I do when I meet a relatively cute boy, is think of how I can change his appearance. I can’t help it. The thought just pops into my head and before I know it I’m wondering how he’d look if I could wax his eyebrows. True story!
7) When I was little I used to paint little blue blobs all over the page. It wasn’t until I looked over at a classmate’s page that the light bulb lit up and I realized that I could actually be painting everyday features. Hmmm I wonder if I hadn’t bothered to fit in whether I’d have been the next great Kandinsky.

Okay I’m supposed to tag seven other people but at the moment I don’t really have time for this. Monday morning maybe?

Something Dr M said reminded me of one of my oldest friends, SH. SH is a genuinely warm person and I know that she has my best interests at heart. She’s also a bit … erm, let’s say eccentric. She was the first person to introduce me to the extreme sport of stalking. Thanks to her I now know the very basics of the stalking. For instance I now know that if you can see your intended victim without binoculars, chances are good that he can probably spot you behind those bushes, leering at him and his friends.

Going to high school with SH was awesome. We would spend hours chasing after guys who were out of our league; poke fun at people who weren’t aesthetically appealing and tempt younger boys with offers of illicit threesomes. There was however one of her schemes that even I deemed insane.

SH was in love with Bobby Skinstad. He is or was a South African rugby player and she thought he was hot stuff. I was less impressed.

One day there was an article in the paper about Bobby’s raucous behaviour. He used to have drunken parties almost every night of the week and his neighbours were getting upset. The newspaper didn’t give exact details about where he lived but somehow SH managed to glean this information. She certainly is resourceful.

With this information at her disposal SH proceeded to convince others to join her on her expedition. She also convinced Tristan who happened to work at a vet, to give her some animal tranquilisers. She was planning to drug Bobby’s dog and then hold it for ransom. Okay so maybe she wasn’t eccentric as much as she was criminally insane.

She later abandoned the plan when she couldn’t get her hands on the tranquilisers and instead she simply placed a few chocolates in his letterbox. I wonder if Bobby ever got those chocolates.