Your chance to be an advice columnist

I, along with all my friends, have been reeling in shock at the revelation that a couple in my close circle of friends have called their wedding off, and in fact have seemingly ended their relationship. I was to be a bridesmaid at this union of what I deemed to be one of the best matches of man and woman, and needless to say recent events have made me revisit the notion of blissful eternal coupledom with a healthy dose of cynicism.

Now, let me state very clearly at the outset that the Gilb and I are a generally very happy pair – yes, frustrated by the fact that a significant portion of our lives together have been maintained over a long distance, what with me in CT for nine months for work, and now him in Secunda indefinitely since April for the same reason – and maybe that’s because we haven’t spent enough continuous time in each other’s company for things to go too awry; most of the times we get to see each other, we spend very amiably, grateful for the opportunity to interact through that greatest of the five senses, touch.

But even so, there are a number of worrying questions that go through my head, and I’m positive through the head of every person in a relationship, whatever stage it is at. Given the break up of my good friends’ supposedly very strong pairing, naturally these questions have dominated my thoughts this week:

1 – It is nigh on impossible that two people will ever contribute exactly equally to the development, growth and sustenance of a relationship. At what point is one person doing too much and the other too little?

2 – No two people’s wants and needs will ever coincide in perfect harmony, so compromise from both parties is certainly required. How much compromise is okay? How much should you be putting your needs ahead or behind of your relationship’s, or even your partner’s, needs?

3 – On the topic of compromise, how much should you be willing to change your ways and attitudes to improve the harmony of the relationship? What are acceptable things to ask your partner to change, and indeed, to be expected to change about yourself?

4 – When cracks and strains do start to show, how much time should you dedicate to relationship maintenance and repair? If after significant effort, things still appear not to be improving, how do you know whether to stick it out longer or admit defeat, and move on?

All answers are welcome, enlighten me oh learned (and perhaps more experienced) ones…

Yawn… an awesome long weekend

Somewhat predictably, the weekend was fabulous. After all, if you take a boyfriend and girlfriend who have not seen each other properly over the past 5 weeks, stick them in a city they haven’t explored in yonks, and give them a bonus weekend day, how could it not be?

So, the lowdown:

Friday – arrive later than expected in Durbs (sigh… when will they see to the “rotational delays” so frequently cited as excuses?), and to both my dismay (at the lost opportunity to embarrass the Gilb) and relief (at not having to fight with golf clubs for seat space), the rental car is upgraded from a Chevy Spark 800cc to a Golf. That’s not all that’s upgraded: the room we booked in a La Lucia backpackers is improved too, at no extra cost. Shweet! Dinner at a nearby Italian trattoria, and retire to bed like an old (randy) couple at the thoroughly respectable hour of 11pm.

Saturday – breakfast at the harbour followed by a stroll down the colourful Promenade, the de riguer tourist trip to Gateway (because I stupidly forgot to bring a cozzie, and oops, found some Avril Lavigne-wannabe Vans shoes – black with pink hippo’s, how could I possibly resist?), the de rigeur walk on the beach. Then a movie (Miami Vice, loved it) and the de rigeur dinner at a pukka Indian restaurant. Advice: some cultural cuisine specialities are really acquired tastes to be left to those with the necessary experience under the belt. I ordered the only exotic drink on the menu, a milkshake (Bombay Shake) that was pink with floaty green squishy aniseed-tasting bits (Fear Factor, behold!), thankfully was denied the starter of my choice (“out of leaves, madame”), and after the damn fine curry, stuffed a handful of the Indian after-dinner-mint equivalent in my mouth. Which consisted of many different seeds, mixed with hundreds and thousands, and tasted like perfume. So revolting I couldn’t bring myself to swallow, yet too many people around to spit it out. The Gilb had a mighty enjoyable ten minutes dawdling over paying the bill before we could leave and I could spit it out in the bushes on the pavement. Retire to bed like an old (randy) couple at the thoroughly respectable hour of 12pm.

Sunday – quick dash to uShaka to see what all the fuss is about (verdict: if you’re purely interested in the aquarium, the Two Oceans in CT wins hands down, although the dolphinarium thing, while being a highly Americanised for of entertainment, was admittedly very enjoyable), followed by a golf day for the Gilb and his old golfing buddy in Amanzimtoti, while I lazed away the five hours with his girlfriend (we couldn’t be more worlds apart if we tried) and 3-year old son, watching Shrek on dvd THREE TIMES. Yes, as you may have suspected, it’s far less entertaining from viewings 2 onwards, but at least it kills time when all you’ve got in common with the lass you’re stuck with is the fact that you both have ovaries. Five long hours later, the boys returned, braaing and more drinking commenced, and the evening improved. Retire to bed like an old (randy) couple at the thoroughly respectable hour of 11:30pm.

Monday – my turn to catch up with friends, this time a doctor doing her community service in Scottburgh. She’s fallen in love with an abandoned five-month old baby who she’s practically fostering until suitable adoption parents are found. Interesting story: the baby was born to a black prostitute who is suspected of blackmailing the wealthy white (married, and familied) businessman with whom the child was conceived. Why else would some dude pay maintenance fees to a prostitute? Anyhow, as a result of the shambles with the parents, the perfectly healthy baby’s adoption process is being hampered (apparently four families want to have her) and the poor thing is living in a ward with sick babies. Taz has fallen in love with the child (who unfortunately only responds to the nickname “Poopsie” and not her real name Melody, which is entirely Taz’s fault) and takes her home regularly. The Gilb, a man normally in fear of such concepts as “marriage” and “children”, took a huge liking to Melody, and I now have photo’s of him nursing the non-white baby to use in an enjoyable shock-the-parents moment – “Ag tannie en oom, kyk vir Gilb met sy pragtige [out-of-wedlock] kleurling babatjie!”

The one major downer of the weekend was news that two good friends have put their marriage plans – and indeed, relationship – on hold. Major respect to the lass for her courageous action, and no doubt more to follow in my next post. Processing, you understand.

Smiles in, frowns out

To hell with it – despite the bad things that have happened in recent days, I’m not going to let the week end on a bad note. There are a fair number of good things that are happening/have happened, so let me don my familiar garb of eternal optimist:

1. I’m flying down to Durbs with the Gilb for the long weekend. After visiting very briefly for the Durban July (the first official visit since 1999) I decided I had to come and check out the SA city that has arguably changed the most in recent years. The Gilb, can you believe it, has never been. So amid all the friend-visiting, I’m hoping to get some decent sight-seeing in. And have a damn fine curry or five, while we’re at it.

2. The week that has past feels like a four-day week instead of the customary five-day slog. Aided mostly by Wednesday’s sojourn at a day spa, comprising a marathon destressing rub-and-scrub-seven-treatments session for me and all my colleagues.

We arrived at Montecasino at the butt-crack of dawn, caught a bus to the resort (Mangwanana, somewhere out Hartebeespoort Dam way) and were ordered to disrobe before breakfast (which of course at these places consisted of muesli and fruit). All in all, there were about 50 visitors, each one wrapped in a white towel robe with matching slippers. It felt like a pyjama party – only far more diverse than the standard kind, as this one was attended by some 50-something CEO types, alongside Sandton kugels, alongside expectant mothers, alongside rowdy twenty-something boozy types (us, of course).

It’s a great concept, actually – it achieves more successfully what the government’s expanded public works programme has tried to do – create jobs. Only in this case, the jobs are permanent, the skills are real and the clients actually feel they’re getting something for their money. About 300 local people were trained up to become masseuses, and the place is open 7 days a week, with day and night spa treatments available. Oh, and you have a limitless supply of alcohol on hand.

The day went pretty much as follows:

a. Shuffle to the table in your gowns, be fed.
b. Order an alcoholic beverage.
c. Shuffle off to some outside lapa where a masseuse slathers some body part in oils and creams and rubs you vigorously while you doze.
d. After 45 minutes, a drum sounds, you awake from your happy slumber and shuffle back to the table in your gowns.

And this process was repeated seven times! Every inch of my body was paid far more attention than it has received in at least the past year, and it saddens me to think they will have to wait for another similar experience before receiving the same attention again.

What totally cracked me up was the fact that everyone shuffled around at the same time, in the same white robe, in a zombie-like reverie, slaves to the bright black-and-orange clad masseuses – it had either a cult (Cult of the White Robe, we called it) or a psychiatric ward vibe going.

3. Like Gabrielle from Desperate Housewives, I feel all broody like a mother at the minute. St Stithians sent me a copy of the report of the Matric pupil I mentor, and I’m all proud of him for his achievements, and I have really enjoyed reading the comments his teachers have made about him. I will have to give him a stern talking to, however, as the area in which he has performed least well is Science, which is just not acceptable for my mentee. So I shall castigate him over a milkshake or something (he can’t have it all harsh, can he?) in the next few days…

4. For all my misgivings about Jacob Zuma, the man can only really start to distress me at the end of next year, when in all likelihood he’ll be elected ANC President. So why stress about it now? Denial is a powerful, powerful drug, and if he’s knocking it back, then why can’t I?

5. After not hearing from my bloody best mate in Vancouver for ages, teasnob’s Mom called me to tell me he had the good sense and common decency to send Timmy and me a postcard during his US cavort. And not a damn moment too soon, dear boy, for I shall have skinned you alive on our Mozambican holiday next month… (and ps: pretty please bring me a really tacky – but cheap, I know your finances won’t allow more – American gift. Like steal a pro-/anti-Bush poster from somewhere!)

6. Speaking of Mozambique, I finally stopped being polite about the refund of my now 10-month-old ticket for my ill-fated trip there in December of last year. On Monday, I lost my temper, demanded names of managers and threatened to sue, and voila! The money will be deposited into my bank account by this coming Monday, and the travel agency will wait for the airline to refund them the money. So my poor month will finally receive a little dole treatment.

Ok, with all this positivity I feel I am entitled to one bitch point, mkay?

7. My fourth and final visit to the dentist this month (and a very large part of the reason I need a dole supplement) has been extended to a fifth. The dude ensconced an incisor in filling and bond to prevent it from “crumbling away” (I had an abcess there in primary school which killed the nerve, and dead teeth inevitably return to ashes, I have been informed), but in so doing has completely changed the shape of the tooth so it now looks noticeably unlike its partner. Worse, it’s been enlarged to the point that I can’t squeeze floss between it and one of its neighbours, which does not do my OCD oral hygiene tendencies any good.

Right. I’m bloggily spent, I hope you have super-duper long weekends, and take a moment to appreciate your SA heritage, regardless of your political beliefs or the country you now call home. For it is truly a lovely, lovely spot on this Earth.

PS: Happy birthday for yesterday Rev! If the f*&%ing Internet had been working properly yesterday, I’d have been able to comment on your site. Mwa!

Stunned

I was going to tell you all about my leisurely day at a spa yesterday, but two things have happened that have seriously dampened my mood:

1 - Jacob Zuma's charges have been dismissed
2 - Richard Hammond (one of the presenters of my beloved Top Gear) is in a critical condition in hospital after a crash while shooting an episode for the series.

Bleh. No more to say today.

Fun with heat exchangers

I spent a generally quiet weekend in Secunda, the principal highlight of which was my much-anticipated tour of the Sasol facility. Due to the fact that most energy-related companies in SA are considered ‘strategic assets’ on account of the fact that they have no competitors – and hence if they are bombed, such attack would result in serious disruptions to the country’s day-to-day running – the security at Sasol is pretty high. The Gilb waited for me outside entrance Charlie 1, and after smothering him silly with kisses by way of greeting, we approached the fearsome gatekeeper at the “key point facility” where he proceeded to explain that he wanted to give his… friend a tour of Sasol (“I asked my supervisor Liefie, he said that was the best way to convince them to let you in!”). What. Ever.

The first thing that smacks you about this place as you pass the gates is the veneer of safety plastered over everything. “Safety first” your cell phone tower signal proclaims. “I work safe for my family” signs obscure your visibility as you drive down the plant’s roads (“Thank you for working safely”, they say as you leave the plant). And the cherry on top, all of the little gifts they give to staff (such as a torch-cum-screwdriver, an overnight bag) have “Safe and beautiful for my family” emblazoned on them. They have electronic billboards counting the number of accident-free hours worked and the current accident rate. Given the number of deaths the company experiences each year, I guess it’s hardly surprising they’re obsessive about it. They have speeding limits, and you can even get fined for not wearing a seatbelt as you’re driving around the plant.

Anyway, the Gilb drove me around the gigantic premises, and it was really cute to see how puffed up with pride he was when showing me the maze of pipes and smoke stacks and fractional distillation columns and flares and pumps and heat exchangers and tanks and and and. “I worked on that heat exchanger over there!” he proclaimed. “See that flare – it’s burning quite cleanly, that means today they’re burning hydrogen!” “Liefie look over there – that’s where they crush the coal before sending it to the gassifier!”

The place truly is amazing, I have to concede. So here are some random little facts about the Secunda plant of the company that produces 38% of the country’s petrol (for which it becomes profitable when Brent Crude sells anywhere above $22 per barrel):

1. The Secunda plant employs 8,000 people and 6,000 contractors
2. Secunda residents have the highest per capita GDP generation in the country
3. The plant alone – excluding any offices, mines and empty land – spans a whopping 4 km by 2km
4. It produces 160,000 barrels of petrol per day
5. The plant is split into two identical sides: east and west, each producing both diesel and petrol
6. The only non-identical thing about the plant is that one of the smoke stack chimneys is 1m taller than its partner, to break some height record for smoke stacks
7. The fact that the plant reeks of chemicals and all staff are required to wear protective ear muffs means that one can fart with smelly abandon and not be caught in the act, the Gilb happily informs me.

Oddly, while the overall 4-weeks’ maintenance shutdown is officially over, not all the units of the plant are up and running yet. Which means that for those that are running, the excess products that can’t be stored or fed into the next stage of the process are being burned. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Sasol is currently burning away petrol precursors – I say, give me the damn stuff for free and I’ll refine the shit myself!

The rest of the weekend was mostly quietly spent snuggling up on a couch due to the miserable weather, bar a foray into the town for dinner on Friday, a visit to the Graceland driving range where I got to show off my profound lack of golfing skills (oh yes, in my mini-mini-mini skirt), and a stop at the video store.

And I finally got to witness the rumoured violence of the town’s male inhabitants – one of the Gilb’s housemates kissed a girl at a dodgy pool bar, and one of her friends was so upset about this that he felt the need to punch him on the eye socket and lip. Small-town rage, go figure.

The Fat Post

Okay: first things first – happy birthday Peas! Sorry you’re not in Jozi to celebrate, but something tells me you’re having a grand old time with the Rhodents! Hugs and kisses, I’m glad you decided to jump on the bandwagon and join the 26-ers.

Now, on to the subject of the title:

In my mind, I’ve always been 56 (kilograms, that is) not 57. In fact, I still feel 56. Unfortunately, all evidence to the contrary…

It all started, not on a dark and stormy night as most such horror stories aptly begin, but rather on the pleasant evening after my birthday picnic before we hit the Colon. I asked 3rm if my usually hot blue pants looked smashing, and he said “errrr… no. definitely not” (he’s horribly honest like that). Okay I thought, they’ve just come out of the wash, they’ve obviously shrunk a little, I’ll stretch them out some other time when rude 3rm is not about.

Then, the other day, I decided to go to gym (primarily because I couldn’t face up to the thought of showering in our very blocked-drained shower), and as an after-thought, I stood on the scale. Let me say outright that I do not believe in weighing yourself – it’s more about how your clothes fit you and how toned you look (and of course how fit you feel); the number on the scale has a very rough correlation to all of this. But I thought, hell Ant, you haven’t weighed yourself in about 3 years, let’s see what it says. Thinking, of course, that it would show what I have always thought was my approximate weight in recent times – 56ish kg. Especially since 3rm and I have been running quite regularly for the past two weeks – I thought there might even be a nice surprise in store with me coming in closer to 55ish. Not so at all. “57,4!” the heartless scale boasted. Still, ever the optimist, I assumed this was all due to the fact that it wasn’t first thing in the morning, and I’d consumed practically a litre of water after my workout in thirst.

But then, because I’m slow at reaching conclusions and the universe is unrelenting in its need to humiliate me, my mysterious expansion was revealed to me elsewhere. On Sunday, 3rm and I went shopping for Peas’ gift in Rosebank, and naturally I got distracted by The Space, and even more naturally I found two dresses I wanted to try on. So I did what I would normally do, which is take the items in a size 34 (a.k.a. size 10), drag 3rm to the change room and parade the said garb in front of him. Except the first dress was toight (damn these designers! They can never stick to conventional sizings! – see how slow I can be?), and the second even toighter (um, that’s weird. It’s a different designer, I’ve just had a number of similar experiences recently – could that mean it’s me? But then that would mean… gasp! That would mean that I’m… I’m…) And so the penny dropped. Denial is a powerful, powerful thing.

So in Cape Town on Tuesday, I broke a rule of mine: it’s my policy not to buy any item of clothing thinking “it’ll fit me properly when I lose weight” – we all know it’s rare that you do, and the clothes just end up never being worn. But my irrational rationale told me to buy the mini-mini-mini skirt (in a size 36 of course, but this I’m positive is cut too small, and I’m sticking by this whether you believe me or not) and force myself to wear it in public. I’d be so self-conscious about the fact that I looked 57 in it, that this would give me the oomph to shed the dastardly kilo and then cavort around in it as a heavenly 56. Anyone buying my logic? 3rm, I hope you realise this means we can’t ever stop running - in fact, I think we aught to up our daily efforts by a km or two!

PS: unrelated, but certainly worth mentioning – I hope you all heard the news that Australians have gone on the rampage following news of Steve Irwin’s death – dozens of stingrays have been found needlessly slaughtered on Australia’s beaches as humans felt the need to take their revenge for Steve’s death. Stop the madness!

PPS: do you pronounce “kilometer” with the “kilo” bit as you would in “kilogram”, or is the emphasis on the “o”? It drives me truly mental that it shouldn’t follow convention with other “kilo” pronunciations.

Diary of a day in CT

I spent a fabulous day in Cape Town yesterday, all for the very important meeting with our company’s website designers to finalise its content… this is how the day went – if only every Tuesday could be as pleasant:

4:30 – wake up! Wash, change, drag an assortment of bags and folders to the car, head to the airport. Try an experiment: test airport security by leaving my Leatherwoman in a zipped pocket in my bag

6:15 – Kulula my way to CT (first time in my experience that any Kulula flight’s left on time!), head on to Imperial Cars to pick up my pond-scum rental, only to be informed that I’ve been given a free upgrade (Ford Ikon, hardly an upgrade if you ask me, but hey, had a free radio. Plus a bag of mints – shweet!) Given my need to stare at Table Mountain at every possible second (even if it involves frequent 180 degree turns of my head) I decide to upgrade the rental premium to reduce the excess in case of an accident

8:30 – 9:25 – staring at the magic mountain while dodging scary CT drivers (and I do believe their taxi drivers have finally caught up with the full suite of bad manners and illegal road maneuvers that our Jozi ones are famed for)

9:25 – 9:30 – marveling at how much Long Street has changed since I last was there in the middle of last year – it now sports more upmarket stores such as Caroline’s Fine Wines and Gourmet Burgers, but I was relieved to see that that reliably dodgy old institution, Mr Pickwicks, is still around (how much longer, I wonder – the rent will probably shoot up soon)

9:30 – 10:15 – meeting with the website designers in Kloof St. I’m so damn organised, it took a lot less time than anticipated (although I’ll not pass this information on to my boss!)

10:15 – 11:00 – shopping on Kloof! Despite the fact that I have less that zero money this month (anticipated cost of 4 x dentist visits this month = R10,000; car service just cost me R6,500; gifts & birthday costs = R800; Gilb anniversary gift = reasonably pricey; long weekend in Durbs = probably R2,500) I felt the need to burn even bigger holes in my credit card. This little shop called Nylon on Kloof had some great deals, which coupled with the fact I scored a date with the manager (obviously unable and disinclined to accept), made me feel obliged make to a purchase (or two). The goods: a silver flower-shaped ring, and a mini-mini-mini denim pleated skirt (more on this purchase in the ‘Fat Post’, to follow later this week).

11:00 – 11:20 – staring at the magic mountain while dodging scary CT drivers en route to Kirstenbosch, where I can see the other side of the magic mountain.

11:20 – 1:00 – walk around Kirstenbosch, often backwards, staring at the magic mountain – are you starting to get the picture that I’m a little obsessed? Keep the sea, I say, gee net vir Jozi die Tafel asseblief! Chuckle at the colourful language of dozens of coloured grannies who mysteriously descend on the gardens in a large, noisy group.

1:00 – 2:00 – eat lunch at the coffee shop, every now and then doing you-know-what to look at the you-know-what. Sigh! So beautiful! Get immensely disappointed at a call informing me that Peas’ friends had decided to cancel the real surprise I had planned for her last night (I’ll get you yet, Peas!), but recover rapidly because the beautiful mountain does wonders for my mood.

2:00 – 4:00 – play the dutiful employee (and geeky yuppie) by whipping out my laptop, positioning myself in full view of the lovely hunk of famous CT rock, and working solidly for 2 hours (probably got more done than I would do in Jozi in 5 hours, thanks to the absence of the Internet)

4:00 – 4:30 – staring at the magic mountain while dodging scary CT drivers en route to the airport (yes, all good things come to an end).

4:30 – 8:30 – get seriously close to finally finishing Paul Theroux’s “The Mosquito Coast”, which I promised myself I would complete before starting on my much-awaited “The Annotated Alice” – 60 pages to go.

8:30 – emerge from the airport to my familiar and much-beloved Jozi skyline, with my Leatherwoman still firmly in my possession – seems airport security’s a little slack, eh?

10:30 – try to devise good reasons to go back to CT to have another absolutely critical meeting with the website designers (nothing convincing as yet… any ideas?)

Strange sights

Perhaps it was because I was in a reflective mood this weekend that I saw a number of things that affected me when normally I might have spent less time dwelling on them; perhaps because in the ‘new South Africa’ the more positive ones among us believe that the average Joe on the street is a little better off than they were before 1994; perhaps because I have a sense that I’m wasting my life being insignificant when I have had the privilege of an upbringing that provided me all that I ever needed and a thorough formal education spanning 17 years, when most South Africans have gone lacking and struggle to imagine a world tomorrow when they’ll be safer, less hungry, and more equal.

Whatever the reason, some hard-hitting realities have shattered the rose-tinted glasses I naïvely plastered to my eyes.

I teach Science classes in Alex on alternate Saturday mornings to Grade 11 and 12 pupils from schools in the area who want extra lessons to assist them through their mediocre educations, and maybe even to escape the realities of their shack-bound lives. A few weeks ago, although I had not yet started the Chemistry syllabus, because Matric prelims were looming ahead, I gave the kids a practice paper on all the sections covered in Chemistry. One quarter of the class put their heads down and started working on it, while the other three quarters stared at me blankly. When I asked what was wrong, it turned out that these kids had not done any Chemistry at all in class this year, and when I asked what they were going to do in their exams, they shrugged. Yes ladies and gentlemen, pupils at 3 schools in Alex have only had half the Science education it is their entitlement to receive. I wanted to cry at the unfairness of it all, but that would achieve nothing. So now I’m pondering the value of arranging weekend workshops to get them through the syllabus to give them a fair chance at passing their exams, and speaking to the Gauteng Department of Education to get those schools into the shit they deserve to drown in, but you’ll forgive my skepticism at the success of either of these endeavours.

Being in the same room as these children makes you forget that your worlds are so far removed from each other, and that this room you share will be the only thing you ever have in common – yes, you know that technically they must live in shacks – but in the same room as you, wearing clothes you might even wear yourself, it really doesn’t hit home. This past Saturday, I did what I usually do before class begins – I went upstairs to the bathrooms to fill a glass with water (speaking loudly for 2 hours always leaves me parched and my throat sore), but unlike usually, the door to the bathroom was closed. So I opened it, to find three naked girls washing themselves from the basin. They had clogged the drain with toilet paper in lieu of basin plugs, and were all soaped up. Startled, I apologised for interrupting, filled my glass from an unused basin, and walked out. You forget that living in a shack means no electricity, no water, probably no sewerage. You see your pupils in a wide-eyed new light; these kids wash themselves from a bucket of water filled from a neighbourhood tap, these kids perpetually smell urine and shit in the ‘streets’ of their ‘suburbs’, these kids grow up unsupervised having to fend for themselves while their parents are out trying to make money, if they’re the lucky ones, that is.

What didn’t help to lighten my mood was the fact that on Saturday night, while driving home from the theatre, I saw a number of police cars huddled on the side of Oxford Rd. As I drove past, I saw fifteen-odd very nervous-looking Indian youngsters standing on one side of the road, and the body of a black man lying in the street, covered by a plastic sheet. Now I’m not presuming the youngsters were guilty of anything – hell, perhaps the guy jumped very suddenly into the street before the driver could do anything to stop in time. What got me is that this man was there dead, alone. No-one to claim his corpse, to mourn his loss – if such people existed, they were unknowingly awaiting his return in a shack somewhere. I know that if such an unfortunate accident were to befall me, there’d be a reasonable number of concerned relatives/friends on the scene, because I am not an invisible no-one – I have a cell phone, a credit card, a driver’s licence, a salary slip.

But before I create the impression that it was all bad, bad, bad (too late, maybe!) some of this weekend’s observations made me smile… one night last week, Peas and I were paging through the lastest Cosmo and commenting on how we didn’t get the whole new rage with gladiator sandals. At our joint party on Friday night, I unwrapped a gift from Peas’ mother, to find just these – in metallic dusty pink, nogal. Peas and I traded knowing glances while I concealed howls of laughter, but I wore them on Saturday and must concede that the damn things are growing on me (Peas says they look good on me because I don’t have large calves, but much more on that later this week).

When I woke up early on Saturday morning (for the Science lesson) I heard a tapping noise from the lounge. I went to see what it was, and found that a mossie starling had made its way through the window and could not find it again to get back out. It took a good 15 minutes for the dumb thing to figure out that it was only probing half of the window ledge and that the gateway to freedom lay to its left – it is really evident where the phrase “bird-brain” comes from.

Finally, while driving through to gym on Sunday morning (a futile exercise, as I discovered Old Ed’s is closed until the end of October for an upgrade) I saw a man going for a run through the streets of Houghton… pushing his baby in a pram. Eh? I’m pretty sure that’s not what his wife had in mind when she kicked him out the door and told him to take the little tike off her hands for an hour!

Working girl interrupted

I must concede that it’s a weird fantasy, but it’s a fantasy nonetheless. Not in the kinky sexual way, just something I oddly daydream frequently about: proposition an Oxford Rd prostitute… to have a conversation.

In my ‘fantasy’, I’ll stop by the Rosebank Zone Seattle, and buy 2 hot drinks (Earl Grey for me, naturally, and most likely a cappuccino for her), then cruise the streets to find a suitable conversation partner. The one that’ll grab my attention won’t be the loudest and crassest, she’ll have a feigned sense of confidence about her that she believes will convince all her customers she’s in charge (after seeing Monster I can’t really imagine this always being the case).

Then I’ll sit her down – under the most luridly bright streetlight, where there’s less risk of her attacking me for my money – and give her an interview.

I imagine the conversation will go something like this (if any reader out there has been in the trade before then you’re of course welcome to correct her imagined responses):

Me: So… what’s your name?

Oxford Rd Prozzie (ORP): Angelica. But you can call me Baby, girl!

Me: Um… thanks, but this isn’t that kind of conversation.

ORP: Then why the fuck have you pulled me from the street, girl, I could be doing business right now!

Me: I don’t really know. You looked lonely, like you could do with some company. Not to say you wouldn’t be swamped with opportunities from passers-by if I wasn’t talking to you now, of course. But also, you looked like you needed a cuppa…ccino, that is. It must be really cold wearing that pleather-mock-croc-hot-pink mini skirt and backless purple sequined top, and your feet must be really sore in those chunky clear plastic platforms, plus your voice must need soothing from all the jibes you screech at cars driving past you.

ORP: Well, fine. I’ll sit here for 5 minutes with you, but as soon as a client comes past, I’m off.

Me: Who are your typical clients, then?

ORP: Anyone, really – from rich married guys to boozy beggars who feel the need to splurge their day’s collections on some lovin’.

Me: I see. And which type of client do you prefer?

ORP: Actually, the beggars. The rich guys are more demanding, and they treat you like you’re a worthless piece of shit.

Me: Why do they come to you then, if they don’t respect you?

ORP: To control someone without fear of being judged. To order someone around who won’t disobey them, who will make them feel powerful because they can buy her body.

Me: Do you charge rich and poor men the same prices?

ORP: In this area, you have to, otherwise the rich guys will go to the competition – those bitches Fiona and Krystal in the next road would do anything to steal my clients.

Me: So it’s all about who’s cheapest, then? Nothing about appearance or prowess?

ORP: Mostly. There’s also some element of “which street is the quietest where no-one will see me pick her up” involved.

Me: I see. And where do they take you?

ORP: Oh, we just do the transaction one or two roads down from Oxford, where the coppers won’t find us.

Me: And what do these transactions normally involve?

ORP: My you’re a nosy one! Nothing you haven’t done before, I suspect: hand jobs, blow jobs, regular and anal sex.

Me: Ok. You like doing all of those things, or you just have to comply with what they demand?

ORP: Honey, I aint got the luxury of choice. You gotta avoid all possibility of violence, so you just get on and do what they ask of you, take your money and get back on the street.

Me: Uh-huh. Not a very pleasant job, by the sounds of it. Why do you sell your body?

ORP: It’s not my first choice, but it pays better than anything else. What job is ever thoroughly enjoyable, after all? Plus, my regulars treat me special [sic] from time to time… roses and shit.

Me: Have any of your regulars fallen in love with you? Or you with them?

ORP: The beggars do – they feel they’ve failed in all other areas of their lives, so the bit of attention they get from me becomes their only real connection to other people. As for my regulars, I treat them all like I love them – they like that. They get very jealous when another client arrives during their love parade.

Me: So any sex tips for a less worldy lover like me?

But before she answers, a Beemer with tinted windows will approach, and she’ll jump up to sell her wares to the wary solicitor. I’ll sigh, drink the last sip of Earl Grey (by now cold) and carry on with my life pretty much in the same way as I would have if I hadn’t had that conversation.

Parties, parties and more parties

Okay, I’m feeling a little embarrassed right now, because people must be thinking “who does she think she is that she needs to have three birthday parties?” And I’m thinking the same damn thing.

Party #1: Before taking me out to dinner on Friday night, The Gilb insists I wear my aubergine-purple dress and black boots (one of his favourite outfits) then proceeds to shag me rotten in it, in a bout of ‘doorframe sex’, let’s call it. Heavenly. Then he took me to the fabulous Singing Fig in Norwood, which was splendid too (marred only briefly by his need to tell me that he had to upgrade his cellphone 3G subscription from 500MB to 1GB because he needed it to download more porn – now I’m not against his need to perv over strange pussies, but really, it’s my birthday and our fourth anniversary, let’s rather flatter me tonight, mkay?). Towards the end of dinner, odd things happen. 3rm calls him to ask how our dinner is going (clue 1). I’m thinking, that’s sweet, but why the fuck does he care? Then Gilb suggests that seeing as we’re in Norwood, let’s go out for a drink, and I tell him that’s a totally bizarre suggestion, he never wants to go out after dinner for a drink (clue 2). He replies with a “but baby (never been a fan of this moniker but we started calling each other ‘baby’ mockingly a few weeks ago and now it’s stuck – anyway, I digress), I’m only going to see you for less than 24 hours, so let’s go for a drink together.” My retort was “but baby, you know I’ll be just as happy if we go home right now and shag!” “Well let’s go for a drink and then we can shag!” “Okay, but that’s still really weird of you.” So he drives down the road ‘looking’ for somewhere to go for a drink, and decides that the best place is New York Café. So we walk inside and I see a friend of mine (clue 3) and I exclaim “Oh my God! What are the odds?” And then I see another friend of mine (clue 4) sitting at the same table as him (clue 5) and think that’s bizarre, those two don’t really know each other and would never go out in the same company. And then I saw Peas and 3rm, and then – only then – did I click. “Surprise!” they all screeched, and I was beaming from ear to ear at the unexpectedness of it all. Suffice to say I should not put CSI on the top of my “jobs I’d really be good at” list. So that was cool – was given two bottles of Chilean wine (good call! You’re so invited to my future winefarm’s guesthouse) and the Annotated Alice, which I’ve been pestering 3rm to buy me. The evening was pleasant (unfortunately distracted by some dodgy black dude at the counter who unwittingly dragged me into a conversation and who said he needed “one white woman” and wouldn’t accept the fact that woman might not be me, especially as my boyfriend was standing just a few metres away. He just wouldn’t go away, so I managed to drag my boyfriend into the conversation, and I ended up laughing because the guy hugged the Gilb at the end of the evening, not realising the Gilb is an Afrikaner, and this dude “hates Afrikaners”). Back home for more conventional-type sex, and very welcome sleep.

Party #2: On Saturday morning the Gilb reveals his second surprise, a massage somewhere in Sandton, but I asked to have it moved to next weekend because he wasn’t going to have one with me and our hours together were few (he’s on shifts at Sasol at the moment, they’re in the middle of maintenance shut-downs). So we did breakfast, frantically shopped for my picnic later that day, and then he departed for the unattractive town I have come to wish I could spend more time in (I did threaten to call his supervisor and tell him I’d handcuffed my boyfriend to the bed and wasn’t letting him go till the next morning, but Gilb would have none of it). Peas and I made our way to Zoo Lake, were joined by C, and picked a spot to set up camp (somewhere wandering coppers wouldn’t stumble to find us drinking in public), and my crowd started drifting in – along with one of Peas’ not-so-secret admirers, as it turned out, damn freaky. We had an absolutely fabulous afternoon, I managed to put in reasonable chat time with most of the groups there, and allowed Peas to twist my arm into doing the Colon with her that night. A few others agreed to join us, and we continued our drinking into the evening. Peas and I not only strangled cats but succeeded in undoing most of Noah’s work, on the karaoke floor (of course, the Spice Girls and Roxette weren’t too happy with our homage, either), and managed to find a suitable wall to pole-dance against – being the entrance to the bathrooms – much to the dismay of the poor would-be bladder-relievers we accosted as they tried to pass through our ‘porn curtain’. More drinking, more dancing, some dodging of Peas’ exes, failed dates and Haahd Paaahk Haarh people I don’t necessarily want to see in social settings (I also discovered the reason why so many former fellow schoolmates hang out there, two ex-HPH students own the place), and eventually home after one hell of a long day.

So that’s two down, third (and last) party happens this Friday to celebrate in conjunction with Peas our 26-year old-hood.

Best party moments

Okay, so I’m 26. Breathe, Ant, breathe. Coping. Sort of. Looking forward to the Gilb’s surprise tonight, and the big picnic tomorrow, even if I’m going to be a whole day into being 26 by then – let’s hope no-one notices.

Instead of moping, I’m going to try and be positive about the whole affair by taking a trip down memory lane – remembering the magic birthday moments. (Before I do that though, let me shout a HUGE thank you to Peas, who has given me an iPod, a lurid pink one, of course! Mwa babe, love you!)

19: threw a biggie at my parents’ house, where the last thing I remember was jumping off the roof and (presumably) landing in the pool – something I’d never had the courage to do sober. Apparently, hero M was so concerned that I’d wake up with a killer headache the next morning that he forced me to get up after passing out on my bed – while everyone was still there – and make me drink water. His report back is that I don’t chew my pizza properly. Later that evening when my memory returned, so did my parents. “Where’s Ant?” my Dad demanded, trying to barge into my room. “Uh-uh-uh, you can’t go in there, I’m protecting her from anyone who tries to disturb her,” Timmy told them bravely (Dutch courage, methinks), blocking the doorway. Ah, good friends…

20? Dunno?

21: Had a swish brunch at the Joburg Country Club, to which I wore a chainmail backless top with the British flag on it – they can’t kick the hostess out for under-dressing, I reasoned. And the hair was Lamborghini red. My Dad sweetly demanded that everyone gather outside for photos, but he kept taking the pics when people weren’t ready, so I’ve got group pics with me re-adjusting my boobs, Nan watching me, people knocking back champers, people losing their balance, random people, but none with everyone serenely facing the camera. A damn good birthday prezzie-wise, though!

22: After having met the Gilb a few weeks before and kerfoefeling a number of times before then too, he finally asked me (and I do believe I’d locked us in the bathroom, shame on me being antisocial at my own party) if we were official and he could call me his girlfriend (this, after asking me to move my party from the Friday to the Saturday because G.A.S.S. was having a really great party that evening – naturally I told him where to go stick it. Ironically, this is the club where we first met). The theme of my party was bizarre: your worst item of clothing, and all foods cheese-related. Huh? We’re talking leopard print meets cream cheese & chives-flavoured chips, brie and camembert, cheese cake. Due to my enjoyment of experimenting by mixing different social groups, I used to have a great track record of hooking people up (yes, used to consider myself to be quite a Cupid, I did – these days most of them are hitched), and big parties at my parents’ place often resorted in random kerfoefeling. On this birthday, it was the stunner doctor and the in-denial actuary-wannabe, getting far too cosy… in the pantry… on a bag of dog chunks! Kid you not. (at another party at the house later that year, I got chucked into the pool at 3am, tried to go into my room to change because it was freezing, and the same guilty couple had locked themselves into my room bumping uglies and saying things to each other that still make me blush today, but let’s not go there).

23: Can’t remember what the hell I did this year, except it coincided with my one-year anniversary, for which we went to the closing-down party of “our place”, G.A.S.S. But I had to have thrown a big party on the other weekend night, I wouldn’t have let it pass without it.

24: Picnic #1. Got a large assortment of friends together, headed on to the Witwatersrand Botanical Gardens for a good old-fashioned picnic. Made a huge container full of chocolate sauce for the equally huge pile of brownies – while driving to the gardens, I spilt some of the sauce onto my passenger seat (didn’t notice till the next morning. The car cleaners had great fun removing it from the seat a month later, I recall). While carrying the container to the picnic spot, I didn’t notice that the stuff was pouring all over the front of my yellow and light green outfit. Safe to say, I was the pleb of the party, if not the park. Jen-Jen licked the chocolate sauce off my left breast cos the Gilb was too embarrassed to do it in public; I bumped into Peas and accidentally rubbed chocolate onto her, which she then vigorously tried to rub off back onto me in what looked like an extremely kinky session; people milled about getting stoned. Good times!

25: By this stage, I was making big dosh, so I decided to splash out with a ‘gentlemen and escorts’ (not the Rivonia Rd specials, the invitation specified) theme at Wine on the Square in Nelson Mandela Square. Was meant to be a rather hoity-toity affair, but it’s hard to be hoity-toity when your hair is the colour of a Caribbean sunset. Yes, I decided I’d surprise my guests by arriving as a blonde, but learnt the hard way that hair doesn’t go blonde straight from blue-black. The bigger setback to my hoity-toitiness was a gift of cigars, from which I inhaled, after a large amount of alcohol – and the following hours are mostly a mystery. The as-yet-unnamed Third Roommate and I apparently engaged in a shockingly loud argument, which spanned the last hours of our evening in Sandton and all the hours we subsequently spent in Norwood. Oh, and two friends got fresh in the dodgy latter establishment’s bathroom hallway, I remember that.

26: a blank page, at the moment. Yes, anything’s possible, but I rather suspect it will entail consumption of vast quantities of food and alcohol, fending off beggars and some mild sunburn. (and that’s just party #1, Peas and I are throwing a joint one next week Friday, too).

So. The birthday theme is now well done and dusted, and life must go on. Look out for the same drivel in a year’s time. But for now, happy weekend, and bring on Spring!