Love noises

Firstly, I apologise, I will have been talking dirty sex-talk on this blog for two consecutive posts, and it might begin to get a bit boring. Secondly, Peas and I had two sex-related conversations last night, so we divvied them up for our readers. And I think we’ve exhausted the topics, for the rest of the week, at least…

Ant: So I heard you last night.
Peas: [looking worried] What do you mean?
Ant: You know exactly what I mean… “Yessss!” “Ooooh!” “Don’t fucking stop!”
Peas: [aghast] Oh. Fuck. You’re kidding me!
Ant: No. We can ask the neighbours, too. Are you denying you screamed out “Don’t fucking stop!” last night?
Peas: No. I’m mortified. Did you hear Smoking Legs?
Ant: Nope, nada. It was pretty much just you, you know… grunting as usual.
Peas: *gasps* [indignant] I do not grunt! I… I… fucking moan appreciatively.
Ant: You’re right. Like a cow giving birth to a hedgehog.
Peas: I resent that. I am a sexy lovemaker.
Ant: *vomit reflex* I’m sorry, what? WHAT?
Peas: Shit. I meant “shag” in a sexy way.
Ant: No, I don’t think so. I could hear you weren’t “shagging”.
Peas: Yes we were.
Ant No you weren’t.
Peas: Yes we were.
Ant: No you weren’t.

[repeats ad infinitum]

Peas: Let’s talk about the noises you make, missy.
Ant: What? I don’t make any noises! I’m considerate, skank-ho.
Peas: Firstly, it’s “skank-whore”. Secondly, I’ve heard you, like 8 times.
Ant: What. Ever. Fine, what do I sound like, then?
Peas: aaaaaahhhhh yes! Yes! Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh… [fading to the end]
Peas: Basically, you sound like a lemming on acid hurling itself off the face of a cliff, with that fading noise you’d hear if you were listening from the top of the cliff.
Ant: So I sound like a punctured tyre? A wounded bat?
Peas: No – louder. Much louder. And about half as sexy as me. Because I don’t grunt.
Ant: For the record, I’m denying your claims. I moan seductively, I gasp becomingly.
Peas: My ass.
Ant: Well, let’s record ourselves then, and play it back to each other.
Peas: That’s sick. But great. I’ll prove I’m not a labouring bovine, you’ll confirm you’re a suicidal rodent.
Ant: Fine. You want to hear the worst sexual noise? If I heard a woman doing this, I’d climb right off and walk out, starkers.
Peas: Worse than us? Bring it on!
Ant: [puts on porno – the same porno with my shoes]

Porno chick: Yeaaahhhh! Yeaaa-HAAAAH! Fuck me with that dildo!
Porno chick 2: Ohhh yeah! That’s a naughty pussy you’ve got! Fuck that dildo!

Peas: thank God we don’t sound like that.
Ant: It would be good for an experiment, though. Like if we were shagging Gilb and Smoking Dick and suddenly spoke like that.
Peas: What, like “Ohhhh Yeaaaaa-HAAAAH! Fuck me like it’s a dildo!”
Ant: Exactly. They’d be instantly revolted and would belt for the door. We should probably do it at the same time.
Peas: …and we’d run after them wielding our dildos! Hilarious.
Ant: Cool, how’s this Friday suit you?
Peas: Game on!

Sticky stilettos

I hope you’ll all appreciate the lengths of research effort I went to, to write this post*: it has taken up considerable hours of my time, both in doing the research and then thinking about it for a good deal afterwards.

See, a few weeks back a colleague told me he/she [let’s keep them extra-anonymous for safety] had seen my new shoes in a porn movie. I was consumed with glee, the same glee that once gave me a week-long high after spotting another pair of my shoes gracing local shleb Noni Gasa’s feet in Heat magazine – in the ‘This Week’s Best Dressed’ pages, not the ‘What Was She Thinking’ pages, I’ll have you know.

Naturally, I had to see the porno myself to verify that my shoes were in fact part of the accessories to the plot. Trouble was, my colleague couldn’t remember in which of the episodes of the porn series (www.vipcrew.com – great stuff) he/she had spotted my gorgeous heels. So I forced myself to wade through hours of arousing material to find them (particularly frustrating when you don’t have a living person there to relieve yourself with). You also tend to get a little side-tracked from your shoe-hunting mission when Andy’s doing Mandy from behind while Jessica is simultaneously nipple-fucking Kim (yes, I did learn something new) and plunging a dildo into Michelle’s cavernous vagina (“Yes Michelle, you like that don’t you, dirty bitch. Spread that ass for me.”)

I kept getting absorbed in the task of determining who had, and hadn’t, had anal bleaching (answer: about 4 out of 5 had, by my estimation), so a substantial amount of back-tracking was necessary, too.

I eventually found the shoes I suspect he/she thought I owned, but my heels are obviously not the type to clad the feet of those climaxing for a living. Pity, that. They’re rather fantastic if I do say so myself.

Anyhow, the pics are below – I’d ask you to guess which shoe’s mine and which one’s the skank-ho’s (is that the right application of the term, Peas?) – but the plate in the mirror reflection kind of gives it away, it was right in the middle of the standard pound-my-pussy-hard-against-the-cupboard-door-after-hors-d’oeuvres scene.

Exhibit A



Exhibit B

*may make this blog worthy of a nomination in the ‘Best Researched Blog’ category… No? Ok, at least I tried

Pee on the toilet seat

Every week day – and more than once a day at that – I make my way to the office bathroom with mixed feelings of trepidation and fatal attraction. “Will it be there?” I wonder. “Will that mystery someone [a female, by definition] once again leave tell-tale golden droplets of urine on the toilet seat?”

And, without fail, there they are – always two drops, one always sizeably larger than the other, both always just to the left off the centre of the toilet seat from where a normal punani would rise after stationing itself strategically for a non-drip pee.

I have no set routine for dealing with this – some days, I angrily rip off a strip of toilet paper and wipe the offending liquid away; some days I (in vain) try to hold up the toilet seat and perch on the actual toilet bowl (a scary solution – only the most diligent of cleaners ever routinely wipes this surface), but alas the seat does not naturally stay up and must therefore be held up, all the way through your timid urination from a sub-clean surface and cautious concentration on not falling into the watery hell that beckons your nether regions. And some days I use the male toilet next door instead.

Apart from not being able to identify the mystery offender, I cannot find a plausible explanation for why she would routinely miss the mark. Possible scenarios that have run through my head include:

1. She is in fact a he. Either some bastard male colleague (who must be perpetually drunk or lacks 3-d vision or likes to wiggle out the last 2 drops while perching his ass on the basin a half-metre away) continually uses the female loo to spite us; or, more interestingly, one of my “female” colleagues is a transvestite, in which case, for the love of well-groomed punani’s, please have the op, lady!

2. She likes to squeeze zits while taking a piss, the problem of the too-high mirror being resolved by her not reclining fully into seated position, but rather just perching over it, and her leaning closer to the mirror for better scrutiny of her facial blemishes. During which, of course, she loses her concentration and falls forward, spilling urine onto the seat.

3. She likes to get some thigh exercises in during her daily peeing sessions, so instead of sitting, she continuously raises and lowers herself onto the seat, doing an even 20 reps each pee time. She occasionally loses her balance, tripping forward and thus sharing the contents of her bladder with the rest of us.

4. She likes to drip-dry, but given that this takes a while and her phone always rings while she’s on the loo (and she can hear it ringing on her desk from inside the bathroom), she’s never quite done before she has to rush out the loo to answer it, leaving a trail that Hansel only wished he’d dreamt up for Gretel to follow.

5. She has some toilet-caught disease and she’s so angry at the unfairness of it all that she wishes to take revenge upon innocent, unsuspecting colleagues, and actually brings a vial of her urine to the office so that once she has flawlessly (and with perfect aim) executed her urination, she can bless the toilet seat with her less-than-holy water.

I’m considering abstaining entirely from the whole ordeal and waiting the anxious 8 – 10 hours until I get home each evening.

If I were…

a tea…

I’d be a lapsang souchong. You’d be in a restaurant, think “oooh! That sounds exotic” so you’d order it, take one sip, spit it out and go “shit, that’s disgusting! I can’t believe I just spent 15 bucks on this!”

a book…

I’d be Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections – everyone loves a good read about dysfunctional American society. It’s beautifully written, too – I couldn’t ever be a kak book.

a piece of furniture…

Never a table (Peas would throw me out, see)! I’d be an antique crotchety grandfather clock – the type all visitors admire, but the owners secretly despise, because they keep having to wind it up, and it keeps going off every hour, on the hour, which would exasperate them when it woke them up at 4am with their bad hangovers.

a famous person…

Definitely Winston Churchill, but less because he was a brilliant statesman, and more because he was incredibly witty, and could spell and punctuate with the best of them.

(disturbed geniuses are also appealing – Mozart, Newton, Turner, D.H. Lawrence – any of these types would suffice, too)

a sex position…

I’d be something simple and practical bringing pleasure to all parties concerned, yet not so conventional as to be dismissed as “routine”. So probably sex up against a wall or doorframe. Horny, urgent, forcefully thrusting sex. Oh yes. Oh. Yes.

an element from the periodic table of elements…

Well, this one’s a toss up, because on the one hand, I could be an electron slut like fluorine, yet on the other, I could be praseodymium so everyone would be all “huh? Never heard of that one before, lemme go look it up”. Educating the masses, you see.

an element of the other type…

I’d be wind. It howls destructively, dancing a vicious tango with trees and rooftops; it provides soothing relief to hot, salty skin; it delights pleasure-seekers flying kites, kite-surfing, or parasailing; it plays a part dispersing life by carrying plants’ seeds to new ground. I’d just rather not be the wind emanating from anyone’s ass.


a colour…

What’s that terrible muddy-brown-shit colour that no-one likes? Well, I wouldn’t be that – I’d be a tranquil, calming shade of green. A sort of avocado-meets-mint-cross-breeding-with-snow kind of green.



a cartoon character…

I’d be Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls. She’s totally me, in animation form.


a natural landform…

I’d be something vast and breathtaking, set in a stark landscape. Probably a monolithic glacier at the ice-caps, or perhaps a dune – you get to travel around a bit.

a pizza…

I’d be pizza alla formica (this would be a bit of a misnomer as nothing would look ant-like on it, but hey, it needs a name, right?) with the following toppings: pesto, artichokes (freshly grilled, of course), rocket, chunky wedges of smoked salami and parmesan shavings. You could only order it with a thin base, and you’d never, ever be allowed to order pineapple as an extra topping. Pineapple does not belong on a pizza, infidels.

a South African wine…

Oh mama! What a difficult choice! Can I alternate from one month to the next? Like be a Meinert merlot one month, a Springfield Wholeberry Cabernet the next, an Avondale Shiraz thereafter? Please? Just never anything from Spier. Ever.

Love, noxious atmosphere and newsworthy gags (oh, and yet another brief mention of the car)

Move right along to the next blog if you don’t want to read yet another V-Day post. Or hover for a few minutes if you’re the kind of twisted fuck who does.

Unfortunately, I can’t satisfy the bulk of you bearing angry cynicism towards the occasion, for I am one of the lucky – perhaps even gauche – few who are deeply in love with (and at the same time feel deeply loved by) someone out there.

But let me not wax holier-than-thou lyrical shlock to any of you, for there was certainly a time when I felt the same way – and who knows, a time may come again when V-Day sends diabolical shivers down my spine for weeks preceding the event.

Suffice to say that I’ll be taking Anthony on his first road trip, heading due east for 160km (the Gilb has commanded me to drive at under 150km/h because the car doesn’t yet have 2,000km on the clock) until we hit not so much greener pastures, as we do sulphur-infused-carbon-monoxide-riddled-methane-choked ones. I’ll be bringing a special bottle of vino along to pair with the Gilb’s home-cooked meal (we don’t do dinners out on V-Day, that’s my rule), as well as my most clichéd pair of ‘romance’ knickers (you know the kind: red, lacy, hearts all over them).

Anyhow, the point of this post is not V-Day (hmmm – just realised it rhymes with ‘bidet’ – that could come in handy for angry cynical poetry of the rhyming-couplet kind) at all, but an observation I made a few days ago, stuck in the midday heat on the M1 South (back in my unconditioned Max-driving days) during that crazy traffic jam caused by the truck that fell off the Grayston Drive bridge onto the highway below – remember that?

Well, it struck me that it’s really difficult to get into the newspapers for doing something good or amazing, and much easier to get coverage for infamy. All you’d have to do is something bad like buy/borrow/steal a gun and go on a shooting spree (even then, in sunny SA you’d be vying for Page 1 with a number of rivals pulling that stunt on any given day), or something really stupid like… drive a truck off a bridge onto the highway beneath it in peak home-bound traffic in the sweltering hours of a Friday afternoon.

Seriously, that’s it. That’s all I wanted to tell you today. Now go out and make babies, all of you! (ok, and, if I wanted to get into the papers really badly, I’d do naked cartwheels in the yellow lane of the N1 South in morning Pretoria commuter traffic – there’s no way I’d even think of hurting my gorgeous new Ant for a cheap 15 minutes in the limelight).

Wow!

Driving my new wheels this weekend was an almighty blast. Every time I had to be somewhere, I always offered to drive, and more than once decided the (longer) scenic route was the best route to get there. I insisted that everyone I encountered (which also included 3 strangers in separate incidents) take a look at blingtastic Ant, and was immensely thrilled with the number and audibility of the “aaah!”s and “oooh!”s the inspections extracted. [I posted a pic last week but for some reason damn Blogger stuck the pic below my last post, not above]

Somewhat aptly, my Saturday morning was spent at the MPH’07 show (Jeremy Clarkson, The Hamster and The Stig all present), where a number of things are worthy of mention:

1. They did a driving stunt sequence homage to 007, where one would naturally think the cars used would be those featured in James Bond movies. Not so. It started with a spectacular hair-raising performance by 4 Alfa 147 drivers, which, despite including some impressive hair-breadth-close fast weaving driving of expensive Italian vehicles, mostly had me on the edge of my seat thinking “for the love of Italy, please don’t let any of those Alfa’s break down on the stage!”

2. During the same sequence, 4 Caterpillars were doing some surprisingly sensual synchronised dance (if you can’t imagine Caterpillars being described as sensual, well, I’m afraid I can’t help you. Words cannot possibly describe how such a feat might be achieved.) I’ve decided I need one, they’re quite handy flexible things, those Cats.

3. A flying car ended off the 007 sequence. Seriously. It was a helium balloon shaped like the new Astra, but so unbelievably lifelike that you thought it was the real thing. It had 2 tiny propellers, one behind each of the front tyres, that magically (or more precisely, by the laws of physics) lifted the rotating car about 3 storeys into the air for a few airborne minutes.

4. Jeremy’s comment about the show being Beemer-free (which elicited a lot of clapping from the audience), had me laughing because he must have noticed what a Beemer-loving country we live in. But, he really is an obnoxious fellow: you get the feeling he deliberately says things that will get him berated (gay comments, kak SA wine comments, “leaving [his] sunblock and safari suit and instead bringing [his] machine guns on his trip to SA”)

5. My new favourite insult, coined by Jeremy. He was describing his most hated vehicle, the stretch Hummer, saying that they’re usually owned by failed druglords, and are frequently seen pulling up outside dodgy clubs, where their doors open and a group of “vomiting slappers” collapse out onto the pavement. I’m definitely throwing that insult around loosely.

6. After the show, we strolled around the exhibition and saw a stand selling model cars, and, surprise surprise, I found a little Mini Cooper that I just had to buy. So now I have two!

7. Lolly Jackson’s cars on display as profligately as his strippers. I have to marvel at the need to stick tacky Teazers stickers onto multimillion rand sports cars – he really doesn’t need the extra advertising any more than his employees need breast enlargements.

Inspired by the gleam and glisten of all the buffed-up cars, I bought Diamond Guard and that black-enhancing tyre spray, which Gilb and I spent almost two hours applying to my lovely Ant. Thunder showers, if you’d be so kind as to restrict your working hours to mine, I’d really love to keep Ant in his pristine (and did I mention shiny, so very very shiny) condition for a few more days, please (I desperately want to post a picture of him in this beautiful state, but Third Roommate has borrowed my camera for a week-long holiday, and there’s no damn way I’m spending 2 hours next weekend repeating the effort).

Happy driving this week, muchachas!

Bye-bye, baby

Dear Max, I know I’ve mourned over the thought of losing you before but I have to grieve again, this time because it’s real.

Even though you suspected it (you’re a sharp Corsa, I know) – I could hear you hissing and spluttering every time we entered a Mini dealership parking lot – you still put on a brave face, and were faithful to the very last minute.

You have even mysteriously been consuming petrol at a far lesser rate lately – was it to convince me you were the most efficient car on the planet, or were you so devastated at my betrayal that you lost your appetite, dear love?

No matter what happens, I want you to remember that you are the longest relationship I’ve ever had, and for the most part, the memories have been fond, even though they might have left some scars on you (and again, I’m truly truly sorry):

Do you remember adventurously mounting curbs to park on, on Friday nights back when the gay Heartland clubs were pumping? Your exhaust once took that serious beating and you ended up going to a very expensive doctor to replace it.

What about the time you went straight over the island on Jan Smuts avenue in midday traffic, very narrowly missing that swanky Merc?

Or the crater left in your passenger door when I let that nasty boy drive you home from Melville?

Or the time that dickhead tow truck driver aquaplaned from the M1 offramp into your bumper?

And, the time you dutifully stopped at a red light, when some twit in a 4x4 slammed into the back of you, and you caused more damage to his bull bars than he did to your bum? (My brave hero, you!)

All these times, you kept me safe – no bone was bruised, no skin cell so much as scraped during any of these sometimes hair-raising moments – and you kept on loyally going, continuing the journey until I arrived home unharmed.

We have traveled 138,000 very happy kilometres together, and seen some lovely places: meandering through scenic routes in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal, enjoying the views and sunsets in Cape Town, and parking outside the Oppenheimer mansion’s entrance until the guard chased us away.

And we enjoyed singing together, didn’t we? You hummed and purred as I howled along to songs like No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak”, Groove Armada’s “Superstylin’ ”, Beethoven’s Ninth, and your all-time favourite, Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life”.

You also liked talking (well let’s be honest – it was more like yelling) to other cars, honking your glorious horn at them for their stupid driving mistakes, especially the taxi’s and Beemers of the road.

Whoever your new partner will be, I’m sure he/she will treat you well, in all likelihood better than I did. You’re getting older now, the energetic behaviour of your youth is no longer a great idea, Max. Your wild streak must be tamed a little, at least in the beginning so you don’t frighten your poor new travelling partner.

And always remember, reverse is our favourite gear.

xXx

To thousands of smooth, traffic-free, puncture-free, scenic drives ahead, my dearest Maxibon.

Got a new friend to show you...

Say good-bye to my old sweetheart, dear Max, and hellow to my new flame, Ant (as in Anthony - a name Peas ingeniously thought of):

Purchase admin

It’s T – 3 (yep, should get the vehicle by Saturday, Monday at the latest), and I’ve had to look back over the past three weeks and marvel at the obscene amounts of admin involved in two large movements of my cash incurred during this time.


List of things to do to open a unit trust investment account:

1. Download application form from internet
2. Decipher form, call customer help line for assistance
3. Gather all documents to meet FICA requirements:
- copy ID book (easy)
- copy latest bank statement (easy)
- write letter explaining that I am in fact a co-lessee with Peas, to whom all bills are addressed, and who signed the lease in the first place. Peas signs (easy)
- get copy of such a bill addressed to Peas (easy, she’s quite organised in that regard)
- get copy of SARS letter with my income tax number on it – ask Dad to ask his incompetent financial adviser to find my documents and send to me (not so easy)
- over three days, make internet banking deposits into asset manager’s bank account, because of frustratingly low internet banking payment daily limits (easy, but
painstakingly slow)
- submit all documentation to asset manager, including proofs of deposits
(easy, huge sigh of relief)
- get a call from asset manager saying Peas must sign an affidavit to swear I do, in fact, live with her (f*%&!!!)
- go to bank, get declaration form for co-lessees, get Peas to sign (easy, but again, painstakingly slow: avoid going to the bank if at all possible!)
- take signed declaration form and recent bill (in Peas’ name) to bank (“No, we won’t act as commissioner of oaths for that kind of document.” “But you gave it to me in the first place. I’ve been waiting half an hour to be served.” “Sorry, go to the police station.”
- take signed declaration form and recent bill to police station for commissioner of oaths stamp. “But Peas must be here to sign. How do I know she’s not dead?” “I’m really sorry, I didn’t know. But look, this bill from last week is in her
name – she must be alive, unless you suspect she died in this past week, in which case I’d be even more distraught than I am now.” “You’re asking me to trust you –
I shouldn’t be doing this, you know.” “I’m really grateful – thank you.”
4. Resubmit forms to asset manager. (easy, but with lots of suspense)
5. Receive call from asset manager saying that all is in order (finally!)

Total time taken: 2 weeks


List of things to do to buy a car:

1. Test drive, test drive, test drive! (not always so easy, but damn fun)
2. Ask dealer(s) to put together a sales proposal (too easy – they’d try to sell it to a 5-
year old)
3. Have current car valued for trade-in (easy – they do it while you’re test driving, except
you cringe in embarrassment that you didn’t have the car cleaned beforehand and
dozens of empty water bottles, pamphlets etc are sitting in the back seat)
4. Day-dream about your new wheels
5. Complete application form for finance (decipher, call finance person for assistance)
6. Thank the dear Lord you’ve just received a raise and your salary looks more
impressive and hence more likely to be approved for finance (ironic, that)
7. Organise new insurance (a f#$%ing pain, I despise this kind of admin)
8. Cry over loss of old reliable car (difficult to detach)
9. Show off new wheels!

Total time taken: 1.2 weeks


Do you see why it’s so much easier to buy expensive toys than it is to save/invest your money? This FICA shit is a clever way to discourage you from saving and encourage careless spending of money! (and you just know the criminals have found a far more painless way to get around the rules than it is for the honest folk to comply with them – that really irritates me).

Why is it that being shown to be FICA compliant once is not enough? Every new account requires the same bloody proof! (“Why not just check with my bank if I comply?” “Uh, no. We need you to submit the forms to us.”)

After the admin ordeals above, I’m so not ever buying a house…

Car-related debates

Let’s stick with this theme, shall we? If all goes according to plan, I’ll have a new car by the end of the week.

In the meantime, two car-related topics have come up in my conversations recently.

Cooling down, slowly

My friend Nan and her boyfriend have been arguing about the effect of aircon on your car’s power. He says (driving a 1.4 litre Golf) there is no discernable effect, as he can see no loss of revs – not even when trying to accelerate uphill with the aircon blasting.

The Gilb (and Nan and the rest of humanity, no doubt) believe otherwise. The Gilb says he loses 200-300 rpm if he turns the aircon on, which is especially noticeable when driving up a hill – on a flat stretch of road, no difference is really felt. I will have to experiment in my new car, as my dear Max does not have aircon.

Vaguely related: A while back, I came across an article discussing fuel efficiency and cooling down your car, regarding whether it is more fuel efficient to use aircon, or drive with your window open (creating drag). It claimed that at speeds above 70km/h, you should use aircon as it becomes more fuel efficient.


More bang for your buck

Over my driving life, I’ve made use of petrol from all petrol stations, and have observed a curious thing: some petrols (BP, Shell) get you further than others (Engen, Caltex, Sasol). At first I thought I was imagining things, so I started keeping a record of the mileage I got out of tanks filled with different petrol brands (in fact, damn! Another graph I could have displayed for my last post!), and the results consistently showed that BP and Shell (although in the latter’s case I have substantially fewer data points – their petrol stations are few and far between) get me almost 100km extra out of a tank. The fact that both these petrol brands do the trick almost confirms the observation for me, as BP and Shell share the same refinery (Natref, for those who care) which means the fuels refined there would share identical compositions (except for certain additives which are added later). Now, I know how variations in petrol can affect performance, but I have yet to do research to understand how they can affect fuel economy.

I forgot about this observation (other than subconsciously always choosing BP/Shell stations to refuel at) until the other day, when the Gilb mentioned that both he and a colleague had noticed different fuel mileages out of different petrol brands – although they said they’d noticed it with Shell only, not BP. They also claimed to notice better performance from Sasol petrol, and swear that this is not blind allegiance to their employer, but fact. (I wonder if the two factors, fuel economy and performance, are inversely related?)

I sheepishly have to admit I’ve not ever noticed a performance difference, nor did it occur to me that there even might be a discernable difference in the performance of fuels, despite the fact that I’ve seen advertising where brands have tried to differentiate themselves on the performance of their fuels. Interestingly, I’ve not seen any ads that I can remember that claim to get better mileage. In a world of ever-rising fuel prices, I find that a mighty strange thing.

Graph it!

I have had a long love affair with the Cartesian plane, dating back to school days when they were first scribbled on the board by enthusiastic Maths teachers. I just love the visual depiction of how y varies as x changes – so… tangible.

Anyhow, I decided these useful things could be applied to many things outside the Maths classroom, and the first “useful” task I assigned them to was tracking my improvement in practising scales for the piano. Every week, the metronome speed would go up, with a corresponding decrease in total time taken to practise 40-odd scales twice through. My piano teacher was totally fascinated with the graphs, so much so that she overlooked the fact that I wasn’t practising them sufficiently at each speed to make me proficient at them – it was all about the steep downward slope, you understand.

Well, more recently, I decided I’d track my blog’s audience to see how many people had come across it before (the average daily readership of the blog is not doing anything exciting, the graph would be approximately a straight horizontal line over time), by monitoring how many times my blog profile has been read over time.

The results are thus:



While the graph looks pretty impressive, I have to give credit to Peas for my increasing publicity; after her winning 2 blog awards and sky-rocketing to blog fame, the fact that I am advertised as her “Itye flatmate” resulted in more hits for me, and in fact would have brought all of you current readers here in the first place (thanks Peas).

Even more recently than that, I decided this month to monitor my monthly expenditure, which gave me quite a shock, not ever having been the kind of person to budget herself. Well, R11,000 later, I realised I spend a lot more than the R8,000 I guessed I spent monthly on average. Thankfully I didn’t try this experiment out in December, I know I would have had a heart attack. Importantly, I tried not to allow my expenditure tracking to influence my spending, I just wanted to see how much I spent – whether I decide I need to cut expenses in some department is a decision to take after a few months’ tracking – after all, there could be some exceptions that pop up from month to month.

The breakdown of the expenditure items was:



Two out of the top three expense categories (rent, clothes, entertainment) are things that I guess could be curbed if I ever felt the need to decrease my expenditure, but in reality I find both rather essential… at least the dentist isn’t something that happens every month! The other thing that surprised me was the fact that petrol came in at only 6% of expenses. We whinge about the price going up all the time, but I guess to the average person living well above the breadline (and travelling regular city distances), price increases hardly make a dent on your direct expenditure.

If a car is in fact in my near future, it will become the largest single monthly expense, substantially more than rent. Food for thought.

The main challenge now is to decide what to track next – any ideas?