Odds & Ends (no pun intended on the latter)

Firstly, some distressing news. My Dad’s friend, an internationally renowned professor in his field, and former Head of School in that field at Wits, shot himself last weekend, leaving behind his wife and 3 sons aged between 7 and 15. I always battle to deal with this news, because although in the past I’ve been so unhappy as to contemplate doing the deed, I know I could never actually have brought myself to do it. There’s a level of despair that is even greater than that I felt – or anyone else who has contemplated suicide, and I know many of you out there have at some point – that I cannot begin to fathom. No-one can really explain it to us, I guess, because those people who could have ultimately gone through with their intentions. And here, a successful man in his mid-50s, with a loving family, world-wide respect for his work and no apparent huge financial burdens, has gone and done it. How tragic.

But, life goes on for the rest of us, and we take amusement in life’s witty little trivialities.

Take, for instance, my little drive up Table Mountain the other afternoon to dodge the traffic. I parked a wee bit up on the road from where all the cable car traffic parks, and sat for a while just enjoying the view of the lovely little curve of earth that is the CT city bowl. It was about 5:30, and the shadow that Lion’s Head cast over the city was disturbingly long and thin (back when I used to paint, I always looked out for these sorts of things, because it’s not immediately obvious what shadows some objects will cast, making it difficult to ‘guess’ them to portray in your art). I immediately thought “Wow, if I had had to paint this, I’d never have guessed that little dumpy poo piece of mountain would cast a shadow that is so long and thin over the city. I’d have got it totally wrong.” So it occurred to me that this shadow casts a pretty darn regular sweep over the city bowl, and if you lived in any area touched by the dark finger’s shade at any point of the day, it would happen at precisely the same time each day (give or take, given seasonal variations). In short, its shadow is like that cast by a sundial – neat, hey? “Daaaaaad, what’s the time? Well, we’re in the shadow, son, so somewhere between 5:20 and 5:35. Why do you ask when you should have known that already?”

In another life triviality (and beware, this one’s very, very trivial), that thing I’ve recently started to fear has finally happened. You know those new nifty cartons of Clover milk – the ones that make fresh milk last a lot longer than normal? Well, I’ve always been fearful of the little tag you use to tear off the top of the container, breaking during the process. It looks so flimsy, that I’ve always treated it with the greatest of care, gently pulling on it at an angle that I’d imagine would cause the least distress to the plastic. Yet somehow, my delicately precise actions still caused the thing to break the other day. So I had to hack at the damn thing with a pocket knife. You’ve been warned – always keep one handy!

PS: A huge congratulations to Peas for winning yet another blog award this year – Most Humorous Blog of 2006! And well done to all the other well-deserved winners, hope you're more skilled with your vuvuzelas than Peas is ;)

one-legged 'mobile

If you happen to see a chick driving a white Fiesta down the M3 in Cape Town with her left leg tucked under body, then stay the fuck away. For it is me, attempting to drive an automatic car, perpetually falling into the habit of trying to depress the clutch and change gears, as those who are accustomed to driving manual cars are wont to.

Despite my protests at 10pm on Monday evening at the Avis counter, they gave me an (unconditioned) automatic car. I couldn’t even get the damn thing out of the parking lot without help – I didn’t realise you had to brake while changing the ‘gear’ from ‘park’ (what the hell is that?) to ‘drive’.

This situation last happened during my last long stay in Cape Town, way back in 2004. My colleague, who drives an automatic, asked me to drop her off at the airport in her car one day. For the first nerve-wracking kilometre (naturally, down the bloody N2), I couldn’t understand why the car jerked forward and halted so violently. It took me that long to realise that left feet were not made for braking, given their accustomed task to jamming in on the clutch.

So now my resolve to confining my left leg to numbness under my ass during violent cussing sessions every time I accidentally move the ‘gearstick’ from ‘drive’ into ‘1’ or ‘2’. Automatic cars do have one nifty use though – in addition to needing only one leg to drive, you need only one arm to – the left arm can quite safely shovel spicy chicken tikka pasta salad down your gullet while the right navigates the vehicle round a corner.

Useful, that.

ps; still no internet access! i'm going mental!

Riddle

I love our crazy language, don’t you? I have a minor obsession with English words and phrases, and always keep my beloved Collins dictionary (I like their etymologies better than the supposed bible, the O.E.D.) and Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable close at hand.

Two phrases I looked up this morning (although in neither of the above-mentioned books!) include:

The bee’s knees
By some, alleged to refer to the concentrated goodness to be found around a bee’s knees (where their pollen sacks are located); by others, meant to be a twist of the word ‘business’. The phrase was first used in 1797 to mean ‘small’ and first appeared in print in the 1920s. Today it is thought that the phrase was merely coined because it rhymes nicely; at the time the phrase was invented, there were many other ridiculous terms for ‘excellence’, including: the snake’s hips, the kipper’s knickers, the cat’s pyjamas, the sardine’s whiskers.

Monkey’s wedding
The symbolism of references to sunshine and rain happening simultaneously is unknown
, all that is known is that many cultures have a phrase for this occurrence – in South Africa, we call it a ‘money’s wedding’ which is a direct translation of the Zulu phrase umshado wezinkawu, a wedding for monkeys. In the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the term used is ‘sunshower’; the Arabs use the phrase ‘the rats are getting married’; the Polish prefer the lengthy ‘when the sun is shining and the rain is raining, the witch is making butter’ as do southern Americans with their ‘The devil’s behind his kitchen door beating his wife with a frying pan’. Other cultures include animals ranging from foxes to tigers.


And now for a little riddle: you’re walking down a path, and reach a fork. The path to the left leads to (at least temporary, if not more permanent) self-frustration*, while the path to the right leads to your heart being extracted from your chest with dull tweezers and then thrown in the way of stampeding bulls. Which path do you take?

*Nope, I'm not talking about the sexual frustration kind. That sort can be relieved rather quickly, partner or no.

Zero to Maxed in 3 easy steps

1. You choose to forget that you’ve charged hefty work-related expenses (e.g. flights, rental cars) to your credit card already. Oops.

2. You go to the V&A (so many shops!) to visit a friend, who doesn’t know the rule. When Ant says “Ooooh! Do you mind if we quickly go look around that nice expensive boutique wine store? I’ll be 5 minutes”, the good friend is supposed to say “No no, just keep on walking, do not – I repeat – DO NOT deviate from this path” instead of “Ja, sure. I’ll come with you.” Of course, coming with me means there are more hands to lug more wine around the goliath of a shopping centre. (Thanks F, you’re a peach, and the tarot card-labelled wine has already been quaffed. I give it a 3/5).

3. Restaurants, restaurants, and more restaurants. Some reasonably priced, some expensive, some just plain ludicrously overpriced. (Although they all have one thing in common - the service leaves much to be desired. I did go to one nice Austrian place in Hout Bay where the almost-Scarlett look-alike Austrian waitress gave us outstanding service. I’ll be back for more next week – the service, that is, not Scarlett.)

Yet another good reason I don’t live in this pretty city, I wouldn’t be able to afford it. Too much to see, do, buy and eat, all at around 1.3 times the prices in Joburg.

One thing that would be better off here is my fitness – somehow you just want to exercise as an excuse to enjoy the scenery (a case of the means justifying the end), and it stays lighter longer in summer, meaning longer working hours do not always have to hamper your good intentions. My nerves, on the other hand, would be more frayed during the morning/afternoon commutes. No-one uses indicators at all (as opposed to the 10% of drivers in Joburg that do), and they use traffic circles very differently than how I have become accustomed to using them in my mother city.

Ah, it’s always a love-hate rivalry between these two cities and my emotions about both of them.

Happy weekends, y’all. I’ll be doing the Joburg one day, Cape Town the next, thing throughout next week. It’s a tough life, ain’t it?

Sea, sweat and sex with strangers

Well here I am, sitting in a large corporate office in Cape Town, where my usual IT luxuries have been taken away from me: I’ve had to fight for an adaptor that will allow me to connect my laptop to power (because normal three-prong plugs aint good enough and no supplier has stock of the right kind, not even our client), I have zippo connectivity for Internet and email (thanks to the colleague who lent me his iBurst for a few precious minutes), and up until half an hour ago any time I left the building someone had to come down from the 7th floor to let me back in.

Not all’s difficult though – I am wearing my fabulous new bright red peep-toe stilettos, and out the corner of my eye can see the lustful/jealous stares of the strangers as I walk past their honeycomb desk hives. This infinitely improves my mood, of course. And tomorrow I’ll don the new bright green pair (how many green pairs of high heels can a lass have, I wonder? Four and counting, and still nowhere near my fill) bought in aid of that best day of the year, St Paddy’s.

I went for a jog yesterday along the beach in Hout Bay, and that eternal question popped into my head: why do we choose to live in Joburg when the sea, mountain and longer summer days are to be had in Cape Town? (I already know the answer to this rhetorical question, of course).

Anyhow, 2 little anecdotes to relate: firstly, my boyfriend has informed me he’s officially joined a thpinning class. Yes, folks, in the midst of manly, traditional Secunda, the Sasol gym (where the clientele is 90% male) has a thpinning class where big hairy men (and one woman who apparently looks decidedly unattractive in her yellow lycra cycling shorts) gather for a communal session of sweaty peddling. I asked him not to tell me about it every time he goes, I’m mortified. [“Oh, so my boyfriend rode the Duzi this weekend, and is doing the Paris to Dakar next weekend. What’s yours do?”. “Um, you know, thpinning. But he used to play action cricket until they closed the venue last week.”]

[And apologies to all the spinners out there who I’ve just insulted. Well, maybe.]

Secondly, I was driving back from Parys for an emergency work trip on Sunday night, when I stopped (as one does) at the toll gate to pay, and the dude proceeded to beg me to take his friend to the Engen garage that was about 5km down the road. Now, I used to do this more frequently when I was younger with far less concern, but these days I’ve become cynical and paranoid, and the Gilb’s given me express orders not to give any stranger a lift, ever. But, cornered there as I was, I felt I had no choice but to oblige him, and take his friend to the Engen. The guy was chatty enough, but literally 1 minute into the journey he says “I’ve never had sex with a white woman before”. Oh God, I thought, he’s going to follow that up with “…and tonight’s going to be my first time.” Panic attack! I quickly diverted the conversation by asking why he wasn’t wearing shoes on a cold windy evening, we then got into talking business, and I… felt compelled to give him my business card. He did ask, what was I to say? Anyway, much admonishing from the Gilb later, I’m relieved to say that I’ve done my good hitchhiker deed for the next couple of years. It’s sad that we always have to think the worst of people, but I guess that’s the society (and to a large extent, the world) we live in.


(PS: chin up, dear Peasypoo, I wish I could be there to help cheer you up xXx)

WWIII

The Gilb and I had a discussion the other day about countries’ contributions to society (reading ATW’s post about the impact of Rubik’s Cube on his native Hungary reminded me of this). Basically the question we were trying to answer was:

What indispensable contributions have the nations of the Earth made to society?

(although at the time we worded it as “If you could wipe out each country of the planet one by one, what inventions/products/discoveries would you keep in the course of history?”)

Of course, the answers are highly subjective – what I think is indispensable you might not agree with, and of course you can argue that someone else from a different country would come up with those things instead. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume they don’t, i.e. if it was discovered/invented/produced by that country, no other country would have managed to replicate it instead.

So… here’s my take on things – please note I’ve not done any additional research, so I’ve used what limited general knowledge I have, and it’s very evident how remarkably ignorant I am of the contributions of the countries of the world, especially in areas such as philosophy and politics (and ashamedly, any contributions of the developing world). But, feel free to educate me.

Italy
Indispensable: Ancient Roman road/aqueduct knowledge, …?
Very nice to have: Famous Italian composers (e.g. Verdi, Rossini, Vivaldi, Puccini), famous Italian artists (e.g. Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli), Roberto Cavalli, grappa, Dante Alighieri, tagliatelle
Definitely dispensable: the entire post-WWII government, football antics, Italian pop music, vomitoriums

France
Indispensable: Pasteurisation, methode champenoise (for making champagne), Rene Descartes
Very nice to have: Brie, Camembert, the Louvre, gargoyles, croissants
Definitely dispensable: French pop music (yes, Peas), Jacques Chirac, closed-minded small-town French folk

UK
Indispensable: All of Newton’s work, a language that has managed to become globally accessible (even if not the most spoken), ..?
Very nice to have: Earl Grey (you’re surprised I didn’t put this under ‘indispensable’, aren’t you?), high tea, Tudor architecture, Shakespeare’s literature, Turner, Scotland, phrases such as “I can’t be arsed”, “ginga” and “minging”
Definitely dispensable: football thugs, responses such as “fantastic”, colonial slavery, those shit-hole hostels on Bayswater that look beautiful from the outside but are fucking awful on the inside, the Millennium dome

US
Indispensable: The internet, most computer hardware and software, resources spent on R&D in biosciences that attract bright foreign talent, consumerism (for the world economy’s sake)
Very nice to have: Model T Ford, Google, the moon landing, the World Trade Center (sorry, that’s a bad joke but I couldn’t resist), Scarlett Johansson, Hollywood gossip, hippie culture, The Simpsons
Definitely dispensable: George Bush, all foreign policy plus xenophobia, McDonalds, Utah, Ohio, Nebraska, Tom Cruise, CFCs and leaded petrol, American football, yaks, yams, American spelling, the Imperial measurement system

Iraq
Indispensable: zero, …?
Very nice to have: oil, …?
Definitely dispensable: Muslim fundamentalism, gender inequality

China
Indispensable: Nelson Mandela (cheesy, but if not for him, I’d have left this section blank!!!)
Very nice to have: Kung fu, Ming dynasty pottery, cheap labour (for some)
Definitely dispensable: disregard for the Kyoto protocol, unashamed courting of resource-rich developing nations, human rights abuses/exploitation


And I’ve left our little nation till last, because I’m extremely embarrassed at my inability to complete it adequately:

South Africa
Indispensable: Nelson Mandela (cheesy, but if not for him, I’d have left this section blank!!!)
Very nice to have: koeksusters, Madam & Eve, gold & diamonds & platinum & coal & uranium, fruit that tastes like fruit not just looks like it, extreme ironing, Ndebele art
Definitely dispensable: apartheid, crime, policies regarding Zimbabwe and healthcare, fake Tuscan architecture, the Gautrain, taxi driver behaviour



My choice of countries has been very westernised, I’m aware. I’d love to have included places like Ecuador, the Ivory Coast and Nepal, but I’m not educated enough on these nations even to attempt it. Anyone know any better?

D’oh! Eek! Oops! and Grrrr!

A number of bloopers / irritations to report to you from the past week:


Ageing gracelessly
It was a dark and stormy night… okay, actually it was about midday on Saturday at a table outside the Dros in Cresta, but the tale that follows is as scary as any Hitchcock thriller could be…

There we were, downing draughts at a swift pace, when the Gilb’s pal (coincidentally named after my previous car – but, irrelevant) screeches out at the top of his voice for all the three-eyed Cresta people to hear: “Ohmygod! That’s a grey hair right there, on your head!” I angrily shut him up, categorically denied the accusation, and drained my glass. The Gilb, bless him, immediately rose to my defence, saying that it must be a blonde hair and not a white one. Like monkeys grooming their offspring, they proceeded to pick through my tumbling chestnut locks (okay fine… my punky short ‘do) until they’d isolated the offending hair, then yanked it out, along with one from Max’s liberally-Clooneyed head for comparison. We’re undecided: it was much finer – and dare I say more golden – than Max’s exhibit, but it does beg the question: what is a lone golden hair doing in a mass that is not only decidedly brown in colour, but also regularly washed with Sunsilk Deeply Brunette shampoo (shampoo, lather, pray silently that my crowning glory avoids turning that lighter mousy brown colour, rinse, repeat as necessary)?


The only proof I have my boyfriend is a filthy man is sitting in some garbage dump
First: anyone who reads this and knows the person who gave me the gift, DO NOT tell him, please. I’m mortified. (N, you hear?)

So, in November last year when I went to Mozambique with a bunch of friends, we had a wild and crazy night out in Maputo, and a friend took a photo of a prostitute bumping and grinding against the Gilb in some club, much to our collective amusement. (A few seconds before the happy snap, she had her hands on his crotch – I’ve never seen him look so chuffed at such attention! But the camera came out too late for that…)

Anyhow, we got back to Jozi, and ever-faithful Murphy’s law – the one photo that was corrupted and couldn’t be enlarged beyond a thumbnail pic was Gilb and his lady of the night. Miraculously, a few months later my friend managed to enlarge the pic somehow, and after repetitive nagging from me, had a large copy printed. Unfortunately, he chose to give it to me on Saturday evening when we were out for dinner and drinking fairly heavily. For some reason, the notion of putting the photo in my bag eluded me, and I instead stuck it on the floor under my bag, which was somewhere under the large table. We drank, we shouted (this particular group’s preferred mode of communication), we drank some more, we haggled over the bill, we gathered our belongings from under the table (…can you see where this went wrong?) and happily stumbled to our vehicles (yes, I’ve been driving Ant under the influence recently. Shame on me, the concern has largely worn off already). Only back at the flat do I remember that the photo is still under the table, but when I call the following day (and the day after, just to be sure), it’s nowhere to be found.

The Gilb is devastated; I’m frustrated at losing the jewel in my emergency blackmail material collection for his folks. I’m also too sheepish to ask my friend for another copy immediately, after the way I went on nagging about it and managed to lose it within a few hours of obtaining it.

[Reminder, N, don’t tell him yet, please!]

White lies get you nowhere
This is such a daft story, I’m embarrassed to tell it. But, as always, I will. Picking up two grocery items at a P ‘n P on Monday evening, I was standing at a till to pay, um’ing and ah’ing about which of two adjacent queues was shorter. I was just about to move from the one till to the next, when I see a slightly older dude had joined this other queue fractionally before I moved into it. One of those awkward chivalry games ensued (“No you first”, “No, really, you first”) and to spare the battle of politeness, I lied and told him “No really, I was just stepping across for some chewing gum.” Of course, he could see the same brands of chewing gum displayed at my till’s counter, but he had the grace not to say anything. I fumbled through the chewing gum offering, picked two random types (I don’t chew the stuff, so it was purely an academic exercise) and stepped back into my queue. As it turns out, we both had trouble at our respective tills (my f$%^ing chewing gum packs wouldn’t scan!), but after eventually paying for everything, I put the chewing gum into my handbag and carried the other two items out without buying a plastic bag. Mr Chivalry walks out beside me (not-so-surreptitiously scanning my hand-held acquisitions for the chewing gum he knew I didn’t really want, and presumably came to the incorrect conclusion that I’d just dumped them at the till because I hadn’t really wanted to buy them after all) and says “Glad to see you’re done with your ordeal!” flashing coffee-stained teeth at me. Cringe! I felt like pulling the chewing gum out and offering him some just to show my earnest enjoyment of the product, but there’s never any knowing how much deeper a grave you can dig for yourself, is there?

Irritatingly smug journalism
Watching Carte Blanche on Sunday, I realised that the show frigging annoys me. Now I can’t speak with authority since I hardly ever watch the damn thing, but I have figured out what it is that bugs me about it so much. They only have two kinds of approach to any story: 1) a pure fact-finding interview where they ask the interviewee neutral questions and get neutral answers (I have no particular gripes with this approach, sometimes it’s interesting, sometimes it’s not), and 2) a sensationalist investigational story where one party is so obviously the victim and the other so obviously the heinous criminal that they might as well not have pursued the story at all – no-one changes their minds about the topic, and it’s clear that they entered the story with pre-meditated opinions which get justified along the way. For once, I’d like to see a Carte Blanche piece where they go in thinking one thing, and learn something from their ‘investigations’ that actually changes their opinions – and perhaps some of ours – along the way. Please, actually teach us something.


PS: I’m so excited, I’m heading out to the ‘Noni tonight for Pro-20 cricket to get a glimpse of the Gilb, who is trekking the 150km out of the Poenda in honour of his beloved game. Of course, the poor bastard doesn’t yet realise that this act provides ammunition in any future argument where he refuses to come to the ‘Burg at my request for an equally important mid-week event of my choosing. But that’s for another time.

Birds of a feather

Do you ever wonder how differently you would have turned out if your social circles were different than the ones you float among today?

This thought (certainly not the first time it has occurred to me), was the singular thought that traipsed my mind throughout the course of a dinner I attended as a partner for my close friend last week. ‘Partner’ as in back-up, conversation mate, effective tool for the avoidance of lengthy conversation with the other dinner attendees.

See, me and T are nerds/geeks/dorks who go way back to a time when nerds/geeks/dorks were still pretty uncool. Back in school, us and third partner in crime, G, while never being picked on, were never really included in any of the cool people’s activities. Not that it bothered us, it was just the unspoken rule: the jock set (don’t get me wrong, a lot of them were really intelligent people too, but they also had the good athlete and prom queen attributes that are necessary criteria for membership) didn’t mix with the nerd set.

I think those were the formative years (forgive me, I’ve always wanted to use that pretentious snotty phrase, now I found a context for it) during which we became the cynical, rude, elitist bastards that we are today. We didn’t shake those traits when we upped our social profiles at varsity, where you start with a clean slate and no-one can fairly judge you until you seal your fate through action. Then, somehow nerd-dom/geekdom/dorkdom became a vastly lesser offense, and our little trio expanded significantly to include some of the jock set (and yes, of course, other people labelled as we were in high school). One thing we all had in common – some to a lesser extent than others – is that we all recognized the cynical, rude bastards in each other, and began to feed off each other’s black comedic side.

The reason I tell this tale is threefold: one, I damn enjoy our style. I like that we’re ironic, callous, horrible and annoyingly intelligent (again, some more than others. I have friends of unbelievable genius who, rather than finding intimidating because of my lesser intelligence, I thrive in being around. They have challenged me to think about things I might not have thought about, in ways I’d never even consider thinking about). Two, I’ve realised I’ve grown to enjoy the company of people of other inclinations (although admittedly far fewer in number) who have challenged me to step out of my ironic/callous/horrible habits from time to time – they help you to stay just optimistic/sensitive/friendly/sincere enough to thrive and to smile at nice things from time to time. And thirdly, there are people that are worlds apart from me and anything I could ever be.

Oh yes – that was the thought that struck me the other night – these people were what my doctor friends used to refer to as the “pillars of society” – the ones that always did their homework assignments, studied longer than necessary for exams, and were somehow possessed of personalities that failed to evoke any lasting impression in our minds. (No doubt, they felt similarly indifferent about us).

That’s what makes this blog thing so fascinating – I have no idea what type of people you really are, and yet we manage to engage – albeit very superficially – on a broad number of topics. We’re less judgemental ‘up here’ for some reason. I guess that’s why blogger meets work for some people and not for others – some people like the anonymity that goes with their thoughts.

Putting your nuts in a safe place

I wrote a post for today, but ugh. I looked over it this morning and realised it’s a self-indulgent woe-is-me rant.

I guess I realise now that I’m suffering from a mild bout of depression, which has probably been the case for around four months.

Suffice to say I feel… displaced. And perhaps misplaced, and even replaced. I just wish this awful feeling would go away.

One thing that did make me smile this week was this logo. At first I looked at it and thought, what the hell qualities does a rodent have that embodies any of the qualities a society for financial services would want to advertise to the world? Then I looked a little closer and realised it was a squirrel, and suddenly the logo was a lot cleverer. Cute little things, those.

SA’s gone as wedding crazy as Hollywood has gone baby crazy

I had two weddings last weekend, so had to do the mad dash from Gilb’s colleague’s one in Pretoria to my friend’s one at larny Glenshiel in Westcliff (guess where I wanted to spend more time, and not only because she’s my friend…)

This weekend started with a colleague’s bachelorette, in a few weeks time I have another colleague’s engagement party.

Anyway.

The bachelorette party was awesome – no cheesy woman selling sex toys you buy and end up using only once (like the last one I went to – the f&%*ing things take 4 watch batteries that get depleted with one weekend’s use) – just good old fashioned drinking, dancing, truth or dare, pass the parcel (I won those little plastic boobies you wind up and they hop around so naturally when I got home I showed Peas that we could make a jumping titty fuck with her little plastic hopping penis) etc. She’s an Irish lass, only been in the country for 18 months, so wasn’t expecting anyone to organize anything, so the hospitality of her SA friends really overwhelmed her.

One of the things they did for her (which I’ve subsequently learned is quite standard for these parties) is a video interview of her fiancé where they asked him questions about his feelings for her, and before playing it for us, tested her by seeing how well she knew what his answers would be. So, I decided to put the Gilb to the test, too:

Q: What’s your favourite body part of mine?
A: Your bum. [I thought he’d say stomach or upper arms, but, you know. A nice ass is fine by me. Incidentally, his bum – toight but still squishable – and his hands are my favourite parts of his body. Oh, and that ridiculously cute dimple on his left cheek. He gets away with murder because of that.]

Q: What’s your favourite dish I cook for you?
A: Burritos and that tomato-green pepper-tuna sauce pasta. “That’s it? Nothing more… unique, less replicable? My successor could whip those up in a heartbeat!” [my favourite dish he cooks for me, and this is an easy selection because I’m far less spoilt for choice, is toasted chicken-mayo-chili-cheese sandwiches. But he has a very particular, careful, time-consuming – pedantic even – way of making them that is adorable to observe. So long as you’re not starving, you’re going to wait far longer than is ever really necessary for a toasted sandwich.]

Q: What is your favourite thing about me?
A: You’re so cute! (And in response to my eyebrows raising threateningly)…And so, so hot! And you dance really well. We couldn’t have stayed together this long if you didn’t dance like you do. I wouldn’t want anyone else to have that pleasure. [yes, I know I dance really well. Dancing and spelling are the two things I beat most people on, but they get the upper hand on most other things. When Gilb and I first met (in a gay dance club, cringe!), he came up to me and told me I dance really well. I told him I know. It was a sure thing from then on. But, I digress. My favourite things about him are his kindness and gentleness, and how good he is with his hands – he’s a really handy guy who knows how to fix anything. That’s a huge turn-on.]

At that point, we gave up on the game and went and had sex. Unfortunately, both his housemates were home (in rooms on either side of his), so I wasn’t brave enough to try out the “Yeaaa-haaahh! Yeaaaa-haaaaah! Fuck me like it’s a dildo!” line, but there’s always next weekend.