Sunrise over the 'Ville

Compliments to the cameraman.

From the Mailbag ...

elgn2005 (4/13/2006 3:40:09 PM): hi baby,i am doctor ahmed from egypt,do u wanna chat?i have seen ur profile in tagworld.u r very nice and beautiful.i will go to south africa in next august to work there.i hope that we can become friends then.i hope also that u accept my invition to u to visit me in egypt.i can send the tickets of the plane for u,u can come with ur family or ur friends.and when u come,i will be ur guide to see very beautiful historical places as pyramids,sphinx,templates,river nile.u will enjoy the warm weather in egypt.and u will see me,i have a cam now if u wanna to see me.so pleeeeeeeeeeease do not say no,this will break my heartso if u wanna to talk with me again,add me to ur messanger list or send offline message to me,as i rarely open my email,my msn messanger is ******* @hotmail.com.

On Hair, not the musical & Robbie, the musical.

It's almost a cathartic exercise.
There's something about getting a really good haircut that beats any prescription filled out for a dosage of happy-happy-joy-joy.
While the scissor-happy pusherman snips, slashes and texturises, and chunks of you fall to the cutting room floor, you can't help but feel that you're letting go of old pretensions and hang-ups.
Remember that time you said that stupid thing you said? And when the whole world suddenly shrunk into itself, leaving you oblivious? Now see that single cubist curl, its darkness sharp against the tile, that was a piece of you when you said that stupid thing you said. And now its sheared, excised from the head that carried it, along with the heaviness of memory and the waste of regret.
Gone, along with the billions of skin cells you slough off daily. One month, and you're brand new, on the outside. And a little on the inside too, if you take your vitamins.

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Robbie Williams. Live. Funny. Sexy. Self-Effacing. Charismatic. And So much stage presence, there's probably still some residual Robbie down at Loftus from Monday evening's performance. I take no shame in saying I sang along to everything I knew the words to. Some may say I sold myself to the other side, but let me tell you, damn, what a sweet deal it was.

Saaleha doesn't live here anymore

I've got a small-town heart and a big-city mind.
And after 22 years of living in the 'ville, I'm moving closer to the big, bad, beautiful city.

Azaadvile wasn't exactly Ed's Shit Towne, it was more like the "the muftis live up the street from me, the fiqh-dealers live down the street from me". Think small town, and now think smaller. That's Azaadville; quiet, quaint and religious (four mosques, two temples, two churches). A good place to bring up your brats, a great place to move from when they're older. The trouble with Azaadville is; it's terribly uitgegooi*. And it's for this very reason, that I'll be leaving on a jetplane (wishful thinking).

But, there are some things I will miss about living in Azaadville:

1. Aunty Kashifah, the librarian who never charged me the two-month overdue book fines.
2. Friday nights at Uncle Harry's Roadhouse and the best double-thick butterscotch milkshakes on the West Rand.
3. The sunrise over the informal settlements on Main Reef road.
4. The four muezzins who make darn sure you hear that salaah is better than sleep.
5. Smoking hookah with my high-school friends on a quiet weekend, and trying to hide the coal burns on the carpet from my gran.
6. Having the best conversations with Saffiya when we'd have nothing better to do than drive around the 'ville.
7. Hearing every other language except any of our eleven official ones, while walking to Teddy's vegetable shop for dhania and lemons.

I move in two weeks, so perhaps my nostalgia is premature.

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*souf efrican for 'thrown out of the way', or 'in the boonies'.

that case in stupidity

(outside pharmacy, Dunkeld West Centre, Jan Smuts Avenue, Johannesburg)

The Zuma rape trial continues, and every day we are treated to more delightful boucheès of information. If it wasn't enough for us to hear that a woman wearing a knee-length skirt is giving out strong sexual signals, Mr Zuma presents groundbreaking research in court stating that he showered after intercourse to minimise his risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Sheesh man, we've been having all these manic debates about ARVs vs beetroots and potatoes, when all the people really needed to know was that a good suds and scrub would sort them out sommer shup*.

Before being sacked as deputy president last year, Mr Zuma headed the
government's National Aids Council and the Moral Regeneration Campaign.

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*souf efrican for "effectively"

The ties that bind part 4

Crazy x about to embark on the trek to holiest of matrimony: who'da thunk? Amid all the homo sapiens searching to co-habit, he pulls it off with shockwaves and aplomb. News of this led to a friend asking how I felt about losing my back-up. Whoah... I backed up. I had never seen crazy x in that capacity. Back-up? Even if i was close to knocking 85, and it was very clear to me that I would in fact die a virgin, I would not consider such a thing. Now don't misunderstand me, there is nothing wrong with the subject x, albeit the obvious and neither am I declaring that I am too good for him and his delightful psychoses.
It was just this concept of a 'back-up' that caused massive internal tectonic upheaval.
If it happens that in your lifes travail, the Search for Mate proves unfruitful, would you settle on an understudy?
And would you settle, period?
Lets do a little visualisation exercise; imagine yourself standing in front of a tranquil lake. Now take all the thoughts running through your mind and imagine them turning into little pebbles. Throw all of these pebbles into the lake until you're left with nothing. Your mind is empty, a tabula rasa.
Now visualise a significant other whispering to you in the dulcet tones that go along with these misty settings, along with the mandatory sunset and the theme from Mohabbatein as soundtrack. Significant other tells you that they want to share a life with you. Said significant also elaborates on how you weren't their first choice, that you don't really fit into what they had envisioned their life partner profile to be, but that you'll do anyway. Said significant takes your hand with a smile and you both walk along the gently lapping wavelets of the lakeshore that's suddenly developed the stench of mutant fish and algae. Not so lekker neh?*
So if I can't even stomach the thought of being served this, why would I even consider dishing it out to another?
"Backups' ...tsk tsk.



*Souf Efrican for 'not very nice'