Another one of those tag things...

Even as a kid on the playground, I could never outrun the taggers; those bloody kids who drank orange juice and had jungle oats injected intravenously for breakfast. All puppyfat and prescription spectacles, I'd get tagged soon after trying to waddle off to safety, at which point I'd sigh and declare 'this is boring' and walk off with my nascent intellectual arrogance confusing those in my wake.

Years later (and they don't alter, that spiel about puppy fat disappearing; lies, cruel lies! sniff, i need some chocolate) and the tag still pursues, this time; binary into the blogosphere, and I will acquiesce.

As per Zee :

tHe TaG:'List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your LiveJournal/blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.'


(old, new, borrowed, blue)

Fall Out Boys - Dance, Dance
Panic! at the Disco - Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off
Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm
Jack Johnson - Breakdown
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Hard to concentrate
Phantom Planet - California
Live - Turn my head

We're such an incestuous community of bloggers it seems, that I'm pretty sure whoever I tag will have already been nailed by someone else in the coven, therefore I leave it up to whoever stumbles upon this post to do with it what they will ('coz i'm easy like that).

To all my semite...

... siblings and cousins (and those who hail from motherlands the globe over)

Ramadaan Mubarak and Happy Rosh Hashanah.

Peace.

See you later Raz

You left last night on a jet plane.

You bright spark you; all the way to the London School of Economics to spend the year pursuing your Masters in Human Rights.

Non-negotiables: I'm going to miss you. Lots and lots.

Now I'm going to pull out and dust off the "I'm bad with goodbyes".

But then I'm going to blink and it's going to be May 2007, and I'll be on my own jet-plane on my way to the UK to say "hey, it's been no time at all".

Every week is Friendship Week

I love you and I care, and now I'm waiting for something good to happen to me at 4pm tomorrow, because I'm such a good friend and I've forwarded that email to 250 other really good friends.

I read all the way down to the last sentence and didn't skip ahead, because I'm such a good friend and I care.

And because I'm such a good friend, I've read through all the fifteen-cent wisdoms and I've learnt that money doesn't buy class, but it gives you a satisfied buzz when you're laughing at the peons in Economy.

I've learned that it's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular, like when the bastard who cut you off in traffic gets his bumper bashed by a taxi.

I've learned that under everyone's hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved, which is why I'm going to start my own Friends of Eugene Tereblanche trust.

I've learned that to ignore the facts does not change the facts, but I can sure as hell try.

So I've sent this off to fifty of my closest bestest friends because you told me once I did that I should get ready for the biggest shock of my life. And it could happen anywhere, on AOL, MSN or IRL. Well missy, I'm waiting. And it better be something fucking spectacular.

But because I'm such a good friend and I care, I won't be upset if I don't win the lottery, get that promotion or get paid by the Nigerians I sell my friend's email addresses to.

But maybe; that puppy you bought last week goes missing, there's suddenly coca-cola in the car engine and SARS pays you an audit call.

And that's probably because you didn't send out that email to enough good friends, and have the goodluck fairy twinkle on you, or the leery leprechaun show you his 'pot-o-gold'.

Happy Friendship Week!!!!

Capsule Cape Town

The last time Mother welcomed me was December of '94. The family holiday, I was eleven years old. Took a walk on the mountain, and returned to find them spinning in hysterics. They thought I'd fallen over the edge or been eaten by a mutant dassie.

mmm... german tourist... looks like it's gonna be brokwurst for breakfast...

Something of an adult now, I maintain that lofty edges offer the best views and I never miss the opportunity to push a tongue out at chipmunks.

So back to the "return to Cape Town"; a fly-in-fly-out-overnighter for work. Sat between two largish women on the plane, the cheer of economy class. The one who usurped my window seat was overheating. She may have been pregnant (I didn't dare confirm) and decorum overrode the bitchmode induced by the discomfort of having the cooling fan deepfreeze my eyeballs, while she called for the airsteward to haul an iceberg or two.

The drive to the hotel, and I'm reminded just how much the mountain dominates, it's hulk dictating the spread of the city and perhaps the laid-back temperament of its people (I was told it's the mineral ore in Table Mountain that contributes to the trademark Capetonion disposition)

I spend the night at The Metropole on Long street. Luxury boutique hotel, I read off the website. The copy doesn't do it justice. They've left little sugarcoated jujubes wrapped in clear cellophane as my sleep-treat. I'm swallowed by the plush of the pillows and swim in the cool of the linen. I want to live here forever and ever, in this soft-towelled gentle-hummed climate controlled pill.

Pixels don't do justice either...

Supper is kurdish; guvech at Mesopotamia. Heavy tapestry, dim lighting and the air thickly weaved with the redolence of Shisha. Eating dolmades off of low copper trays, I don't feel like a solo diner. The other patrons are seated on cushions next to me, and their conversations fall like condiments into my food with the spice of some turkish pop played on the restaurant's soundsystem.

A little mood lighting Mesopotamia-style

I meet up with webaddiCT and we talk google and geek over caffeine at Lola's. The decor is something we christen nouveau-retro. During the stream of conversation, the internet slights our geography. I discover he's the legend responsible for an erstwhile net-haunt from my days at RAU, the only fish in the thinktank behind the now defunct www.plaasjaapie.com.

Lola in the sky with diamonds possibly?

Long street sleeps when it's fans do, and we leave the ardent aherents behind in Lola's and Fiction and I'm back at the hotel, preparing for the 6.30am wake up call. My pores absorb the tenderness of the sheets. On cue, my eyes staple shut to welcome nothing-dreams.

Waking up at 6.30 was something of a foolish optimism. Those pillows, those sheets, I simply couldn't detach. The trauma of separation anxiety dimmed when I finally made it down to a breakfast of standard lux hotel fare; coffee, croissant and muesli-fruitsalad-swimming-in-pristine-yoghurt. My inner gourmand called for crumpet-like hotcakes streaked with cream and a beautifully-prepared berry sauce.

Baseness appeased, I set off to my gig, I've almost forgotten that I'm in Cape Town for work and not to eat and inhale the city.

After the bookreading at the children's library, I walk back to the hotel. I'm given directions but I let them lose their rigidity. I don't mind getting lost, there'll always be someone to help you find yourself.

I find a bench on Government Avenue and watch; tourists, school children on an excursion to parliament, bergies, municipal workers, people on early lunch breaks. It's one of those days when you blink, warm from the sun and the world is perfect and complete in that second when eyelash kisses eyelash. A stroll through the gardens and I find my way back into Long Street. I'm checking email at the Metropole after I buy books outside the Afrocafe and sift through vintage skirts at a stall.

My press-release and pics sent and delivered, I have two and a half hours to bead before my airport transfer. And because Cape Town is a city for walking, I make my way to the Waterfront. I underestimate the distance, but I don't mind it. I'm wearing flats and i'm in the mood to eat kilometres.

I settle on a lunch of calamari and onion rings at Fisherman's Choice. My meal companions are the seagulls who are adept at picking fries off people's plates. I wonder what these fat flying chickens have as cholesterol levels.

Who's it gonna be kid?

After these ruminations, I follow the "Pedestrian route to the city" signs back to the hotel, grateful to the city council for thinking of tourists and jozi-girls, in time for my transfer.

Bag in hand, in the cab, my back is to the mountain, but I don't feel as if I've left Mother behind.

What google sometimes brings me ...

are sentient beings who search for:

tranny ho
sweaty armpits
wimpy advert
419
bertrand green
riaan cruywagen
electric spaghetti
saaleha
intellectual journalism south africa
heartlines pledge a thon
spaghetti recipes
amagents
azaadville
samira's world
Leila Khaled t-shirts
Aicha Ahmed
mzansi
---

I reckon that's a nice diverse mix.

I bet you think this post is about you...

... you who smsed on Sunday, branding me with that ugly word you spelled with a K, poisoning the waters indefinitely. A rhetorical pontification and the like there-of; never an allusion to 'whinging' on your part, and yet you found yourself mirrored in the quote-indirect jab at me no doubt-unqoute. I'll leave the gap for you to fill Kowboy. I won't feed your martyr-complex, and yes, that is; beyond doubt, a direct jab at you.

~fin~