Two nights ago I went to a party where I happened to see a (male) friend I had been at Varsity with. We'd always gotten on famously in any one of the ten-minute conversations we enjoyed during our acquaintance, and this time was no different. While laughing at...something (can't remember, there was vodka involved that night), a face loomed a few inches from his left shoulder - enter the girlfriend.
Now understand two very important things:
1. I have a boyfriend so supremely wonderful, I wouldn't trade him in for all the Christian Louboutins in the world
2. I have never been remotely attracted to this friend (not even the usual obligatory wondering about what it would be like to have sex with him)
Well, either I'm more sensitive than I thought, or she was giving me The Look. You know, the one that says, 'I'm watching you. Keep your grubby paws off my man, ho.' The girlfriend I had taken with me (Le Boyfriend being in another city at the time) assures me there were no such Looks, but I'm not convinced.
The confusion arises from the fact that I am not in the habit of receiving said Looks. I find it hard to believe that any girl would find me threatening in a leading-their-man-astray sort of way. Yes I was wearing a LBD and heels, but so was she - and so were all the models and TV presenters (it was that kind of party).
What gives? What makes a perfectly rational female descend into primal, claws-out jealousy? In general I mean - there was no high-heeled hair-pulling on Wednesday night, just some artificially cheery smalltalk into which I sprinkled Le BF's name like it was salt on popcorn. In retrospect, she probably thinks I'm rather sad...

This morning I had a crises of fashion...

Not my first and - I can say with absolute, crushing certainty - not my last either. But let me explain...
Although interning at a fashion magazine is not always as glamorous as it sounds, one nonetheless likes to look one's best at work. Hence, the inevitable wardrobe meltdown on this, my ninth official day as a (albeit unpaid) working girl.
Standing in my undies, hands on hips, trying to stare down my maliciously passive-aggressive wardrobe...well, it gave me some time to think.
Remember school uniforms? Remember how most of us hated them, abhorred the mandatory conformity of the scratchy synthetic fabric? Well, not me: I loved my uniform. I know, I know - I can hear the gnashing of fashionista teeth. But the white blouse and bottle-green skirt, paired with white knee-high socks and brown leather baby-doll shoes, was bordering on cute, as far as uniforms go (which, admittedly, is not too far).
But the the real beauty of the school uniform was not having to engage in the daily morning, underwear-clad, me vs wardrobe staring match. Robotically donning a prescribed dress for five days in a row may seem boring, but independent research (conducted by yours truly on, well, yours truly) shows that not only does it alleviate stress, it also saves you time that could be spent more productively (either sleeping in, or having another cup of tea).
Of course, I'm not a total philistine. I love pretty clothes - and shoes, and accessories, and bags - as much as the next girl who knows that Bvlgari isn't an Eastern Block country. But remember back in school when you could spend all week planning what to wear on Friday night? Sure, we still can, but this age-old tradition gets clouded by the multiple wardrobe decisions we have to make during the week. And if you only had to put together outfits for weekends, and a couple of nights Monday to Thursday, the odds of a fashion-repeat lower themselves to less than one in six months, if at all.
I therefore propose the introduction of a working uniform. Something simply stylish, flattering to every figure. It can be on trend - hell, it can even come in a range of colours - and obviously it will be updated every season in line with the new collections. But it will be a uniform, and I will be saved my daily dressing drama,
A girl can dream.

You would think, given the burgeoning number of shops, malls and designer outlets in Cape Town, that finding a simple pair of metallic-brown flat sandals to match the dress I just bought for a wedding in three days' time, would not be an impossible task.
You would be wrong.
While I am of course fully aware of Murphy's Law of Shopping (which states that, when shopping for a specific item, that item will be categorically un-locatable until a minimum of three weeks after you needed it), I had thought that the simplicity of my search parameters would allow me to fly under Murphy's radar, thus rendering my shoes easy to find.
I was, it turned out, entirely wrong.
No amount of searching has procured my footwear. I have been into expensive shoe shops. I have been into cheap ones. I have scoured department stores. I have run around into boutiques on my lunch break.
I feel like Cinderella's prince, except in my none-too-fairytale life I've got the foot, I'm just desperately searching for the glass slipper.