So I woke up this morning and hit the gym (now that I have an end date to my life of leisure I'm trying to make the most of every day) and am now wandering around my freezing house in a towel waiting for the hot water to sort itself out so I can shower my horrible sweaty self.

Fan-tashtic, no? No.

On a brighter note, the terrible Cape Town storm that everyone's been making dire predictions about hitting us today has...er...not. There is actual sunshine outside. Which makes a nice change from the sodding cold and torrential rain of late.

Okay time to try the shower again. If you hear some high-pitched swearing echoing around the country, you'll know it's me being doused in ice cold water.

Ask me what I do. Go on, ask me.

Usually to the inevitable 'So, Jade, what d'you do?' question (I wish people were more original, I really do), I simply say:
'I don't.'
Which has the desired effect and is a more than efficient conversation killer to that line of questioning.

But really now, ask me.

Because now I can reply,
'I'm a copy editor.'

Yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen, I am entering into employment, to be confirmed on 29 July, my first official day of work. Apparently - miraculously - my interview in the middle of my train wreck week last week actually went well, and they offered me the job this morning.

Can you spell H-A-P-P-Y?
(I can, but maybe that's because I'm a copy editor. hahahahahahahaha)

It's Monday and therefore time for....(drum roll) The Weekend in Numbers

Number of hours spent at work: 0. Had the weekend off. Lovely.

Number of boyfriends returning for the weekend: 1. Double lovely.

Number of Fringe episodes watched before we ran out of season and proceeded to mope disconsolately, wondering if life would ever be enjoyable again without such viewing pleasure: 2

Number of ridiculously delicious sushi dinners: 1. Wasabi, Constantia Village. Go. Now.

Number of newly discovered words to filthy: 1. 'Eruption'. Was used on the menu in the context of a Lindt chocolate ball dessert. Is now used in a vastly different context.

Number of times got staggeringly drunk and woke to embarrassing recounts of the previous night and a hangover so blinding it necessitated laser-eye surgery: 0. I'm turning over a new leaf. For real this time.

And (sneaking into the weekend tallies, because when you're unemployed you can count Monday morning as part of the weekend) number of call backs from last week's interview: 1. Please let this lead somewhere.

Well

Weekend: fuck up

Public holiday: recovering slowly

Today: another interview, for a different media house. Went alright. Cross your fingers, do your dances, as per usual.

Tomorrow: hoping for the best

(Apologies for the gloom. Let's pretend it's the weather.)

And the rain came down...

Which is typical really, since every day of the week - all those nights that I didn't go out - the weather was good (well, good for winter anyway).

I know...my social life is all a-tatters at the moment. Jade's rocking Friday night consisted of a belly-dancing class at gym followed by eating takeout and watching The Kite Runner for the second time. Not that I didn't enjoy my class. Quite the opposite actually. Our instructor, Desiree (what else?), is just lovely and laughs at all her own jokes. The only problem is that she keeps shouting 'And loosen girls! Shake it! Loosen! Loooooooooooooooooooosen!' but I'm seemingly inept in the looooosening department. Probably because of fourteen years of ballet, during which we were constantly entreated to 'Tighten girls! Pull up! Tighten! Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighten' by a teacher who probably wouldn't have laughed at her own jokes, even if by some small cosmic glitch she ever happened to make any.

But anyway, of course it rains the one night that I have plans to go out and party like I'm seventeen again (except without my mother waiting up, on the verge of calling the police should I arrive a minute past my curfew). What will I do about my hair?

In other news, I think the test on Thursday went well. They must have thought so too, since I was contacted on Friday with inquiries as to my 'expected salary' (er...forty five grand a month should cover it guys, thanks).

It's D-day

9.51 am
Today is the day I find out whether or not I have a job. I have been on tenterhooks since early this morning (I really have, but also I've just always wanted to say that).

11.30 am
Wandering aimlessly around the house, too strung out to concentrate on anything, too lazy to go gym.

11.37 am
Have taken to carrying phone around in pocket of slouchy pants whilst meandering from room to room, just in case it rings and I don't hear it. Or worse, am in bathroom.

12.00 pm
Finished Love in the Time of Cholera. Feel I have somehow betrayed Gabriel Garcia Marquez by not really being able to concentrate on the last few pages.

12.05 pm
Back to wandering aimlessly.

12.10 pm
Realise that if call ever actually comes, am not even entirely sure what I'm hoping they'll say. A normal person would be gunning for a yes, I know. But who ever said I was remotely normal?
Possible reaction if yes: Hooray, have job can shop. Followed swiftly by The Fear, along the lines of, oh fuck can I even do this job? Is this what I want? What if something more me is out there?
Possible reaction if no: Relief. Can continue living in pyjamas, drinking too much tea and dreaming of finding The Perfect Job...ie not having to live in the real world. Followed swiftly by despair, along the lines of, will I ever find a job? Or will I slowly drink myself into insolvency and wake up one morning cold and alone and with no prospects (or nice shoes)?

1.00 pm
Seventy-fifth cup of tea (or near estimate). Decide it's time for lunch. Cannot settle on anything except rusks dunked in tea.

1.30 pm
Come up with novel idea of boiling an egg. Oh the excitement. However it did distract me for a whole five minutes, so thanks little egg. Sorry I ate you.

2.23 pm
Boyfriend kindly takes my mind off things work-related.
(No, not like that. Perverts.)

3.20 pm
Voicemail. Why oh why does my phone decide not to ring sometimes? Possible future employers want me to come in tomorrow to sit a test. Waiting finally over. Inner debate still rages, but have been given stay of execution.

Just got back from Hell on Earth (or, as the government persists in calling it, Home Affairs). What a fucking nightmare.

Now, everyone who knows me knows that I'm ever so slightly (read: to the point of psychosis) obsessive compulsive about, you know, organisation, cleanliness, that sort of thing. Therefore, spending an hour - minimum time it takes to accomplish anything in that vacuum of efficiency - in the kind of place that asks you to deposit your valuables into an empty beer box while you step through the metal detector...well, it really does my head in.

Swiftly was I robbed of any delusions I might have been clinging to regarding anything along the lines of a 'Q Here' sign. Bugger that, I'd settle for an actual queue.

The ninth circle of hell is reserved for those of us who dare request the issue of an ID document. Enter, the fingerprinting station. As if having my digits blacked and then plunged into the nausea-inducing bucket of cleansing gel wasn't bad enough, my happy little fingerprinting technician couldn't begin the process until he'd fiddled around on his phone and then balanced it on the counter, where it proceeded to blare Gospel music at me. Jesus loves me? Oh no, I rather think he does not.

Last but not least, please note that no gifts are 'excepted' at the Wynberg Home Affairs office. From this I assume we are to conclude that all gifts, without exception, are accepted? Maybe if I'd slipped someone a fiddy, I'd have been in and out before you could say 'corruption'.

EDIT: Well, colour me surprised. Home Affairs just SMSed me to acknowledge receipt of my ID application and to provide me with a reference number. Miracles do happen...

Career (hahahahaha) update

So finally, after months of sending applications and CVs and sample pieces out into The Void (also known as HR staff and recruiters who never get back to you), I had an interview with a media company this morning.

I like to think it went rather well, although cannot for the life of me remember any of the questions I was asked. Post-traumatic memory loss maybe? Probably, given the collection of vibrating nerves in a dress that constituted my person this morning.

At any rate, it's over, and I should be hearing from them, yay or nay, by Wednesday. Which is nice. Nobody likes the jury to be out for too long.

So hold your thumbs, cross your fingers, whatever you have to do. Because I need a job.

Like, now.

We're a little strange, my friends and I.

I sometimes wonder if it's a natural predisposition or if it comes from growing up together and spending far too long in one another's company, in a kind of strange plus strange equals stranger sort of phenomenon.

Either way, today after a dignified Sunday afternoon tea date (hahahaha not) we realised that at some stage we might have to integrate ourselves into society. Either that or start our own coffee shop, the reason being that apparently you can no longer say the word 'lube', fall off your chair laughing, or talk about suffocating into your breasts while doing a shoulder stand at yoga without people at other tables furtively signaling for the bill and beating a hasty retreat.

Heard about the most bizarre New Zealand custom yesterday. Only people in a country filled with sheep who have a prime minister with a name like John could have come up with this one.

Apparently, if you are single in New Zealand (and, I should imagine, not at all particular about your sexual conquests) you trawl the supermarkets with - please just listen to this - bananas in your trolley. People see your single-person-on-the-prowl bananas and sally forth to pick you up.

Opening lines probably include, 'Baaa baaa baaa. Wanna shag? Baaa baaa baaa.'
Not that I'm judging.

It gets even better. Possibly due to previous awkward, banana-related episodes, they've come up with a way to negotiate the tricky issue of sexual orientation. If you are heterosexual, please place your bananas into your trolley with the ends curving upwards. Jolly girls and boys, bananas curving down please.

I ask you...

Top 3 things annnoying me today:

1. Imaginary service delivery in South Africa. In general, but also in particular...how hard can it be to have a pair of boots sent from one branch of a shop to another, without them disappearing into an alternate universe (presumably one filled with shoes) along the way, so that now the staff at both branches claim complete ignorance and are looking at me like I might go Britney on them any second.

2. Club stamps that just won't come off. Is this just me? I mean, I shower a requisite number of times a day, and yet I'm still branded with the evidence of excursions of evenings past. Finally managed to de-ink my forearm by removing most of my epidermis, but hey at least it's clean again.

3. Jacob Zuma's face. Is nobody else worried that Mr Toad from Wind in the Willows is running our country? I keep trying to discern lily pads around his feet.




On a different note, a big thank you to Marc Perel and From the Couch for the publicity and advice. I owe you 1 x cup of tea.

Something I forgot to mention yesterday...

Number of times got paid this weekend for freelance writing: 1
Now according to a writerly friend of mine, what one aims to do when starting out in the business, is to cultivate an attitude of indifference, presumably so that everyone wonders what they're missing out on, and falls over themselves to commission you.
I'm finding this hard to accomplish.
The fact that somebody handed over actual currency for something I'd written...well it blows my mind and gives me the warm and fuzzies. Sure, I wasn't even credited, but I got paid. Clearly it's not critical acclaim and creative prestige I'm after...just show me the money.
Which, admittedly, wasn't very much, but I feel like I can justifiably call myself a writer now that there has been actual commerce involved. And a penniless writer at that, so it's definitely official...

The weekend in numbers

Number of boyfriends who came home from Jo'burg for the weekend: 1

Number of tickets to the Good Food and Wine Show won: 2 - and ps: wasn't I more excited than Janice Dickinson in a collagen factory? I never win anything.

Number of wine tastings - you know, those itty bitty sips they give you so you can swill the glass all knowledgeable-like under your nose, dribble some liquid into your mouth and then stare off into the middle-distance, pretending to distinguish certain bouquets or noses or topnotes (maybe that's perfume) or whatever when what you really want to do is whack the glass back onto the counter and say, 'Another one Barkeep, and make it a double this time' ... well, number of those it takes to get me on the express road to Smashedville: about six, apparently. Maybe five. What is happening to me? Perhaps indulging in some more of the Good Food and less of the Good Wine would have been an idea.

Number of spontaneous visits to Tiger Tiger: 1 (please don't tell anyone)

Number of vodka limes at said Tiger: enough not to remember how many. And then a couple more. Just kidding (no I'm not).

Number of cheesy 80s rock songs danced to on side of dance floor, attempting to drag Boyfriend onto floor with me: too many. Thank God he managed to resist.

Number of head-throbbing, seriously-contemplating-suicide, please-god-let-it-end hangovers at work the next morning: 1. But you could divide it into four, and they would kill a small horse each. Of course, it only kicked in at around ten, before which time hindsight reveals me to have still been drunk.

Number of rugby matches watched on Saturday afternoon after recovering: 1. Incidentally, my very first. Have managed to live in SA for twenty-two years without being forced to watch one. But figured I owed lovely, forgiving, saintly boyfriend this much.

Number of resolutions to really start taking it easy from now on with the drinking: 1, and full intentions to stick to it this time.

So yesterday I spent the afternoon with Bunny and the Serbian watching lame but, given the present company, uproariously funny chickflicks. Seriously, it's all about who you're watching with...else in what world could House Bunny come close to topping Miss Pettigrew in terms of walking around quoting for the rest of the day (okay, rest of the week probably)?
Anyway, somewhere between the end of the movies and the raiding of the kitchen, we got to contemplating how all three of us are in long term relationships, an incredible fact that still takes us by surprise from time to time, given the fact that in high school we thought we'd have to marry each other and share bed pans when we turned ninety (of course, this could still happen).
Inevitably, talk of relationships turned to 'Remember when we were single...' reminisces, which turned to wondering when we'd next (or, in one of our cases, ever) be single again, which began a tangent we'd have to call Sowing Your Wild Oats, based on the fact that the word 'oats' was probably used more times in one ten-minute conversation than an entire history of Jungle cereal production.
Popular topics included:
How many oats one should sow before settling down
Who had been the most prolific sower of said oats
Most fertile places in Cape Town to sow one's oats
Best year and season for oat-sowing
And, inevitably...
'All this talk of cereal is making me hungry. What's in the kitchen?', which led to the discovery of cheese and crackers, the Boondock Saints DVD, and the possible patent on Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flannery-flavoured oats.

Intelligent things I did yesterday...

1. Sat waiting to turn left behind a guy at a stop street for AGES before realising he was actually parked there (way to go, tosser in your ugly little half-loaf Daihatsu, really good idea parking in the actual little white-outlined stop street box thingy-majigy).

2. Substituted wax paper for baking paper while being a good girlfriend and making double dark chocolate chip and nut cookies for the returning Boyfriend. Figured they were pretty much the same thing. They're not. Something very Ghostbusters happened in the oven.
(Don't worry baby i made a fresh batch.)

3. Ate nothing all day apart from licking the bowl of chocolatey goodness and 'sampling' (numerous times) both the cookie dough and the finished results (yes, even the Chernobyl ones). One might think living on nothing but chocolate for the rest of one's life sounds like a dream come true - it's not. I now know the truth.

4. Went to a 90-minute Zumbathon at my beloved Virgin Active...it's like this crazy workout come latin american dance class come lesson in embarrassment (for the first few minutes at least, until everyone realises it's simpler to just, really, dance like nobody's watching). This in itself was a Good Idea, just maybe not so much after the cookie dough.

This weekend I discovered my secret super power (soon to be a little less secret). Everybody has one, you just have to figure out what it is, and then start using it to your advantage.
My friend the Energiser Bunny has periods of time when she controls the universe...seriously, everything she says is going happen, happens. Unfortunately, she wasn't really in tune with it the first time and, feeling a bit pessimistic about the world, made mostly dire predictions. What a week.
So anyway, my newly discovered super power is my incredible ability to look Wednesday afternoon sober when, in fact, I am absolutely, Friday night shmangled.
(Yes, I discovered it this weekend, when I was out drinking, which I said I wouldn't be doing, but bugger my resolution, it's only five days until the GFAW Show anyway.)
I don't need to tell you how handy this power is, especially in situations that are:
a) Really inappropriate to be drunk in, but
b) Nigh impossible to survive without being drunk
How fantastic...

One should always wear a bra...

...and one should never believe the Butler's pizza phoneline lady when she tells you how long your pizza will be.
At first I thought it was a coincidence, but I've come to believe that she must be enacting some kind of passive-aggressive revenge on her innocent callers (or possibly just me). How many times has she told me that my hunger-succouring disc of cheesy wonder will be a mere twenty minutes, so that I've waited, stomach digesting itself, in forty-minute-long anticipation by the front door? Or worse, given me a forty-five minute estimation, so that when the door bell rings after only twenty-five, I'm caught on the hop...usually jumping out of the shower and answering the door in a towel, my hair plastered to the side of my face with unrinsed shampoo while the pizza guy giggles into his overly large tip (I try to bribe them into forgetfulness).
She struck again last night. The brother figure should have been back from the DVD store to pay the pizza guy, but why should things go right for me? At least I was fully clothed this time...in my pajamas and, obviously, minus one bra. Perfect.
It gets better: I party with the pizza guy, who has now seen me au naturel, on a regular basis.
Remember that resolution not to drink? I might extend it to not leaving the house. Then again, it seems I'm perfectly capable of embarrassing myself right here at home anyway.

House hunting...

Alas not as glam as it sounds; was helping a friend view houseshares yesterday so her boyfriend has a place to stay when he moves to Cape Town. Thought it might be fun, a little preview of one day when someone finally offers me gainful employment (please god) and I can move out of my parents' house.
Well, let's just say living at home suddenly not seeming so bad. Feck it, living in Bogota in the 90s might be preferable (or at least, I wouldn't have to be there long).
These places were bad. The words 'student hovel' spring to mind. Two things, to help you visualise the scenes, and then I can go back to blocking them out:
1. What I suspect was a more-than-week-old cabbage, on a plate, in the living area...as 'art'.
2. Picking my feet up, pony style, so as not to soil my pumps with the seemingly omnipresent dog poo.
I kid you not.

I’m swearing off alcohol – well, until the Good Food and Wine Show at least.
And yes, I’m sure you’ve all heard me say it before, but this time I’m serious, largely due to the effects of what I believe was my very first forty-eight hour hangover.
Apparently, on Saturday night, my hand had a mind of its own, lifting glasses of wine and champagne and shots of tequila to my mouth at regular intervals without any input from my brain.Which might not have been too bad a thing, considering my head was switched to Autopilot itself: Jade is not in right now. Please leave an appropriately detailed message. And hand me another glass of wine.
Saturday night at Andy Warhol’s Factory - aka Princess Lara’s twenty-first - neared the hedonistic proportions of its original life in the sixties, and I have the blacked-out spaces in my short term recall to prove it. Nuthouse would be an accurate description.
Highlights of my evening, as detailed in the harsh light of Sunday morning by the incredibly patient, forgiving Boyfriend:
- Tequila
- Tying back the birthday girl’s boyfriend’s hair while his champagne made an urgent and unexpected exit
- Saying goodbye to birthday girl asleep on dance floor on brother’s mink bolero
- Insisting to Boyfriend after we’d left that the night was still young and that we either a) wake up his friend to go visit his house in Camps Bay for a dip in the jacuzzi or b) hit House of Rasputin (thank god Boyfriend has some sense of decorum unlike hooligan girlfriend and drove us straight home despite my screeching to the contrary)
Incredibly, when I woke and staggered in search of liquids (the Morning After Thirst having arrived with a vengeance), noticed I’d somehow managed to remove every scrap of my professionally applied MAC makeup before passing out. Further investigation revealed false eyelashes nestling safely in their dinky plastic container. Now how did I manage that? Autopilot is good for something…

Things seemed to be going incredibly well for a while. I had recently graduated, run off for the summer on my very first roadtrip (which came crashing down around our ears when I...er...crashed the car. But let's not quibble over details), and had come home to intern at a magazine I'd dreamed of working for since forever. Le Boyfriend and I couldn't have been happier, sushi and open bars seemed to be the order of the day when going out with friends, and I had another internship (a paying one this time, thank you to the God of Cash Flow) lined up for my return from a two-week sojourn in Jo'burg, where I got to wake up at ten, watch Sex and the City all day and finish a bottle of red wine a night with the delicious Boyfriend.
I should have known the gods were just lulling me into a false sense of security. The bastards.
Return from Jo'burg. Best Life magazine - of the paying internship loveliness - has folded. Fuck the recession.
Unemployed for a month now, and living with my parents.
Decided to ignore my serious lack of funds and go for sushi and cocktails on Sunday night with Noodle and Darling. Forgot to book, and waited an hour for a table. Decided to make the best of the situation by horribly embarrassing myself. Laughed and swallowed some PappySuckle Vinotini (I know...wtf?) at the same time, resulting in a lovely ten minutes of hacking coughing, frantically begging the none-too-interested barmen for water, and trying not to let my tears (of laughter? pain? I'm not even sure really) ruin my eyeliner.
And then at gym this morning had to deal with the shame of dying of exhaustion while the countless middle-aged moms surrounding my mat put me to shame doing crunch aftter crunch after crunch.
Something's gotta give.

My attempt at a Carrie Bradshaw/Cosmopolitan type sex piece

Lately I've been pondering the importance of sex. Apart from being necessary for procreation of the species, and giving us something fun to talk about over cocktails, how much emphasis do we, or should we, place on the Deed? Sex is everywhere these days - on TV, on magazine covers, in detergent commercials. There's no getting away from it.
But what about getting it? Twenty-somethings seem to have turned the pursuit of getting laid into an Olympic sport. And if that's the case, then what are the rules? And what are the records? After all, nobody likes finishing in last place. And when you've found somebody who'll run the race with you on a regular basis, what then?
Every relationship starts off with what my friends like to call the 'honeymoon phase', those magical first few months when you stay in bed for hours on weekend mornings (and not to read the Sunday Times) and if you get up at all it's to shower - together. You can't wait to see each other, just kissing him is better than having a whole slab of Pistachio Lindt to yourself and, of course, the sex is fantastic.
Of course, the honeymoon never lasts. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on the relationship. Once the first fog of infatuation has cleared, and you really start to see each other clearly, you either fall in love...or fall apart. Fair enough...but if you do stay together, what about the sex?
Most experts would say that when you reach a new level in your relationship, the ripping-each-other's-clothes-off heat of passion is replaced by the slow burn of real intimacy, which is often more intense, rather than less. Not only are you comfortable enough with your partner to really give it your all between the sheets, but he's bound to have figured out (or have been taught by you) exactly how to push your pleasure buttons.
Quality aside, what about quantity? In those first few months, being in bed (or in the bath, or on the couch, or in the kitchen) together seems like more of an excuse to get each other naked than anything else. So when do things tick over to sex every night no longer being on the cards? All it takes is one night of you both being too tired for more than a goodnight kiss and the platonic sleepover wiggles its way into your repertoire of bedroom moves. You start sleeping together, without actually sleeping together.
I'm still undecided as to whether this is necessarily a bad thing, but occasionally I wonder if we should be using our sex lives as a measure for what's going on in our relationships. If there's a significant dip in frequency, should we drive ourselves crazy over-analysing and trying to figure out why? Probably not. Questions such as, 'Isn't he attracted to me anymore?', 'Did I do something he didn't like?' or even, 'Is he gay?' will only send us to the bottom of the nearest vodka lime. Sometimes he really is tired.
Having said that, there are a couple of bedroom red flags that are cause for concern in the bigger picture too. For instance, if it's you who's no longer interested in being sexual with him, ask yourself why. Are you letting other areas of your life intrude into the bedroom? Lying awake thinking about a deadline at work can make you oblivious to that tingling between your thighs. Or have your feelings for him slowly evaporated while your mind was elsewhere? You might not constantly want to rip his jockeys off, but some lust is necessary for any kind of functioning relationship.
Secondly, intimacy doesn't only mean sex. If kisses, cuddles and conversations have disappeared along with the sex, you have to wonder if things haven't downgraded from boyfriend and girlfriend, to just friends.
And, of course, if you can't remember the last time the two of you did anything remotely of a sexual nature, then chances are it's over and you're both just too scared to admit it. Man up, break up, and then hook up with someone else. Life's too short not to be having regular, good sex. And the rabbit doesn't count.

Hooray for The Knife (and the needle, and the syringe, and the giant sucking machine of my imagination) [columny type piece attempt]

Plastic surgery - it's a tricky issue. Some people think it's wrong, some people are addicted to it, and some people (like moi) are on the fence.
One part of me thinks it's a dangerous road to be going down for a world already far too obsessed with beauty and perfection. It used to be a nose job here, a breast enahancement there - no big deal. But one only has to go to Hollywood (or so I'm told) to see the rise of the real Silicon Valley. In a city where your livelihood depends on your looks, and every female denizen is sporting a boob job (the average breast size in Hollywood is 36C), how do you distinguish yourself from the madding crowd? You go bigger of course. And when everyone else catches up, you go bigger again. It's a creepy cycle, and one should remember that you can only blow up a balloon so far before it pops.
But sure, that's Hollywood. Nothing's real there. Unfortunately, it seems only a matter of time before good old LA is no longer the exception but the rule. Cosmetic surgery is becoming more and more common in the 'real' world too. Quick, easy treatments like Botox are already considered the norm, and pretox - botox shots that twenty-somethings are jabbing into their foreheads in an attempt to prevent lines from forming in the first place - is on the rise. Nose jobs, face lifts, breast enhancements and liposuction are all pretty standard, and even the more bizarre surgeries (labiaplasty anyone?) are being performed more often. In some parts of the world, companies are even offering their employees leave specifically allotted to surgery recovery.
The other part of me is not entirely against the idea of surgery. A nose job has always been strangely appealing, since at the tender age of twelve my mother told me that when I was old enough we'd go and get both of ours 'fixed' at the same time (how's that for mother-daughter bonding?). And liposuction doesn't sound too awful either, a kind of fresh start if you will (I like to think that if I had the perfect body, I wouldn't fuck it up). Provided, of course, I'm knocked out at the time and don't have to think about it too much. I have this horrifying vision, you see, of a giant sucking machine, vacuum cleaner-esque, chugging away at my tummy and thighs...

The scariest place on earth is...

...the women's changing room at Virgin Active.
I have a healthy respect for the female physique, and all our bits and bobs. A woman's body can be a beautiful, beautiful thing. It can also be incredibly ugly. I'm no goddess myself, but as the female form ages, well...we've all (most unfortunately) seen Donatella Versace in a swimsuit. And there's absolutely nothing really wrong with it - flab, cellulite and, shall we say, gravity are all a part of (natural) life. However...must you flaunt them? It's a scary naked free-for-all in the Virgin Active Ladies', and it's starting to hurt my eyes. I'm not suggesting everyone do the Junior School Towel Wriggle - where you manage to put on your entire outfit while remaining wrapped in your towel, a trick that ensured minimum exposure in the girls' changing room after PE - merely that you perhaps put your undies on before moisturising your entire body, applying full makeup and blow-drying your hair.
Please.

Pondering the pecuniary...

Being an intern has it's perks, but also one major downside. Working a nine to five without getting paid leaves little time to work casually on the side, putting a serious dent in my cash flow. You'd think being confronted with a bank balance on the wrong side of a grand would turn me into a scrupulous spendthrift. Instead, it makes me think of all the things I need to buy. Like, right now.
And that got me thinking about the myriad things a girl has to budget for every month that the less-fair sex does not, including...
Makeup: when you're shelling out at least a hundred bucks for a mascara, can you imagine how much it costs a year to replenish our makeup bags? And yes, makeup is a necessity. Say what you like about 'natural look', if every women stopped wearing makeup tomorrow, the world would be a scary, scary place.
Shoes: because we need at least three times as many as you do.
Clothes: see above.
Grooming: all those manis, pedis and waxes cost you know. The most painful part of a Brazillian is not the hot-wax-on-our-delicate-bits bit, it's handing over our plastic for the agony we just went through.
Hair Maintenance: there's no 'just a bit off the top and sides' for us, and don't even get me started on the extortion that is having your hair coloured.
Drinks: because a cosmopolitan costs more than a beer. period.

The Nicole Richie Effect...

Thin is in, and anybody who disputes it is just fooling themselves.
I will refrain from flogging the dead horse that is the size-zero phenomenon. We all know the skeletal stats of Hollywood’s young celebutantes, and how the media loves to hang the albatross of every young girl’s eating disorder around their skinny necks.
No, what I want to talk about is what I like to call the Nicole Richie Effect.
Little Miss Richie didn’t only get ridiculously thin. Just about halving her body weight seemed to be the catalyst for a Birkin bagful of other transformations.
I’ll be blunt: Nicole Richie used to look like an unscrubbed, McDonald’s regular dressed by a blind pole dancer. She was stuck in BFF Paris Hilton’s shadow (does Paris actually cast a shadow?) and it’s safe to assume she was unattractive to pretty much the entire male population.
Then she got skinny.
Almost over night she became a fashion icon, rocking her skinny jeans, Chanel half-tints, and head scarves so well that designers fell over themselves to dress her. Nicole was suddenly as elegant and stylish as she’d been frumpy and unkempt before. Her look softened and there was suddenly something glamorously old-Hollywood about her.
She hogged headlines. She got her life together and ditched her dirty party-girl ways, snagged herself some high-end man candy, got married and hopped on the baby train with the rest of the A-list.
My point is that as soon as Nicole got skinny, everything started going right for her. And she’s not the only one. Anne Hathaway – who was never really big to begin with – dropped a few pounds and is suddenly starring in movies left right and centre – when she’s not lending her delightful face to perfume ads or showing off designer gowns on the red carpet
Even Kelly Osborne - although she'll probably never look what anyone would call good - ditched her white trash look for some lovely dresses after losing nearly thirteen kilos.
So…what? If you’re on the chubby side, you resign yourself to looking like Miss Trailer Park 2002? Sigh...pass the celery.

Oscar Wilde said that fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Well.
This is usually the only one of the great man's epigrams that I disagree with, but of course I was thinking fashion in terms of Chanel, Marc Jacobs, D&G and all their fab friends.
However, when it comes to further down the fashionable food chain, I'm inclined to agree with Mr Wilde. And there's nothing worse than a trend that won't die.
I understand that not all fashion can be couture. And I understand that what we ubiquitously refer to these days as 'street style' is an important form of expression and creativity - one that couturiers frequently imitate rather than the other way around. But I'm going to be a traitor to my generation of Cape Town Cool Kids, and give the finger to weareawesome.com and Kloof Street style by saying:
Skinny jeans must die.
On guys that is. On girls, they're still hot. Even on girls who aren't skinny. But boys, please put them away. Or better yet, burn them. Yes, they were fun for a while; who didn't enjoy seeing their guy friends unable to bend over - or possibly ever procreate - because of the ridiculous toightness of their pants? But now they're over. I don't care if you're in a garage rock band (and I mean that in the sense that you practise in your mum's garage), stop wearing your girlfriend's jeans.
Now.

Two weeks ago I was standing with a group of strangers, sipping a Mojito, watching President Obama's inauguration speech and thinking, 'Yes. We. Can.' along with everybody else. Last week, I was desperately researching everything I didn't already know about the conflict in Gaza, resolutely not picking a side. This week I'm preoccupied with our politics at home, and who I'm going to vote for when the election rolls around. Last year I was anti-China, and wondering about volunteer work in Tibet. Two years ago I was pondering the plight of innocent Afghan refugees in Pakistan, four years ago the displaced Aborigines, and when I was little I remember sending my pocket money for the month to National Geographic, convinced it would help to save panda bears from extinction.
My point is that current affairs are just that - current. The stories that every news channel bombards us with one week, are eclipsed by something else the next. Consequently, our sympathies are constantly changing, even though the situations that tugged our heartstrings in the first place aren't. Tibet is still under China's thumb, Palestine and Israel will continue to launch rockets at one another in their ongoing and senseless destruction of one another, and though the panda extinction situation is very slightly less dire, I doubt it has anything to do with my ten bucks.
No real point to this post, apart from musing on the fickle nature of the human race and that slippery fish we call The Media.

This weekend I had the pleasure of going to the prettiest, most perfect, picnic wedding (and yes, thank you so much, I found some shoes in the end).
This would be the second friend of mine, both of whom are only a year older than I am, who is now married, til death, infidelity, divorce or insolvency do them part. But let's not be cynical, even if it is Monday morning. Instead, let's look at the facts:
I am not the only person to have noticed that there are more than a handful of girls around my young, tender age of twenty two who suddenly seem very eager to have and to hold, in sickness and in health. Little girls, it seems, have started dreaming about white gowns, bouquets and tiered cakes again.
And it's not just the ladies anymore, either. My first boyfriend - or rather, my first long-term, adult(ish) boyfriend - was planning our future together (including wedding and house in the suburbs) at a startlingly early point in a relationship that was never going to end in wedding bells. Then again, he also wanted matching tattoos. I should have seen it coming. The scary - scarier - part is that he's not a one-in-a-million male anymore...I hear more and more men talking about 'settling down', while their girlfriends look on in horror.
Not that I'm in any way against marriage (well not really) - I'm just a little confused about the sudden rush. What happened to the nineties' trend of nobody getting married til they were in their thirties - at least? And if the early noughties taught us anything, it's that we ladies can have it all - success, happiness, love, great sex - without a shiny rock weighing down our left hands (although who doesn't love a great piece of jewelery?). The way I see it (and I worry I'm a fast-dwindling minority) is figure out who you are, and what you want from your life (and career), then get married. And nobody can do all that in their early twenties.
So why are we suddenly jumping into white dresses as though Vera Wang might very suddenly die? In a world gone retro mad, is a conservative backlash the next trendy thing? Do we suddenly want to be 'settled' by twenty five like our parents, and their parents before them? And what happens when it goes out of style? A husband and a marriage are not as easy to get rid of - or forget about - as last season's harem pants.
Having said that, I've always had very Jane Austen-esque, romantic ideas about love, and the wedding on Saturday was so incredibly perfect that I found myself absent-mindedly planning my own white gown. So I guess that makes me a hypocrite.
Interestingly though, every girl there expertly dodged the bridal bouquet. Perhaps there's hope yet.

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.