A dose of reality…

As a self-diagnosed reality tv junkie – there is one annoying trend I've noticed to be very prevalent amongst many of my favourite shows.

 

Scene: American Idol's stage with pubescent JoJo wannabe belting out a Tony Bennett hit from the 1950s (seriously… Tony Bennett? Is there anything more mind-numbingly snore-worthy?)

 

Randy: "That was hot dawg… a little pitchy here and there, but that was hot!"

Paula: (slurring and concentrating on keeping her head upright) You….. you….. are amazzzzinging…

Simon: That sounded like a grandmother with a tracheotomy singing karaoke on a cruise ship… what were you thinking?!?

 

(And here comes the line that sends me running for the razorblades…)

 

JoJo wannabe: I'm just being true to myself…

 

Seriously, what the f*ck does this mean?? Every reality television contestant – whether it be Idols, Survivor, Big Brother or the Bachelor - has let this little pop psychology gem slip from their lips.

 

Is this really accomplishment? Are we expected to pat them on the back with a "Congratulations! You bored us to tears / made us bleed from our ears / triggered an outbreak of hives – but it's cool… you were true to yourself".

 

What other choice did they have?? I mean hell, I've been myself for almost 26 years now – that should entitle me to a recording contract, $1 million and a wedding with a tall dark stranger in Hawaii at the very least!

 

And the best part – is that every 'role model' in one of these shows, whether it be a pop sensation or concerned parent – sprouts forth the same inane advice:

 

Scene: Parents wooden cabin on a lake in Vermont

 

Bachelor: So Mom and Dad – I think she may really be the one… I mean I know she polished off six bottles of wine this evening, asked to see my bank balance and has named all seven of our future children… but there's such chemistry. What do you think?

 

Dad: Well Son… just be true to yourself.

 

Bachelor: (eyes welling up with tears) Thanks Pop.

 

So this begs the question…. Why do I continue to watch this total crap?

 

Well… I'm just being true to myself.

Did I really run around the Colon with a red wig on...?

On Sunday morning, around 9am... I slowly opened my eyes, stretched and sleepily thought to myself, "What did I get up to last night?"

And that's when it all came flooding back to me - a bombardment of sounds and images as I rolled over and wished desperately I could just go back to sleep rather than battle through the rapid onset of loser complex...

 

It all started with an innocent dinner at Espressos with Kay, Aye and Mib. A couple of mojitos later... we all decided it was time to hit The Colon. Apon arrival at the entrance, the bouncer asked me if I was married. I said no... and he then asked how I feel about dating black men. Now I've been in this situation before and this is an impossible question to answer - especially with a few mojitos down the hatch. If I say I have no problem with dating black men, then the man in question will automatically assume he's completely in there. If I say I'm not interested - then I look racist. I decided to go with the first response, to which he asked, when would I like to get married? I said I'm not planning to get married for at least the next five years - and he responded by asking if he could add his cv to my pile of candidates. At this point, Mib decided it would be best to quickly usher me inside.

 

We headed straight to the bar to order our John Deere jug - and sat ourselves down at a table. This is when the evening started to take a turn...

 

I'm not sure exactly who's idea it was, but I'm thinking it was Aye who suggested that we all play a game of 'Truth or Dare' - which really turned into a game of 'Dare and Dare'. We decided to carry them out in teams of two - with Aye and I on one team, and Kay and Mib on the other. Kay and Mib were up first and we dared them to get a guy to give them a sip of their drink. Easy enough - they took it straight out of some boy's John Deere jug and they were back within 2 minutes.

 

Next up, Aye and myself, dared to get a boy to buy us drinks. Now this is a little more difficult. Girls can't really just walk up to a boy and ask him to buy her and her friend a drink... some ground work has to be put in first. So we locked in on one of the boys standing close to the bar. Aye and I spoke to him with wide-eyed enthusiasm, laughing hysterically at his jokes and hanging onto every word. After about 5 minutes of this, he asked: "So where's your alcohol??" And we replied: "Yes.... where is the alcohol???" Shortly ofterwards, Aye and I both had a complimentary suitcase in our hands.

 

So Kay and Mib were up again - dared to get a boy to take off his shirt. This took them forever and eventually after 20 minutes they were back, with no shirtless men in tow, but a fist full of money. For some reason everytime they asked a guy to take off his shirt he gave them money instead... weird.

 

Kay then dragged a boy across to the table and asked him to at least lift up his shirt - which he did. (Not too bad to look at either).

 

At this point, the table we were sitting at was surrounded by a herd of women having a bachelorettes party. The bachelorette had a bright red wig on and a devil's trident. They also had plastic penis necklaces around their necks. Aye and I were dared to don their apparel and round around The Colon. So there we were - red wig on and plastic penis around my head - Aye with devil's trident in hand and plastic penis around her head, running around The Colon. Not my finest moment...

 

Thankfully, this brought the game of Dare and Dare to a close. And we decided it was time to do a little dancing...

 

So on the way to the dance floor, I saw a boy I had known since matric, we'll call him St Davids - He's always been on the snoggable list so I asked him if he was going to come jam with us. So there we were on the dancefloor - I like the way you move was playing over the speakers and St Davids was dancing away, whipping out his most sexy moves. Even in my drunken state I was struggling not to burst into hysterical laughter. About 5 seconds later we were locked in a bit of a smooch session... awful kisser.

 

I don't understand how a boy like St Davids - who is very cute and snoggable can have no idea how completely wrong he is getting it. He was one of those 'I'm trying to swallow you whole' kissers. Bad bad bad.... the odd thing is that he is the second boy by that name that I've smooched in the last year who has kissed in exactly the same way... so no more men by that name for me.

 

I've also discovered since Saturday night that my No. 1 crush may have been at The Colon too. This is bad for several reasons - firstly because I intentially wanted to snog someone in the hope of maybe alleviating some of the intensity of my crush on No. 1 - but I would be extremely unhappy if No. 1 actualy witnessed my smooching session. Secondly, I don't really like the thought that I may have run past No.1 with a red wig on and a plastic penis wrapped around my head.

 

Oh well... time will tell...

 

P.S. - Watched 300 last night.... my god... Awesomeamazingsuperfantastic!

 

 

 

An explanation...

So my dear fellow bloggers... just a quick explanation of why I've been MIA for a while. For some strange reason (and perhaps some of you technologically minded folks will understand why) - I can't post from my laptop at home anymore. I just get an error message everytime. This left me with the option of emailing my posts to myself at work and then posting them from there. That was until my office decided to block blogger. So now I can read posts, but can't post or comment.

So until I finally solve the mystery of my laptop's rebellion - I will only be able to post through email and comment from home.

But rock on rock stars - I'm still reading all your fabulous work everyday...

The Sprinkler, a caffeine-crisis and the mine dump

My oh my… how kak have I been at posting on my blog. I suppose this has something to do with writing for a living – and when I see one more blank page that needs to be filled with text it makes me break out in a cold sweat. Anyway… moving on… and what better way to start than with an analysis of a fabulous weekend.

Friday was a major girls' night. We had been planning it all week – a mix of friends from work and friends outside of work hitting Madhatters, of course. We arrived at about 9pm. I've never seen Madhatters that early and it was a strange experience… the dancefloor was clean, bars empty and the crowd 90% female. Unfortunately and fortunately this all changed.

C and I discovered that women get half price cocktails on a Friday night… fabulous! The music was frightening – Sing Hallelujah by Dr Alban and Up & Down by the Vega Boys. C and I decided to whip out the cheesiest moves on the dancefloor – this even included 'The Sprinkler'. Oddly enough this seemed to interest the surrounding boys endlessly – suddenly we were surrounded and they were clapping their hands in crazed enthusiasm… odd.

Eventually my completely impractical leopard print stilettos got the better of me and I had to head home by 2am.

The next morning I was up at 7am (shudder) to train some budding journos at the office. C and I managed to break the office's new R22 000 coffee machine within about 5 minutes. Oops.

Sunday was the highlight of the weekend. Our little adventure team – known as The Squad, headed off to Benoni for a day of sandboarding. There were 12 of us altogether and we had the most sensational day. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I'm not totally crap at sandboarding – managed to get all the way down without falling on my first go.

One of the things I love about Joburg is that you can take something as kak as a mine dump, and the Jozi-folk will turn it into something brilliant. The place was full of quadbikers doing their thing on the dune… and under the blue sky it felt like we were on the beach.

A couple of Squad injuries were inflicted including bruised legs, ripped pants, sprained necks and aching arms, but it was all worth it (probably because none of those things happened to me). Can't wait for the next adventure – probably abseiling… Go Squad!!!

Operation De-Chilly-fication

I’m finally coming around to the idea of Facebook. I’ve actually discovered its primary use of getting in touch with old friends, who’ve either drifted off to other parts of the globe or for inexplicable reasons I drifted apart from.

So there I was, glancing through a couple of friends’ profiles – when I suddenly saw him. A guy I had an out-of-control crush on for several years, back in the day, around ’99 – ’01.

Looking at his profile pic now – I’m not entirely sure what the complete fascination was about, but I can still remember the all-consuming-ness of my feelings all those years ago. We were in the same group of friends, so I would see him every week, and to this day he has absolutely no clue about the way I felt about him. Now I know what you’re thinking – “Yeah right, sure he didn’t!” But I do have this amazing ability to shut off completely to a man I’m secretly insanely besotted with.

Mr Spencer and I share this talent (which may be a Taurean trait) as we were discussing last week during the Pro 20 final. As soon as I start feeling the teeniest tinge of an attraction towards somebody, instantly without so much as a split-second notice, a giant neon ‘F*ck Off’ sign illuminates on my forehead. Every one of my pores gives off a ‘get away from me, I hate you’ vibe. Actually…no… it’s even worse than that, it’s more like a ‘don’t bother, you don’t even exist to me’ vibe.

Now I understand that this is some warped kind of defence mechanism, which functions in a manner to ensure that I reject them before they even get a chance to half-think about rejecting me. But it hasn’t helped me all that much so far. As much as I’d love to switch it off – it’s become instinct.

I would never like to become one of those women who drape themselves over the object of their affections while gazing adoringly into their eyes. But somewhere in the middle would be okay.

I’m going to try and practice this week, the giant ‘F*ck Off’ sign will be disconnected in Operation De-Chilly-fication.