November 2005 Archives

Yes, I’ve joined the Death Cab bandwagon. I’ve had Plans on my laptop for seemingly aaaages but only popped it onto the nanomal yesterday and have since been slipping into buttery teary-eyed glee whenever I commute. Between this album and a renewed interest in the White Stripes thanks to The Denial Twist (see the great video here), I feel all musically loved up again.

Ian and I disagree on a lot of things, and 90% of those things have something to do with music. He is an elitist music snob, and he knows it knows it knows it (so don’t even try to deny it mister).

He will try to rationalise it though. Ordinarily I would blog that he would comment on something and he wouldn’t but the man is THAT OBSESSED with his XFM stylings that he will. Even after the above paragraph. And that sentence. And that one.

This is why Death Cab owns my heart:

today
As each descending peak of the LCD took you a little farther away from me
Amongst the vending machines and year old magazines
In a place where we only say goodbye
Death Cab for Cutie - What Sarah Said

PUPPY! Yes please!

This weekend has seen me making provisional going-home plans – looks like I’ll be flying back on the night of the 17th February (just that little bit too late for Jason and Rene’s wedding, harrumph). I’ll most likely be returning on either Saturday 4th or Sunday 5th March.
A nice sweet touch is that I won’t be flying home alone, as I thought a few weeks ago :) Ian and I will obviously both be looking forward to spending some time with our parents alone, and so I’ve got a bit of a task on my hands, to try and work out how to fit in family, friends and fun into this little 2 week time frame.

It’s really far away, but here are provisional dates so far:

While you may think I have little else to write about other than my future holiday itinerary, and you may be right, or I may be trying really hard not to write about my leg-scratching, or my dopey love-filled weekend (DEEP BREATH), detailing this does serve the purpose of allowing you Saffer rockit-readers to perhaps influence where I am at a certain time. I have already been promised some watermelon martinis, Ca, you better deliver.

A blog by Al Jazeera staff.

After a month of being sad and uncertain and feeling like every action had some underlying motive and questioning that motive, I feel I can live freely again. I am seeing Ian tonight and I am giddy (giddy, I tell you!) with anticipation.

This last month, I have been so unsettled that I have taken to scratching my legs again, something I thought I had (semi) under control. I have excema on my legs as a result – I scratch them in my sleep, and wake up with big red welts on the insides of my thighs and knees. I scratch them through my trousers at work, and force my hands above the table, cringing with the unscratched itchiness. And then my fingers move to my lips. I have picked my lips to within an inch of their lippyness – literally pulled small strips of skin from them. No balm or gloss seems to help, only lashings and lashings of Nivea soft. I go to bed with a white mouth.

It’s time to wean myself off of these self-destructive comforts. Yeah, it’s winter, but I now have good reason to shave my legs every day, and a dress to wear to a party in two weeks. As for the lips; well, I have a feeling I may be getting those exfoliated for me.

And so, the outfit is complete.

I have sourced a nice shimmery belt (quite similar to the one pictured actually) and have shimmery flats to wear. All 70s upped, I am.

There is the small matter of the dress actually fitting - should there be tightness issues, I'll simply have to lay off the egg mayo for a while. I'm really excited for this party, and can't wait to get started on planning the 70s hair!

On Saturday Ian and I had been broken up for a month. On Sunday I saw him in person for the very first time since… everything.

And as of last night, we’re giving it another try.

I don’t know that this won’t fall to the ground in flames, and ruin us forever. But I know how I feel about him, I know I love him, I know that I have to give us another chance.

I don’t want to go into it too much, we have had so much to unpack and there’s still a lot to go through. Everyone who has supported me, and him, in their own ways, for the last month - thank you.

So I'm not a layout/print production snob.
Okay, maybe I was at uni. 'Comic Sans, wtf!'

Okay, maybe I still am, slightly.

But when an ad client phones in to complain about her ad, and asks if the printers ran out of ink -

I wobbled, sniggering, through the rest of the phonecall.

A while back I mentioned that it made things easier to think of people who had it worse than me, it’s a self-consoling tactic.

Reading the world’s most famous anorexic blog today, I thought about my own attitudes to food, and weight, and body.
I have written about three articles/blog posts about this and never published them. By no means do I have as poor a body image as some do. But it is something that has affected my life. What percentage of females that differentiates me from is unknown. That count is probably negligible.

I come from a home where food and weight were never made an issue. I never felt pressurised to look a certain way from my parents or sister or teen boyfriends, at least, if they tried I never took any notice of the attempt. My mother went through a stage of anorexia when she was younger, I think in fact around my current age. My folks had just got married, and she took part in a weight loss drug trial, for some sort of pseudo-ephedrine thing before they were completely outlawed. She told me of how my dad had to put up with her incredible mood swings, her lashing out. ‘I never looked better though’, she smiled at me, over milkshake in George, after we had applied for my passport.

To be honest, I should be immensely thankful for the problem-free attitude I have to food. I could be fashionably wasting away, but I just can’t – I love food so very much. And although the insane metabolism I had before age 15 is gone, no longer allowing me to eat junk 24/7, I don’t have to beat myself up over having 2 sugars in my tea. I try to be responsible, as much as I can, but I’m no skinny girl who considers calorie-content over taste. Maybe if I was I really would be skinny.
I’m proud of all of this but stupidly I do feel a bit jealous of people who express sentiments like ‘I only feel beautiful when I’m hungry’ on PostSecret. In a messed-up way I wish I had the self-discipline to stop eating altogether. It’s completely irrational, and in a world where the poorest people in Zim are eating grass to stay alive, I should be shot for my self-centredness. Poor little has-easy-access-to-food girl. Oh the burden of life in the Western world. Oh the suffering to walk past delis with beautiful smells, to have sandwiches with three fillings.

Tomorrow: less beating myself up. Maybe another list.

Reading the metro on the tube this morning, the following stories stood out:

British Army used white phosphorous
Ah yes, that stuff that melts your face off. But they didn't use it on civilians! At least not on those who weren't at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Ancient graves nail the grisly truth about vampires (written in letters with blood dripping off)
Archeologists found 16 skeletons with huge nails driven through their bones. Metro claims this is proof that vampires existed. Notice distinct absence of searching for enlarged canine teeth on these corpses. As well as lack of logical argument to get from one statement to another.

Bread roll from WWI passed down from father to son
Riiiiiiiiiiight.

In other news, I have decided to use the research job to work towards the craziest awesome ass-grabbing jeans known to mankind. I tried this with the nano and that didn't work... but I'm going to try and have a measure of self-discipline towards it. As the research money is kind of frivolous cash, I can justify spending that amount of money on something I could foreseeably not fit into sometime in the far future. So much for the concept of them being an investment...

BTW, Vogue are giving away masses of prizes for their tenth anniversary. Of course, encouraging others to enter ruins my chances, but hey, don't say I'm not generous :)

Idea shamelessly stolen from Best Week Ever:

Hipster T-Shirt Generator.

This is the best one it generated for me.

I may use this phrase in everyday conversation.

Thanks for Vorn for alerting me to this:

George - The half-naked body of another young woman was found in the bushes outside Knysna on Tuesday afternoon, five days after she went missing ... It is the second murder of a young woman in this quaint tourist town along the Garden Route within a month.

What the hell is happening to my town?

So to celebrate my new current status as girl who has too much time and no money really for the rest of this month (some quick advice girls – if you can time a break-up, don’t let it happen near pay-day, you’ll only try to shop yourself happy and end where I am right now, brokesville), I bring you: things you should watch. Because TV is free. Kinda.

1. Clone High
Although they only made one season, I’m currently rediscovering this show. The best way to describe it is to reproduce the theme song:

Way way back in the 1980s
Secret government employess
Dug up famous guys and ladies
And made amusing giant copies
Now the clones are sexy teens and
They’re gonna make it if they try
Loving learning sharing judging
A time to laugh whichever and CRYYYYYYY
Clone Hiiiiiigh
Clone Hiiii-iyigh

Good stuff. Ghandi is the best.

2. Family Guy
Another uni favourite, we’ve watched our season 2 DVD about a billion times. Right now, surviving on BBC2 Saturday night FG and American Dad episodes. Yes, I said Saturday night. I’m broke, hello?

3. CSI

4. Anything that’s on really. I’m not that picky. Honest. Even X-Factor’ll do.

Then of course there is the thing I’m trying not to watch: Lau and her new man sucking face. Aw bless ‘em – I’m no love scrooge; she deserves a little happiness. We had the ‘feelings’ talk on the bus on the way to work this morning; am expecting to have the ‘girth’ talk a little later on tonight. The sheer breadth of the grin permanently slapped on her face right now suggests a favourable rating.

Conversation in our flat

...on how cool it is that we found a new bus route...

Girl 1: It's just so awesome - I end up walking 4 minutes extra to get to the flat but I can skip waiting for 15 minutes if I miss the 199.

Girl 2: And - it's 4 minutes of walking - that's exercise baby.

Boy 1: Why don't you just walk all the way home from the station then?

Girl 1: 'Cos I'd prefer not to get ass-raped on the way home, dude.

Girl 2: Ja! Laughs.

Girl 1: I like my ass virginal thanks.

Everyone laughs.

Silence.

Girl 2: Well...

Communal GROAN.

I must remember that the second cup of soup is never as satisfying as the first. It doesn't have the same salt ratio, and a third of the way in you just end up feeling like a glutton.

I dreamt last night that Tony Pierce took me away to Vancouver with him. I don't remember what happened after that but I remember being very very happy.

I've just got hold of Bleed American by Jimmy Eat World again - I'd forgotten how much I loved this album. There are songs that swell with feeling; Futures carried a lot of this too. When I hear Sweetness I am taken back to hearing the chorus being hollered while I showered at Ian's house in Cape Town. I remember how clear it was and how loud. It was summer and I'd just swum in his pool which was ice cold. If You Don't, Don't is by far my favourite song on that album. Some of the lyrics in Your House have felt really close to the bone since hearing them again:

If you still care at all, don't go, tell me now.
If you love me at all, don't call.
Then out of nowhere, put me right back there.
Rip my heart out, you rip my heart right out.
And we know what happens when we get to your house.
Rip my heart out, you'll rip my heart right out.

I'm going to move on to Futures tonight. I think I need a little hark back to the times of teenage love and kisses in cars to get my mind off the present. I went through my journal yesterday and read the things I'd written in August. How was my perception of us so wrong?
I guess things changed.

I throw away everything I've written you.
Oh anything just keep my mind off of it, thinking how I had you once.
No, I can't forget that.
Sometimes I wish I could lose you again.

It's November now. It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that in February I'll fly home alone.

If you consider dating someone, what is the... well, the... the ANTI-CLINCHER? I can't think of how else to describe it - the thing that is a definite no-no?

It can be a physical attribute, if you're really shallow :). Or it can be a personality thing, like if they are a cat person and you're a dog person. It can even be something as small as 'they slurp their spaghetti'.

What is the deal breaker for you?

So the weekend turned out a bit different to how I imagined. I went out with Gill and Leon on Saturday, which was great even though everywhere closed as we arrived at their doors... eating hot pork sausages with your fingers after champagne and vodka is fun, especially when the memory of doing so comes rushing back to you in the middle of the next day.

Many laughs were had - singing Whitney Houston and MC Hammer on Putney Bridge, bumping into Dave yet again at Zulus, a hungover trip home.

I love the way my sister dresses this child.

He, of course, will look back and wonder why she made him look like a mini 60 year old golfer.
And why his aunty brought up his SOFT EYELASHES! Look at them! So soft! on her blog. Or maybe even why she had a blog. These are perhaps questions best left alone.

Oh, and guys

This girl does not exist.

And so the solitary weekend approaches. Not exactly solitary in that I'll probably bump into flatmates all over the place but solitary in that non-boyfriend kinda way.

Friday:
Home, after picking up bean sprouts at Tesco
Attempt to make miso soup from scratch
Have that and some quiche for dinner
Drink leftover wine from last weekend
Finish current book

Saturday:
Make soft boiled eggs and soliders (finally)
Attempt to set up wireless network
Download craploads of music
Correct all song names and artwork in iTunes
Start next book
Watch X-Factor
Watch episodes 4 and 5 of Lost Season 2
I imagine a DVD will appear from somewhere

Sunday:
Wash clothes
Paint nails
Pluck eyebrows
More random girl maintenance
Make new blog header?
Read some more
Go for a walk
Vacuum entire flat
Call mum

Insert ‘try not to think about it’ all over the place in this itinerary and you’ve got the picture. In a sad little way I’m happy to be at home, not queuing on the tube, with free time to myself.

But I miss… everything. So much.

Brian, the world's leading expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make, is taking a stroll down his local high street. As he passes by the record shop, a sign catches his eye. "Just Released - New LP - Wasps of the World & the sounds that they make - available now" Unable to resist the temptation, Brian goes into the shop. "I am the world's leading expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make. I'd very much like to listen to the new LP you have advertised in the window." "Certainly, Sir," says the young man behind the counter. "If you'd like to step into the booth and put on the headphones, I'll put the LP on for you." Brian, the world's leading expert on European wasps, goes into the booth and puts on the earphones. Ten minutes later, he comes out of the booth and announces, "I am the world's leading expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make and yet I recognised none of those." "I'm sorry Sir", says the young assistant. "If you'd care to step into the booth, I can let you have another 10 minutes." Brian, the world's leading expert on European wasps and the sounds they make, steps back into the booth and replaces the headphones. Ten minutes later, he comes out of the booth shaking his head. "I don't understand it", he says, "I am the worlds leading expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make, and yet I still can't recognise any of those!" "I really am terribly sorry", says the young assistant... "I've just realised I was playing you the bee side!"

I am developing a cold, which, frankly, is hardly news. What is weird is that I’m feeling okay, but my voicebox has decided to portray me as a 13-year old boy – my voice is so messed up. Co-workers are generating conversation with me only to snigger at my up-down-up-down tenor. I feel used.

The worst bit is that if I was feeling sick today, I could probably take the rest of the day off. But tomorrow, when the silly voice thing has passed, I’ll probably feel like crap, and won’t have the vocal symptom to back it up.

Dammit. Anyone up for making me soft-boiled eggs and soldiers?

You can go to visit a repro house and find out all sortsa neat tricks on photoshop. Then you can go to a lunch on them and drink pint after pint and discuss football and come back and blog and have to do some serious spellchecking because, hey - it was Grolsch, and hey - them repro guys are encouraging on the old 'top up'.

People react in strange ways. My mother keeps sending me motivational texts. My sister seems desperate for any news. Some friends tell me he’ll realise it’s a mistake and ask me back. Others tell me to cut my losses entirely and forget about him.

It is of course completely right that I do this the way I want to. Which so far been to trust the way I’ve felt about each thing that has happened – trust my gut. I refuse to feel ‘weak’ and like I’m ‘giving him the power’ if I call him. And if I don’t want to speak to him, or feel like if I do I’ll rant and be nasty, I won’t feel like I’m being unreasonable.

I think that worst part of all of this has been the realisation that everything I saw us becoming has had to be dissolved. It’s been tough to vocalise the things I thought were in the future for us; they had been unspoken for so long and I guess had become entrenched in my view of our relationship. Saying goodbye to the life I had made for us in my head left me feeling like a puppet hanging up between scenes – loose-limbed, without purpose, vacant.

I’m going to become this girl, aren’t I? I’m going to become the girl who can’t ever get over him.