28/07/09

On Friday night we had a date at a new restaurant opposite the Lifestyle centre called Hudson-something-something. They have two veg burger options on the menu so that is what we had. The burgers were both tasty, good portions and at good prices, and the chips were excellent, and the salad had freaking pine nuts and artichokes in it, people, but that is not what made my evening. What made my evening was the Monster Hits album they were playing, nice and loudly – including the likes of Informer, Bad Bad Boys, Let’s Get Sexual, and the infamous A La La La La Long ( I’m not sure that’s the real title). Incredibly formative in my pre-adolescence. It made me remember shuffling my feet, in the circle with all the other girls at Lyneale Cowie’s house in 1996, feeling like there was no hope for me because I absolutely could not master that two step left to right dance move. Somewhat cathartic, because as a 25 year old, it’s really, really easy to get down and ironic-boogie with your husband in a public space to Let’s Get Sexual.

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We have been cat-and-house sitting in Gardens for two weeks and when it’s sunny we walk everywhere. Being a pedestrian is therapy for me. Moving around the city unfettered by a car and the stresses of driving as a 25 year old girl with no real grip on the physics of traffic, is a big relief. To not have your day structured by planning around traveling time produces a completely different lifestyle. It’s an architectural issue I hear. I hope to be a much nicer person at the end of all this! Let me know how I’m doing!

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Work is okay – it’s feeling a little under-stimulating. A Lot Under-Stimulating. My new (ish) job keeps me cubicle bound, and while there are so many good things about it, it’s not really me. I am longing for work that is really me, but I don’t know if it’s for all the right reasons. I tend to degenerate into a funk sometimes when I think about how I don’t have a real career – Doctor, Lawyer, Farmer, Professional Hip Hop Dancer, Pilates Instructor – because it feels like it means my efforts at self-improvement don’t go any where specific, they just diffuse. Doing this honours degree is an effort to refine my skills a little further, but who am I kidding? English majors are a proverbial dime a proverbial dozen. When Charl’s finished his Masters, maybe I’ll sign up for a 6 month diploma in something that will mean I can insert one, self contained noun at the end of this sentence: Hi, I’m a …

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I invited a whole lot of people to come an watch an old Spanish Art Film with us in the evening after our date, and when nobody was able to make it I was quite disappointed – but it turns out to have been a Total Act of God that nobody could make it, because it was one of the most depressing, you-are-clearly-a-philistine-and-unable-to-decode-the-semiotics-of-Spanish-cinema, depressing and did I say depressing films we’ve ever sat through. Thanks for sparing us the humiliation of being the people that picked the film everyone hated, again, everybody!

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I really like De Waal Park. And I keep seeing people from E-TV everywhere. It’s like they’re following me – investigative reporting? Gardens/Oranjezicht/Tamboerskloof/Vredehoek is totally the shiz. And we live next to a pretty impressive pair of artists.

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