More starts and less fits, please.

Aye ca rumba. It's been... a while. Britney Spears is back in rehab. As is La Lohan.
Sigh.
I... am coming out. Of the house, mostly. Going to work, attending the occasional gig (ok, ok, one gig... but it was the only thing happening and that's NOT MY FAULT OK?)

I'm bored, people. Very. I can't even surf the internet at work anymore because my internet, she is broken. HOWEVER. There are some new and exciting developments in the pipeline.

1. We are getting the house painted so that the walls will no longer resemble the poopy underside of a baby's diaper.
2. I have decided to officially brand myself and start doing all manner of independent furniture/ decor/ design projects under the banner of OPEN. Cos I'm, like, open to new things, geddit? Also, I am indecisive. But branding is all about turning your weaknesses into strengths, so there you go.
Shut up Josh.
3. We have finally started making plans to do the UK thing, and although it will still be a very long while indeed, I am already so relieved to be moving on a decision. I have already found out what kind of visa I can apply for and what my options are, and we have decided on an amount of money to save over the next 18 months. Woo Hoo! (for the moving, not the saving of money. Obviously.)
4. I am getting some t shirts printed up to be sold in a new store soon to open in Johannesburg, called Further. Not too much news on it yet, other than that it will be stocking loads of imported music, books, dvds and related paraphernalia aimed at the indie/ vegan/ environmentally conscious market. The t shirts are 100% fair trade and organic, and I will be doing a range of designs promoting green living. Here is the first design: Don't ask me why, but when I uploaded the image, the colour became possessed by the devil. Still looks cool though, and you get the idea.

The store will also be carrying a few copies of the amazing book WorldChanging, which is being sold for a much higher price than normal in other places, so for those of you who are interested, you should DEFINITELY check it out.

On the downside, being this bored is rather energy sapping. I have begun to continuously scratch my head, and that's when I know I'm stressed. I just scratch and scratch and scratch, and lets just say, it gets a little uncomfortable after a while. You REALLY didn't need to know that, did you? That's what the Internet is all about: overshare.

My life lacks narrative THRUST

And no, that is not a sexual innuendo. That part of my life is just fine, thank you very much. The rest of, however... let's just say that watching as much television as I have has caused me to seriously evaluate my circumstances, leaving me with the following thoughts:

1. Where is my whacky, slutty office sidekick?
2. Am I the whacky, slutty office sidekick?
3. Should I be worried that my place of work does not resemble an industrial loft space?
4. When is my magical makeover from grumpy, frumpy dork to elegant swan in heels and a pencil skirt going to occur?
5. What's with all the eating I have to do to stay alive?
6. Why does my hair not look anything like Zoey Busiek's hair?
7. Wheres MY goddam soundtrack?

And finally:

8. Did I leave my script in my other pants?

Obviously, you share my wonderment at these questions. Because at some stage in your life, you too have experienced the sheer frustration of not living a scripted, well-lit (oh god there's another one...WHY AM I SO BADLY LIT?), perfecty dressed existence. I honestly believed while growing up that one day I would be an adult, and that would mean many pairs of shoes neatly arranged in their boxes with polaroid pictures attached, living in a loft apartment replete with an Eames lounger and perfect skin.
hahahahaha.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Ahem.

Unfortunately, as my nice therapist would probably point out, these are not the real issues. The real issues probably have something to do with the fact that being 24 is effing scary. I don't know about you, but there just seems to be so much LIFE that I have to get through before the Eames lounger and the perfect skin become viable realities. And, oh god, what if they never become viable realities? And what if I stop caring about them? What will I have to hold on to in the night time, when I'm lying snug in my bed with a whole load of ridiculously angsty thoughts roll around in my carefully dishevelled head? Should I be worried that every day I am becoming more and more like a character from Reality Bites? Only less well paid? And not actually acting?

IS IT WRONG TO NARRATE YOUR OWN EXISTENCE AS IF YOU WERE ON A BADLY PRODUCED TV SHOW?

And counting

This is my fifth Saturday night spent with my ass trying to absorb the couch. Which is a fancy, if slightly icky way of saying that I have not gone out for five Saturdays in a row. Roxanne, if you are reading this, its time to start drinking on my behalf. I would, but I'm pretty sure I have developed some sort of allergy to alcohol which prevents me from being able to finish even ONE GLASS without wanting to crawl into a nuclear hole and DIE the next morning. I know you expected more from me, but what can I say?

It's amazing how when you spend this much time doing nothing, you have all the time in the world to count.
Number of days spent basking in the cool glow of DsTv: 6
Number of times Choef has used a random shoe as paper ball storage: 4
Number of times Paul and I have marvelled at the weirdness of Choefs behaviour: 11
Number of days I have ignored the broken blind on the balcony: 2
Number of channels changed in the last six minutes: 52
Number of decor magazines I have plowed through today: 3
Number of Pizza's eaten: 2
Number of yawns and stretches: infinite.
Number of times Paul has called me sweet after reading this post: 1

God, I love my life.

Stylishly square eyes

So, ok, some may think this somewhat premature, considering that we only moved into the new flat of amazingness a month ago, but to be honest I don’t really care, because NO ONE CAN TAKE MY DSTV AWAY FROM ME.

Its been a bit of an uphill battle for paul to convince me to get the fabled decoder, the one which streams endless hours of entertaining brain junk right into your living room, but now I am addicted. In the last two days (count em: two) I have watched probably over a hundred hours of crap. It doesn’t matter that two days is less than a hundred hours. Im that good. I have perfected the art of swiss rolling myself in a blanket and bleating for chocolate in such a persuasive tone that Paul is compelled to leave the flat and risk life and sanity to get me speckled eggs. I can change channels with my mind.

Of course between all this latent talent finding is the one inescapable irony: since getting DsTv, SABC’s 1, 2 and 3 have had the best things to watch.

Bad Mia!

If ever there were proof that Paul would make a better, more loving and responsible parent than me, it would have to be the morning that Choef entangled herself in a plastic packet.

Careening feverishly around the flat with the white plastic dragging itself down from her head to around her little pot belly, reminiscent of a poofy skirt, Paul did the responsible thing and went to the kitchen to fetch the scissors.

I, on the other hand, went for the camera. You can just tell I'm going for pet owner of the year, right?

Time flies

I've been pretty busy doing nothing over the last couple of weeks, so I'm sure you will forgive my lack of posts.
Last week I was down with some kind of crazy infection that caused my muscles to throb at night, and stopped me from being able to sleep well. So basically I have been lying on the couch moaning for chocolate while Paul gets on with the day to day management of the house.

Luckily I felt much better this weekend and we crept out for a brief period on Saturday to blow whatever was left of our hard earned money on furniture. We wound up going to a couple of really beautiful second hand furniture stores in 44 Stanley ave, and by god! Did we get lucky!
Check it out
We got two Tulip chairs! Hurrah! I have been in love with these babies since I saw them a while back in some magazine, and even though I know they are on the more 'pop' end of furniture design, they are still totally banging and designed by someone whose work I admire a great deal. So.
Apologies for the lack of home made pictures of the chairs, but we are actually in the middle of ripping all the upholstery off them and getting them refinished. They are made from fiberglass, so, yeah, good luck to us. It's a dirty, dirty, frustrating job, an hour of which left me once again groaning on the couch, wishing for less 'imagination' and more common sense.

In other news, here are some long overdue pictures of things I have recently acquired:

Some shoos from Mr Price. Aren't they pretty? Too bad I can never shop there again.
Goddammit.



An office Malfi, courtesy of Ross.
Back story: Ross sent this to me a week or so after we broke up, I guess as a kind of 'don't worry I still love you lets get back together' thing. So the first six months of its life were spent in the cupboard of shame and regret, after which it was moved to the desk of acceptance, just in time to be chewed and scratched by the kittens of death.
It now sits atop the filing cabinet of taking responsibility for your actions.







A half-finished office that we never use because I still haven't packed away half the crap littering the floor, and which only looked like this for about ten minutes.

Anyway. It looked good though, right?



A corner filled with yellow sunshine.
I am completely in love with yellow at the moment, and Paul doesn't know this yet, but I plan to fill many more corners with it.

AHAHAHAHAHA!