Moving On Up

It's Monday morning and I have a serious case of Monday blues, combined with a decent helping of post holiday blues, topped off with the blues that come when you reach a turning point in your life and you're ready for a change, but you are unable to make it. Oops, I think this is turning into a serious discussion of my life post!*

Basically, I am ready to call time on my London experience. I've had a three and a half year run and it has been awesome. But in three and a half years, a lot has changed. I've gotten older - I will be 30 in 10 months (yes I know you're not supposed to count up like that; I should be saying I STILL have 10 months LEFT of being 29, but whatever!). I'm starting to get tired of the constant partying. I look at my peer group on facebook and find myself coveting what they have: a surburban life in Cape Town complete with house, dogs and kids. I am so ready to be a mom; I would love to have a baby and I want to get married and settle down. I've always wanted those things, but for the first time I find myself wanting them more than I want to travel and life the young, free and careless lifestyle that we do over here.

I can say with absolute certainty that I've gotten everything out of my 20's that I could possibly have wanted. A few years ago when Shoes and I talked about this, we were so scared of getting old and being boring. We did everything we could to stay young and feel like we were the same age as the majority of our peer group (I would say the average age now of my group of friends here is 26 - Shoes and I are the eldest couple at nearly 28 and 29 respectively). We didn't want to be the ones to settle down when everyone else was still having the time of their lives. I admit I used to really worry about that - would we still be living it large at 33/34 just so we could match the pace of our friends' lives? Would we start feeling like those creepy 40-somethings that go out clubbing among groups of scantily-clad 20-something girls? Would we feel like we were trying too hard to hold onto something that was already gone? I have no issue with people in their mid-30's living the life that we do now...some of my best friends are 30-something, single and can out-party me. But for me - for us - it was a cause for concern because we've always known we wanted a family, and we didn't want to leave it too late.

What I didn't count on is that nature has a way of telling you when you're ready for the next step, friends and family plans be damned! Now I find that what my friends do no longer matters to me. What matters is that I know what I want, and I'm no longer afraid of being the only couple in my group to take that step and make a home. Of course there's something called a biological clock that has a lot to do with what I'm feeling, but it's more than that. It's the realisation that what we're doing now, the way we're living - while it has been absolutely incredible and I have memories of this time that I will revisit with joy for the rest of my life, it will never be enough for me. I want more than this - or less, if you want to be technical.

So there you go - this is the moment that I know for sure I am ready to leave London. One of my dreams has always been to go to Thailand, and I know I'm ready to go home because for the first time I want that more than I want Thailand, and I'd be prepared to scrap that trip if it would help me get home faster.

BUT....

With all choices, there are conditions, quid pro quos, or just bloody obstacles! Mine is that I can only apply for my British passport end of next year. Whether or not to wait is more my decision than Shoes' because he already has his passport, and can travel freely around the world. If I decided not to wait, he'd be on board with that. However, I decided a while ago that I wouldn't leave without one, and I'm sticking to that. I want it for many reasons, but that is a whole other post.

So, after all that, the earliest we can look at going home is end of next year, once I've applied. It can take up to 6 months to get the passport, but sometimes it takes 2, so we'll hope for the best. What we at least can do now is work out a timeline of goals for ourselves between now and then.

It's going to be hard, waiting another year and a half when all I want is to get on a plane tomorrow. But, since I don't have a choice, I have to get myself into a space where I can enjoy the last months of my time here, as I never want it said I wasted two years of my life moping.

*I meant to write about our failed Sunday movie night last night, but sometimes these things just get away from you! Will post on that tomorrow.

Every Breath You Take (Hurts Like a Bitch)

3 days on and I feel like I've settled back into my routine. Up at 7am, on the tube by 8:10am, working - or pretending to, a girl's gotta have a little downtime between holidays and work, you know? - til 5:30pm and then off home for gym/dinner/American Idol. What Cape Town?

Yesterday was my first day back in the gym in 3 weeks. This was the moment I spent my whole holiday dreading. Going to the gym when I'm in a routine is fine. It's so much a part of my existence that I tend to exercise on automatic pilot. It's an hour of my day where I resemble a blank canvas on the inside, and a juicy, overripe tomato on the outside. I never get tired to comparing myself to the other suckers for torture to see which of us is the reddest/sweatiest/making the most off putting faces on any given day at my local Virgin Active. However, going to the gym after a nearly 3 week break has its downsides, to channel the master of understatement.

Thursday night is aerobics night. Scarf and I try to go every week, and when we're fit, it's a great class. It's almost exactly the same routine each week, so as you get fitter, you can push harder and test your body's intensity limits. When we're not fit, however, it resembles being chained to the inside of a giant hamster wheel and forced to run for 45 minutes while pulling the weight of a mack truck behind you. And before you suggest it, we don't walk out of classes - we're too chicken shit for that.

So there I am, puffing away after the first 5 minutes - which only constitues the very reasonably paced warm up - and trying to stifle my gaping yawns. This yawning thing is a fairly recent development, I do it all the way through my classes. I can't decide if these are "I am so over this right now" yawns or nervous "OMG what IS she going to make us do next" yawns. Either way, I imagine my instructor must be wondering what kind of bitch not only comes to her class and makes this half-assed attempt that would make James Cordon look good, but also has the cheek to act like her class is more boring than a One Tree Hill storyline.

I managed to fumble my way through the cardio by making sure every leg lift was 2 inches lower the normal, and every squat was more like the gentle knee dip you make when you courtsey. Once we were down on the floor for toning, I thought I was home free. I may have eaten and drank too much while on holiday, so its understandable that my heavier frame has the buoyancy of a block of lead, but surely my abs have survived the trip? Ha bloody ha. We hadn't even completed the first set of reps when I realised that in fact, they are even more incapacitated than my legs, and the burning sensation was so bad I was twisting like a pretezel in an attempt to get away from my own stomach. Even the warm down at the end was embarrassing, with my whole body doing the Beyonce shimmy when it was supposed to be held still in a zen-like stretch.

My only consolation is that there were plenty of other girls who looked as bedraggled as me at the end of it all. Claire-Bear wrote the other day about the annoyingly perfect looking people at Constantia Virgin Active in Cape Town - well, I can safely say that across the pond, there are very few gym bunnies. All the beautiful people are at Mahiki with Kate Moss and her posse; they opt for the Starvation Method over the Step & Sweat Method. I am truly grateful for the normal human beings inhabiting London gyms. After spending 3 years attending Green Point Virgin Active in Cape Town, aka The Gym Where All The Models Go, I get irrationally enraged everytime a see a girl coming into a gym with loose, freshly straightened hair and perfectly applied make up. And then, when they do that kind of slow mo jog so the hair can billow in the blasts from the air con....it is enough to send my sweat-soaked self into a state of treadmill rage, a far more dangerous syndrome than road rage (think of the damage potential in a gym...weights dropped on feet, people bumped off cross trainers).

I'm currently trying to work up the courage to go back for more tonight. My body is creaking like a cellar door, and some smoker has clearly stolen my good lungs and left their emphysema-riddled set in my chest as a joke. But I will persevere. Beautified gym bunnies, watch out. I will stairmaster your head.

My So-Called Life

I have been back in London for about 32 hours now, and the most prominent emotion I am feeling is confusion. The last 17 days have been spent in a whirlwind of activity in Cape Town and Creighton (near Durban), visiting with our families and friends and attending my best friend's wedding. It was busy, it was decadent (in Cape Town we like to have a competition called How Many Times Can We Eat Out In 1 Week), it was gloriously sunny and it was totally fulfilling.

In short, it was home. It was absolutely where Shoes and I feel we are meant to be.

So to come back to London, to get on the tube this morning and go to work like I've done every other day for the last 3 and a half years, to see the people I usually see and talk about the things we usually talk about.....it should feel normal pretty quickly, right? After all, this is what I do; it's what I've been doing since I moved here and will continue to do until the day we go home for good. This is my life. Why then am I sitting in front of my pc feeling like I've accidentally stepped into someone else's life?

I am less miserable and more struggling to adjust to what is in essence a case of right time, wrong place. I shouldn't be here. I should be in Cape Town where I belong, close to my family, close to my sister and sisters-in-law, close to the beach and the sky so blue it is rated one of the top 5 blue skies in the world. I should be having braais in the garden under the sun, not on a corner of a first floor balcony in the grey drizzle. I should not have to comfort Mini-Me over facebook that the end of the airport goodbyes is fast approaching - I should be able to say you know what, that's it - that was the last one.

There are reasons why I can't do all those things. My friends and family know why we're still here, and they understand. We have a plan, and we're fulfilling our dreams as much as it sometimes hurts us and them to do so. I know I have more to do over here before we can come home for good, and I've made my peace with it.

But as much as I tell myself this is all how its meant to be, I still feel like I have hijacked someone else's desk, someone else's job and someone else's purpose. And the girl whose life I have right now...it's not a bad life, and she's obviously a lucky girl. She just doesn't feel like me.

I've done this before, and previous experience tells me that this too shall pass. Maybe tonight when I go home, my house will feel like my house and not a friend's flat. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'll just sit here and spy on this other girl until it's time to leave to go and vote. I may not feel like myself today, but at least this afternoon I will join 7500 other expats in London in feeling proudly South African!

Acceptable In The 80's

What a feeling, being's believing, I can have it all now I'm dancing for my liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife......

Yes, I really am singing one of the 80's most definitive songs - under my breath obviously, as I don't want to drive my colleagues to raiding the team drinks cupboard. If I was at home in my room I would be flinging myself around in a dangerous imitation of Jennifer Beals as she wows the judges with her kind of cheesy, disturbingly aerobics-like dancing, after heroically picking herself up from that fall that was the lamest excuse for a stumble I have ever seen. I mean, they could have at least had her trip convincingly to make up for the, ahem, acting. Before you go all "yes but she's an icon" on me, I'm not hating on Flashdance - in fact, I adore Flashdance, and pretty much every other dancing flick ever made. Yes, even Make It Happen, and good lord that was a bad one. Never heard of it? There's a reason for that - don't look it up.

Flashdance is merely a teaser, just the tip of the iceberg of this mini 80's revival I am having at my desk. The 80's are officially back people! Now, I know the 80's have technically been back for a while, as evidenced by the reformation of Depeche Mode and NKOTB, and the startling recent trend amongst celebs to overdo the blue eyeshadow and pouffy back combs (Olsen twins anyone?). Thundercats has been re-released on dvd to a storming reception, and Jason Donovan is suddenly in great demand again. But there has been one thing missing that didn't just represent the 80's, it WAS the 80's in all it's glorious kitschness: NEON.

I was at River Island the other day exchanging a pair of jeans, and one half of the store consisted entirely of neon clothing. Among the trademark racks of "distressed" denim (insert said denim's feeble cry for help here...am I the only one who imagines this?) was row upon row of lumo pink leggings, safety-marshall yellow jackets and dresses in greens so bright I was temporarily blinded, and had to peer at my surroundings as if through those nifty night vision goggles they use in spy movies. In a frenzy, I grabbed an armload of pretty much every luminous item in my size and rushed to the changing rooms, head spinning with the palette of colours I hadn't seen since we used to wear 4 rolly socks at once so our feet would look like they wore neon anklets. Imagine the thrill I felt shrugging into a neon orange t-shirt WITH A PRINT OF A LADY IN A HAT on the front (all the greatest 80's prints had ladies in hats).

My joy was slightly tempered when I realised that orange, having never been my colour, is still not my colour and is possibly even less so when it comes in an incandescent hue. Similarly, the yellow made me look like I was about to vomit on the changing room floor, and the pink, while not as awful, was a slightly salmony neon, and so gave me the appearance of a rather pallid fish with scales in all the wrong places (read: it accentuates curves that shouldn't be accentuated). To my relief, I found the lumo green dress looked pretty good, until I heard a commotion outside my cubicle and poked my head out to find a mother wrestling with a little girl of about 5, who was wearing a dress in exactly the same shade.

It left me with a nostalgic feeling for the days of my early childhood, when listening to Paula Abdul was cool and all the girls wore tommie takkies with their zebra print skirts. More about that tomorrow. It also left me with the distinct impression, though, that this summer we are going to see a great many jaundiced looking women walking the streets of London in their lumo gear, cracking gum with their mouths open and tossing their hair metal band coiffes in a tribute to good old days. I myself have learnt my lesson from those 5 minutes spent in River Island's changing room, and will leave the past safely in the past. I swear on my rolly socks.

Cry Another Day

I haven't written a party-related post for a while now. I used to cover our drunken exploits far more often on this blog, until my mother sent me an e-mail asking me in that polite but unmistakeably disapproving tone that mothers use if I was not at all concerned for my liver, because she certainly was, and perhaps I should pay more attention to my health and my AGE, thank you very much. Ok, maybe she didn't mention my age, perhaps that is my guilt talking. I then had to fling myself into furious back pedalling to convince her that I am in fact in very good health, and contrary to how it sounds, I don't actually spend every weekend pissed out of my head. Only every second weekend. Ha ha, sorry mom, just kidding - and I love that you care, really.

In all seriousness though, I am a lot better than I used to be - we all are. Nights would often end with one or more of my happy party in floods of tears (clearly not so happy anymore), falling off of or over inconveniently placed obstacles such as bar tables or bartenders, picking fights and causing an almighty scene (usually the girls), throwing up in the doorway of the club (the girls again), dancing like strippers on podiums (we still do that) or any number of other issues that befall the truly drink sodden. Did we have a good time? Hell yeah! But we are all getting on a bit now, and we've developed a sense of dignity. At least, we thoroughly enjoy watching our younger compatriots behave in a similar fashion when we're out, and smugly discussing how we've grown up since then (we choose not to notice that we were right in there as recently as 18 months ago). So we manage for the most part to party up a storm without behaving like chavs or taking a battering ram to our livers - just a solid mallett does the trick, we find. There are, however, always exceptions to any rule.

Saturday was one such exception. As I've mentioned before, there is a large group of us all born in March. Much discussion over beers (of course) has led us to believe that June, the month in which we were all conceived, is obviously a generally cold and boring month. Because our parents could not control their libidos during the early ides of winter, we now have to deal with what is a very expensive and physically exhausting 31 days each year, as we try to celebrate with each of the March babies. This year, we faced an expensive and physically exhausting March after having already faced an expensive and physically exhausting previous 6 months, due to the recession and our constant worrying about how to survive it (never mind those of who have actually been laid off as result). One thing was certain - the only way to deal with March in a credit crunch was to have one massive birthday celebration for everyone.

Saturday night was that celebration and it lived up to the extensive hype we've been feeding into it the past few weeks. We took over a pub in Wandsworth, having convinced the owner to let us have it for free in return for ramping up his weekend attendance, and we set up a sound rig in there that could have easily powered a small club. Since so many of our friends are up and coming DJs in the trance and electro scenes in London, they all volunteered to play, and the pub's owner kindly offered to lock the place down from 11pm - 2am just for us. For those not familiar with a lockdown, its when an establishment closes its doors to the public and allows the punters inside to continue partying. You can go out, but if you do, you can't come back in, as was discovered by my sweet but dopey friend P, who wandered outside for a smoke after 11 and never made it back (there was an alternative smoking area out the back, but there you go).

Everything was going splendidly. People were pissed and having the time of their lives. But as with anything, things are not always what they seem.....the drama started half way through the evening when Penguin ran into some trouble with the guy she's been seeing. To cut a long story short, there is also an ex-girlfriend in the picture, and one thing led to another and before we knew it, Pen was miserable and pissed off. I pulled her outside to do my friendly duty in telling her what an idiot he was, and my concern was met with a flood of tears. After a quick pep talk and make-up check - because we are all very experienced in How To Deal with Drunken Dramatics - we had her back on the dancefloor and in high spirits again. Later on there was a pretty much a blow by blow repeat performance, which ended with Penguin leaving and not telling anyone. I'd give that a measly 5 out of 10 in the drama stakes, although for Pen it actually deserves a 6, as it is quite out of character for her.

at 2am we left the pub and there was some confusion as to who was going where with whom. Miss M and Shoes had a little altercation outside the pub, with Shoes saying some things he shouldn't have in a very insensitive guy kind of way, leaving Miss M a little upset. In the meantime, Mandz was practically rolling herself down the road in the general direction of home. When I questioned G-Days and OJ about it, they said she had fought them off when they tried to call her a cab, and had insisted on walking home. As the poor girl was too drunk to coherently spell out her address, I made the boys chase her down and hail a cab for her, which they forcibly put her in. On my way to a friend's house to continue the party, I had first Mandz and then Miss M call me, both of them in tears for very different reasons. Miss M was unsure as to why she was crying, and was very upset that she was being "that drunk girl who cries about nothing". Mandz on the other hand was very sure of why she was crying - she didn't want to get in the cab and was forced into it, and then life, love and everything in general were all just too much and what was she supposed to do, and how could she go inside her house in this state (she was standing on her front lawn probably waking up the neighbours with braying sobs).

At one point, I had my phone in one ear with Mandz sobbing her heart out, and G-Days' phone in the other ear with Miss M bawling, and I very nearly started crying myself because I couldn't think of anything else to do! It took some doing, but I managed to soothe them both by talking about shopping (Mandz) and how everyone else was actually far more dramatic that she was (Miss M).

The best thing was the shameful texts the next morning, when no-one could quite face anyone else, or in Mandz' case, even remember what had happened at all! All in all it was a brilliant night, so good in fact, that the pub owner has agreed to let us have regular parties there over the summer. Next time I'll be the crazy one, and someone else can do the counselling!

I Touch Myself

I was going through my e-mails in my gmail inbox today, deleting old threads, sorting others into categories and labelling those I want to keep (yes, I am anal to the point of needing therapy), when I came across something that I just have to share with you. We all get bizarre spam messages, right? You know the kind: enhance your sexual performance / increase the size of your penis / introducing a new cure for some unspeakable condition, etc etc. Sometimes we get them delivered straight to our inboxes, with our names in the subject line.

Then there is the e-mail that is not spam, but you dearly wish it was. The kind that comes when you sign up to an online dating site, because you're tired of never meeting women as you're always going out with the same bunch of friends. You say in your profile that you're straight - of course you do. But you also put up a few pics that are a little, um, sensual perhaps...pics that are meant to lure the ladies in by means of your six pack and well defined chest/arms.

Of course, this is risky, because there is always one person who will see past the chick-bait and assume your photos are evidence of unexpressed desires:

Hi X
Hope this doesn't offend you....

I'm Colin.Currently seeking fit uninhibited guys who want to earn spare time cash in hand (£160) for 1.5 hours modelling nude for photos & solo wank videos in London.

I give free photos to all models of themselves. References can be provided on request.

It's posing solo with erection & cum shots while watching hardcore porno. It's for an upcoming adult solo male nudes website I want to put together.

Take a look at my profile for sample photos of models.

If you'd be interested to know more, see recent samples of my work etc you can contact me on msn messenger.

Needless to say, my friend declined Colin's kind offer. If you're a pervy narcissist, however, this might be your dream job. If this sounds like you, IM me and I'll track down the lusty Colin for you.

Lopz Likes Jake's Lollipop

Right, I need to get something off my chest. For those of you who don't use facebook, you should probably stop reading now. However, if you are like me, and you know how lame it is to stalk your friends but you just can't help yourself, I would appreciate your input on this.

I have taken issue with facebook's new range of "actions". Recently the content providers, in their ever expanding quest for world domination and consequent willing contribution to the current economic downfall, have added a potential action for pretty much everything that your friends do. For a few months now, we've had the ability to "comment" on things. For example, I edit the music field in my profile, and my friends sees it and comments: "For the love of all that is holy, do you seriously listen to Def Leppard? You loser!" Or something like that. Kind of pointless, but not actually offensive, unless you have befriended offensive people (yes you, the one with the 650 friends. That is what happens when you befriend random strangers in an attempt to look popular).

Then there are the less inflammatory but more useful actions, such as being able to add an event to your calendar when you see it on a friend's mini-feed (a list of one's online activities, for those of you who don't speak Facebook).

From there, we turn a corner and begin an unstoppable slide down the slippery slopes of insanity, beginning with the "like" action. In my book, this one scored top marks for Most Imbecilic Idea Ever Had By A Facebook Employee. You can "like" anything from a friend's taste in music or a photo they put up, to their status update. So Jimmy writes "I'm tired" and you can like it (you literally click on a link that says like, and you are listed underneath the status / photo as "Lopz likes this". With a little thumbs up sign. No, really.) Am I the only one who is befuddled by the absurdity of this action? So you like that Jimmy is tired, or that he just ate an egg sandwich (while I may be a regular facebook user, I pride myself on not boring people to the point of artery severing with inane updates). So the fuck what? Does anybody out there REALLY give a crap that you like someone else's egg sandwich? And while I'm on it, I would like to beg mercy from those who insist on telling us they are eating egg sandwiches, or that they are are cleaning their rooms, or that their brains are about to explode from the effort of thinking of an original status update. Please people. No-one cares. If you must do it, go on twitter, where grinches like myself don't dare to venture.

So, in case I wasn't clear, the "like" action has been my facebook nemesis. Until today.

This is what I found on my friend's mini-feed:

Jake just got a fresh new lollipop. It looks like it could use some breaking into!
02:54 - Comment - Like - Unlike - Suck Jake's Lollipop

Suck Jake's lollipop????

The potential for taking the piss is so vast, I don't know where to start. Suffice it to say that I believe facebook is slowly but surely targeting a younger and younger audience, and at nearly 30, I think I might have to look at putting an expiry date on my account. After all, can you really consider sucking Jake's lollipop at 40 with a straight face?