Last night we indulged in two activities that were polar opposites of each other.

First we went dancing with my best friend (Michelin Man) and her new victim, er... boyfriend, at Klipwerf - a rather interesting cultural phenomenon where couples get the opportunity to dance to music ranging from traditional boeremusiek, current Afrikaans "treffers", golden oldies and English chart-toppers. Always interesting, especially when you look at the various personality types you encounter at such a place.

First you have the Dodgy Old "Omie" - in his 50's, nice and mellow after his 7th Klippies & Cola, and fancying himself to be the stud of the town, able to score with girls half his age.

Next you have the Standard Slutty Girl - usually dressed in as little as possible, usually NOT with the body to match and doing choreographed pole dancing without the pole.

Third in our line up is the Hot Old Couple - they are usually in their 40's and keen to show off how passionate they can still be about each other. Their way of demonstrating this fact to the room is by some rather embarassing dirty-dancing style grinding.

Fourthly is the Kugel Poppie. Dressed in matching belt, high (usually platform) heels , designer (but badly fitting) jeans, and litlle sparkly top. Difficult to discern any facial expression through her thickly plastered make-up.

And last, but certainly not the least, the Rugby Buffoon. You will recognize him by the rugby jersey that he is proudly wearing and the determined, but stupid, expression on his face.

We spent the first half of our evening at Klipwerf, getting to know Michelin Man's new Michelin's Man. Just before midnight The Fiance received an sms from GreenDemon, saying that him and Just-ify! are now in Denim&Diamonds (a nightclub in Stellenbosch), in bondage gear. Recognizing that this was an opportunity not to be missed, we excused ourselves and headed back to Stellenbosch.

Upon arriving at D&D we immediately spotted GreenDemon & Just-ify! - in crowded places it's always handy to have above-average height friends. There they were - with chains clipped to a band around their necks, and attached to this, pink fluffy handcuffs. Interesting... Of course, GreenDemon proceeded to hook The Fiance with one of his cuffs, quite soon after our arrival. I knew hereenD couldn't resist for too long... ;-) I soon found myself in the rather bizarre position of playing photographer to The Fiance and GreenDemon, playing it up for the camera with the bondage gear. Less secure girls would've been worried... Just-ify later joined in by spanking The Fiance with one of his chains. None of these antics however seemed to attract any attention whatsoever from the patrons - although I suppose that, in a nightclub, after midnight, nothing really raises eyebrows. Also met The Pony, Justi-fy!'s latest flame, and seems like a nice enough girl, although she was quick to assure me that she is not normally in schoolgirl attire. I just smiled... The evening was cut short however by the 21st celebrations of The Pony's friend which got the better of said friend. Let's just say he was on the wrong side of sober.

So an evening of extremes came to an end and we happily toddled off to bed.

Ooooohhhh I'm so excited.

Three of my girlfriends are in those first few weeks of being hopelessly in love and I just love seeing them so happy. They have this GLOW about them, can't stop daydreaming about the man they're seeing and are just generally so loved up, they cannot focus on anyone else.

Sometimes it feels like a loss to think I'll never experience that again, but on the other hand I wouldn't trade what I have now for anything. I know that, whatever happens, I've got someone who's got my back covered, someone who'll drive to me 2 o'clock in the morning if I need him. Best of all is knowing that The Fiance loves me unconditionally, even after seeing me at my (very) worst.

I remember once, almost 2 years ago I think, we were out with friends and the place we were at had this cocktail promotion - two for the price of one. Being a sucker for a bargain (and at that point also still a cash-strapped student!), I made generous use of this offer. Problem was though, I kind of misjudged the amount of alcohol I was ingesting due to a couple of reasons:

a) It was served in a small glass jar as opposed to a normal glass
b) The fruity flavours was rather deceptive and masked the alcohol taste
c) The old "sipping-through-straws" (note the plural - it was TWO straws, not just one!) enabled me to get a lot more down my throat a lot faster

To make a long story short, I soon started to feel a bit dizzy and went to the bathrooom to try and compose myself. However, upon getting there, I realised that I was past the point of revival and could not drag myself up from the floor of the bathroom stall. My fiance (then boyfriend) started getting a bit worried at this point in time as it'd been quite a while since I excused myself from the table and came to the ladies' to investigate matters. Quite a feat in itself, seeing as he had to do careful planning to ensure there were no girls in the bathroom at that point in time. So, there I was, hugging my porcelain saviour, feeling rather out of it, when I suddenly heard something above me. I looked up and next thing I knew, he'd climbed into the bathrooom stall from the next door one. Apparently he'd been knocking on the door of the stall I was in for some time, but I had not heard a thing. (Well, in the state of mind I was in, that was hardly surprising... ) I've never been so glad to see someone. I know I would've passed out right there if I was left to my own devices for 5 more minutes. The night came to a rather abrupt end after that as my man made apologies for the both of us to our friends and carted me home. I seem to recall he had quite a hard time getting me to bed that night...

Well, I've aged since my last post. I am now the ripe old age of 24, and at times that fact is scarily apparent... Not so much in my state of mind, I actually feel rather ageless at the moment, I had to do a quick calculation when a friend asked me today how old I am now. But when I closely examine myself in the mirror, the lines around my eyes are starting to show. And you know it's bad when a friend comments on your grey strands! But I've made peace with that, as my mom says, it gives character - in which case, it seems I've got a LOT of character!

12 July 2006

Take today for example. It was lunchtime and I had some leftovers that needed heating up (in July in the Western Cape, hot food is a necessity, not a luxury). So I climb the stairs to the top floor where THEY sit. (Interesting to note that they are on an entirely different floor than the other staff – coincidence? I think not….). To start off with, the kitchen is inconveniently small; strange, if you consider that they are engineers after all, whose purpose in life is to design things to make life more convenient. So while one of them is busy in there, I wait in the hallway.

And here’s where my observation technique comes in handy. Because, without fail, they all comply with Enginerd Practice #7 – which is to stare at any member of the female species as if they’d never seen one before. Understandable, I suppose, if you take into account that their university years were spent mostly in social isolation from girls (the few females opting to study engineering are so bizarre, they do not seem to fit the normal female mould anyway). So, they all proceeded to stare at, no – inspect – me as I stood there, as if they were trying to reverse engineer the female form. Normally, glances one gets from the opposite sex tend to be quite flattering. However, when it is this kind of clinical inspection, the correct word seems to be creepy.