Prom Night!

I went to Prom in the 80's and this is what happened.

Jody and I were being super cool last Friday and got dressed in our best 80s style outfits - note how not 80's they actually were, cause what even are that? Either way we dressed up, we showed up and we had a real good time jiving to those Old Time-y Tunes.
Another-Day sure does know how to throw themselves a birthday party and boy do they deserve it, being one of the best blogs on my reading list..
Those guys are the best and also good at dancing.

With the likes of Gangsterdam and Satanic Dagga Orgy playing some cool covers of those kick-ass tunes we all know and are embarrassed to sing-a-long too, as well as the creepy guys trying to hit on you for their friends, the confetti, the balloons, the spiked punch and the awkward couples dancing to not so couple-y slow dance song, it was like we were really back at High School and that Molly Ringwald was about to loose her underpants. Yup! A great night was had by all.

A little later on in the evening, Jody and I had an unexpected encounter. She was sleeping at my house - as one does after Prom - and my Mother had agreed to give us a lift. These little lost Cape Tonians, looking around all bleary eyes and a little drunk, needed a lift home, they politely asked us, knowing that the answer would most likely be no, but trying anyways. Turns out we're such nice people and we gave them all a lift home, squeezed in the back on my Moms car. So funny. Turns out they knew one of my cousins. Small world. I cant really remember their names and they probably don't much remember the encounter, but what a fun story to tell the internet. Ha ha. Yes.

Here are some pictures from the evening shot by the Another-Day in house photographer and proud owner of a 'fro: Anthony Bila

&Kathryn What

Mom Time

My Mom is really cool and really funny. She's one of the most creative people I know, and I probably owe a lot to her in terms of well, my existence.

She was a Graphic Designer and super cool and hip back in the day - sometimes she even lets me wear her cool and hip clothes from the 70's which is always fun. 

Every Sunday and some Saturdays she goes to some embroidery classes and does all sorts of cool stuff, maybe Ill put some pics up when its all done.

Sometimes we go shopping together for more cotton because you can never have too many brightly coloured threads to make magic embroidery with.

Yay! My Mom is better than your Mom. Don't even try and deny it.

Moms are great.
You should appreciate
them
(oh rhymes.)
&Kathrynwhat

I spend too much money on clothes for my body.

Could it be that horrible affliction of Body Vs. Mind Vs. Soul that we hear all too often being a part of Generation X? Maybe, but maybe it's the fact that I've been looking for boots since I was 7 years old and my last pair got a hole in the toe. They were really cute little brown boots that kinda look like Timberlands... sign... that day killed me forever. I haven't been the same since.
BUT, I found these at this fantastic shoppe called Factorie, maybe you've hear of it? Its from New Zealand. This also begs the question as to why, oh why South African designers cant hit the mark with good fashionable wear for the broke ass students. We seem to only end up with ill fitting, horribly made and even worse fabric choices from places like Edgars and Mr Price. Yes, yes you can tell me all about home grown and the whole re-branding thing, but lets be honest, it's still pretty shit and not quite as unique as we'd like to think. How am I supposed to be 'me', if ten thousand other people are also being 'them', whilst wearing the same clothes. Bla bla clothes don't make you who you are and you'd still be beautiful if you wore a plastic bag, inner beauty and all that, but hey, nothing beats a good pair of boots when that Winter Chill sets in and then you can take your plastic bag and tell me your toes aren't cold...
...and besides, really good South African designed clothes from Sgt. Pepper or good old YDE will pretty much break the bank, so...
My boots are cool and you can suck it biatch.
I've been wearing them all week cause they're amazing

&Kathrynwhat

The Train

She pulled her thin, black jumper tighter across her shoulders, shielding her from the cool morning breeze that was blowing through the train station. She had slipped into the ladies room to fix her make up before buying her ticket for the 5:45 train home. The toes of her boots were dotted with raindrops that had started to fall from the dark clouds above, she looked down at them. They were scuffed and a bit tattered, but she loved them all the same.

"Oh, what fun they had together" she thought, a wry smile spreading across her lips.

A low whistling and a rumble of the steamtrain engine could be heard way in the distance. She took one last drag from her cigarette before dropping it to the dampening ground and stubbing it out with the toe of her boot. Amelia gathered up her belongings that she had absent mindedly cast to one side of the bench, the one without the sleeping man spread across it; her ticket grasped tightly between her fingers as she eagerly awaited for the train to arrive.

She shivered a little.

On the train, she pulled a thick, black journal with weathered yellow pages and a pen. There were other passengers on board, but most of them were asleep having been on the train all night. Amelia began to write. The scratching of her pen against the paper echoed through the dimly lit cabin as the sky outside turned a lighter grey. The train chugged through the landscape and into the city before disappearing underground and plunging the train into semi darkness before the attendants turned on the florescent lights. People had started to wake now and were rubbing sleep from their eyes. A mother in the seat next to her was cooing gently as she shook her two children awake, touching their shoulders to rouse them while folding their blankets into a brown duffel bag. 

Amelia closed the book she had been scribbling in and stuffed it hastily back into her bag, ready to make her departure. 

*

A delicious smell of sugar and hot coffee filled the apartment as Amelia slipped in through the front door, her keys jingling as she dropped them into the bowl where they kept their keys. 

"I'm home!" she called to the house as she dumped her bags at the door and pulled off her shoes as she walked. 

"'I'm starving!" she groaned taking a seat at the counter and looking over just in time to see her room mate take a bite out of her toast as she leaned against the counter looking at Amelia suspiciously.

"Good night then I see" she said over her toast, as she took another bite.

"Great night! But I'm not sure this hangover or the endless, early morning train ride are worth it".

Her room mate scoffed as she walked over to a cabinet and pulled out two mugs and set the kettle to boil. 

"What did you end up doing?" Amelia asked as she made her way into the kitchen in search of food to ease the growling that had erupted in her stomach again. 

"Oh, you know, same old same old. I finished my shift around two and then Roberto tried to hit on me again. He followed me all the way down the street begging me to go for a drink with him bu-" 

"Did you?!" Amelia exclaimed.

"Of course not! He's a slime ball and I'm getting over it. I cant work there any more, the long hours, the bad tips. Its all too much for me to bare, not to mention school!"

"Maybe if you just give him a chance..."

Jessa took one last bite of toast before she had to leave for her classes in town. Amelia stood in the kitchen for a little while longer, letting her imagination run wild for a bit at the thought of Jessa and Roberto on a date, but soon, also dismissing the idea as a moment of insanity. She finished her tea and padded up the narrow wooden staircase to a nice hot shower and her blue toothbrush sitting in a the cup by the sink.

Inspired by: http://thetruestoryofameliapickles.wordpress.com/

Before the Rain

I have slowly been rediscovering my love for photography and taking pictures. I took to the wilderness that is my garden, something I rarely do due to the fact that I'm allergic to the world that isn't connected to the World Wide Web. Just kidding. I had a fragile childhood.

Here are some pictures of flowers and the Creatures of the Wilderness I found on them.

Plum Blossoms

Orange Cliveas

A bee friend, amoungst the Lavender, for me.

Purple Bougainvillea.

Yellow Clivia. 

A forgotten Door.

Wall Pot Planter

The old Lemon Tree that used to be my Tree House.

Berries.

Hades

Pink Bougainvillea

After it rained on Sunday night, most of the blossoms are gone, but the grass is looking a little greener. The days have started to get unbearable hot already and the sun, as it always does in summer has started setting later. It looks like its going to be scorcher. 

Better get out my Summer clothes

&Kathryn

Nothing to write about.

Why do people go jogging?
Why does slow motion exist?
Why does Alcohol work?
Why is nothing ever how we want it to be?
Why do things change?
Why does the sound go up and down on the radio?
Why do people have to get married?
Is it wrong for me to not want something thst others cant have?
Why do people make other people angry?
Why are you so interested?
Why do people make art?
Does art make people?
why do we listen to other peoples questions?
Why do people disagree with reason?
Why do people get sad?
Why is it okay for rich people to be rich?
Why is being poor a bad thing?
Why do people get happy?
Why doesn't it last?
Why am I more important than other people?
Why cant everybody dance?
Why do people judge each other?
Where did religion come from?
Why do people ask questions?
What's up with that?
Who made cartoons?
Why does the phrase "Don't cry over spilled milk exist"?
Why are some people uncomfortable with things that others find normal?
Why are some people morning people?
Why does language exist?
What even is that?
What is a friend?
Why do they need things?
Why does nail polish make you girl-y?
What makes cars manly?
Why do we box ourselves in with these gender roles?
Why don't people find that strange?
Why is it called Westernisation?
What is paradise?
Why cant everyone just get along?

Tuesday

She leaned on her elbow, the beige, leather couch barely a support for her tired head. He sat next to her, legs outstretched enjoying the space that the carpeted floor provided him. A half empty beer bottle between his fingers. She licked her lips before speaking. Her mouth was dry. His scent, all to familiar in this setting was stronger as they sat close together. The light tendrils of her hair fell around her face just brushing the top of her dark blue jumper that covered her shoulders. The light in the room was a mixture of reds and oranges giving the room, although empty pizza boxes lay scattered across the low coffee table, a romantic glow.

He was talking softly and she was listening intently to what he had to say, bringing her own dark brown beer to her lips, ever so slightly sipping the bitter contents of the bottle. She smiled, a half crooked; tired smile filled with longing. He laughed as he straitened himself out, moving ever so slightly closer to his companion. He mumbled something and she blushed turning her face away shyly as he reached up to move a strand of hair that had fallen into her face. His large hands gently brushed it behind her ear as she gazed into his greenish-blue eyes. His hand rested on her neck where it had stopped mid action. He looked more intently into her eyes, she smiled ash his lips brushed hers.

Their lips met in perfect unison, his hand, more firmly now, felt the back of her neck as she let herself melt into his strong figure. His shoulders were broad her fingers soon found out as she gingerly moved them to touch him. They had become intertwined with one another. The music seemed to grow louder as sparks ignited between the two entangled on the floor amidst fiery passion and the thought of the last night they would have together.

They broke apart, her hand still touched his unshaven cheek as she bit her lip and looked at the figure in front of her. Her eyes shined bright with the thoughts shooting through her mind. She leaned back on her elbow and stretched, leaning her head backward and settling into a more comfortable position. He touched her leg as he looked at the angelic figure, pale and smiling in the dim light of the small apartment. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek before rising and heading to the kitchen for two steaming hot cups of coffee.

Smog

Its been far too long since I've done anything worth doing, and even longer since I've allowed myself to feel any emotions worth feeling. I've spent many hours on the phone across the ocean trying to grasp hold of the memories and people that are slowly slipping away. I've spent hours pressing tiny buttons trying to recapture the way it all used to be before we left, started new, maybe picked up the old or simply faded away into the bedsheets that have now become our only home - our only hiding place.

I used to think that it would be weak, although not really. 

I think I'm just babbling.

The music that fills the room does not match the face of the boy that sings it, but it is beautiful none the less and it is lovely. It makes me feel lovely. 

He sits across from me in the too warm class on a Wednesday afternoon. For a brief second our gaze meets. He quickly turns away and I keep looking after him, letting my mind wonder to a fantasy where we would talk endlessly and he wouldn't look like a vampire. I look slowly back at the lecturer speaking excitedly as the students around the room fight as hard as they can not to pass out from hours of lost sleep. Their eyes have glazed over, weather it be from smoke, or from sleep, I am not sure.

Our eyes do not meet again, but a look back at him. His arms crossed, his mind buzzing and a smirk across his lips. 

There has been bad news happening all around me. Drifting through me - not really sinking in. 

Death, destruction, loss, unhappiness. 

I feel as though I have to be the one that's smiling. I have to be the one that isn't crumbling, falling, flailing and hyperventilating because everyone is doing that. Everyone is struggling to stay a float in this crazy life. I have to make jokes and sarcastic comments, and If I stop, for even a minute, I know all the sadness will catch up to me, pull me down and I would never be able to climb out of the pit that it sucks you into. 

I don't want that.

Tonight.

Tonight I feel, I've finally been able to let the emotions that have been bothering me out. 

Today.

Today was hard. The day was long and the wind blew a chill through my bones that had them shaking and writhing inside me until I could barely move, barely breath and not even utter a single word.

My teeth are clenched against all the things I'm forbidding myself from saying. 

The voice has changed and I can imagine his face clearer and --

I'm screaming.

I'm screaming again as my eyes are filling with big drops of salty tears and I'm struggling to type. 

I'm screaming.

I am surprised that my chilled finger tips remember the exact position of the keys as the fly across the keyboard making small tapping noises. As my fingers press down, applying more pressure to the area, my mind is reeling, revelling at the wonder and mystery - beauty to an extent - of muscle memory. 

Pressure. 

That's what this all is. Were just little bottles all pressurised emotions with no way to let it all out.

The music speeds up as I wipe my nose on my sleeve. It hurts, I am stiff, In pain. 

From the top of the hill it looks as though the city is under siege from pollution. The buildings are faded against the backdrop of dull morning sunlight and the dust that has been kicked up by the cars and people for the last three months. 

They're drowning. The people are drowning but not in water, in the city. We're overwhelmed, over tired and ready to burst. We're angry and there is no fresh air going to our brains so were all tense. Were all walking on a tight rope where we're all about to fall to our deaths and we cant do anything about it. Were slowly sinking and, how ironic, we need the rain to bring us back to the surface and bring us back to the clear air, the clear light of spring and the breaking of the smog that has our souls and spirits oppressed.

Nothing is working out and the days seem to drag on as the nights settles over the smog in the city. 

We need to break free from all this.

With thanks for the inspiration of your beautiful voices:

https://soundcloud.com/drewgageofficial/

https://soundcloud.com/matthew-mole

Chai Tea and Hot Chips

We had now made it a tradition to catch up with each other over some Chai lattes and Hot chips at the mall in between our houses.
Te nights always started the same, we would plan to meet at a certain time, but always be late. We would deliberate over what to order, but decide on the same thing as last time. It was nice though. It felt comfortable.
Sometimes I worry that I wont have much to say, but when I get there its always fine and the conversation moves comfortably from one topic to the next.
Its these moments that make me feel the most. I have so many emotions all the time that its hard to think of a time when I don't have something going on in my life. I like talking to her though because it gives me a chance to actualise most of these thoughts. Something that rarely happens in day to day life.
I miss having people to talk to.

The First Day of Winter

The air was crisp and cold as I stepped outside for the first time in what felt like weeks.
The rain had been pelting down all over the city for the past three days and this had been the fisrst time it had let up since it all began. I took a deep breath, letting the clean air penetrate my lungs filling them with cold cold air that felt like I was choking. It tasted so familiar. It tasted like winter felt. the air was thick.
It reminded me of the afternoons we would spend on the field at school when I was younger. The grass would turn yellow and would fall out. We would collect as much of the grass as possible turning it into massive sculptures that could take all week. We developed a sure fire way to collect the grass efficiently, using the cardboard boxes that the fruits were delivered in. They had large holes in the bottom that would allow the grass to shoot up through the holes and be collected in the back. This could only be achieved by running with the boxes across the field. We would gather it all in one area and after deciding on what to make we would set to work. In the morning, the sculpture would be covered with frost and the orange light from the low sun would catch the raised image casting a long shadow across the ground.
The best sculpture we ever made, and probably the biggest was that of a skeleton. After that the teachers banned us from doing this,mostly because the grass was being damaged and I think they thought we were a little weird.
Ill never forget the smell and the feeling of those crispy winter afternoons though. The wind blows right through you and your toes hurt from the cold of your leather shoes while in the sun you could be tanning on the beach. The sun shining down on you, warming your limbs.
I felt like I was twelve years old again.

Don't Drink and Drive.

I think its really stupid for the South African Government to want to change the drinking age from 18 to 21 because of drunk driving.

Here's why:

1. People that thought they could drink at 18 will still do it, and thus there will be a crazy high number of illegal drinking.
2. People that are 21 will just go crazy over it because its now a thing that they get to do that other people don't.
3. There will be a rise in under age drinking.
4. Places that rely on the income from Matric Vac will loose business
5. The government will keep raising the age limit on drinking until were living in the prohibition.
6. People that are 21 will still drink and drive no matter what. Most 18 year old's do't even have cars or drivers licences because the whole system is shit and corrupt.

Ways to fix this without changing the age limit:

1. Better public transport so we don't have to drive.
2. Safer roads and city so people aren't scared of the general public
3. More places for youth/young adult entertainment. Not just Greenside.
4. Better/Not Corrupt police systems so people aren't scared of the police.

People just randomly disobey the law anyway. Completely sober.

I was driving home from dinner this evening and we had stopped at a red robot. A car pulled up beside us, decided to just go anyway.

We have a serious problem with disobedience in this country, because people hate the stupid laws (not so much road rules) but like dumb shit.

Besides, the police is useless. I mean, a guy got dragged behind a vehicle by the police for parking on the wrong side of the road in a suburban area. Dragged. Behind. A. Police. Vehicle.

What the hell.

The Invisible Kind

I feel like there are three kinds of communications in relationships. Not just sexual relationships but with friends and families too.

1. The Physical:
That's things like the hugs and the pats on the shoulders. Things that physically show intimacy or trus within people. Its a sign of being comfortable enough with some one to have that.
That's why it freaks me out when people touch me all the time and I don't know them. It took ages for me to get comfortable with my Shnat friends enough to actually touch them and hug them.

2. The Verbal:
Obviously, we are a communicative people. We have languages and all sorts of instant ways to connect and contact each other. But it goes deeper than just a text every-so-often. People need to have face to face verbal communication to have a functioning relationship. You can bottle things up inside and hope that this person can read your mind and know exactly what you're thinking.

3. The Invisible Kind:
People that have the other two types of communication down will have an inherent ability to trust each other. Its like communicating without communicating.
I know that my really good friends will still be my really good friends and nothing will have changed between us even if I don't talk to them for a year.
I know that when I see them again, we'll just slip right back into that knowing and it will be like we had never been apart.
I don't need you to call me all the time or text every five minutes. I just need to know that you're there and that if I do need to talk or something, I can count on you.

These things are beautiful, and if we can do this- this whole being super in tune with each other that we never have to talk or see each other but still be fantastic people - I will gladly spend the rest of my life being that way with you.

xxx

The Deep End:

The large, white table that took up all of the room was intensely daunting. I stood at the doorway for a few seconds before pulling myself back in with a deep breath. I was shaking. My fingers went cold, I couldn't feel my toes. The warm sun shone through the window and I cursed the fact that I had to be here, in this cold, large room, with the white table and the bad blood circulation, instead of outside. 

I sat down gingerly at the first seat I could find. Making it just in time before my knees gave way under the sheer amount of pressure this whole debarcle was creating. It was all probably in my head. This was no big deal. No one else thought so anyway. The old men milling around, greeting each other and shaking hands were at ease. The other people, who had obviously done this a thousand times looked a lot more comfortable than I'm sure I did, even if not entirely. 
The proceedings commenced and  found it hard to concentrate on the words the Chairman was saying. It all sounded like gibberish to me and I had to try extra hard to understand. 
The floor was opened for comments or questions and the boy next to me put up his hand. This seemed to be a big, important debate - I had just missed the topic.
Listening intently I picked up on what they were saying. He was speaking calmly. Phrasing his points clearly and concisely from the scrawled notes on the table. 
Shouting. Stuttering. The Chairman had started to shout. I was taken aback. How had this all escalated so quickly and why could the boy not speak.
The Chairman repeatedly said No. 
I leant back in my chair, trying to stay out of the way of verbal fire.

We were nearing the topic of which I had to discuss. I crossed my fingers, my toes, my legs my arms and willed with all my being that I would not be chosen to speak first. 
I was.

Gingerly I pulled the microphone towards me. My hands were so sweaty I'm surprised it didn't slip out of my hands. 

I panicked.
I rushed.
I skipped a few really important points.

It was all a blur of confusion, nerves and sweaty palms.
I sat back in my seat and spent the rest of the meeting obsessively picking off my nail polish going over and over what I had said, wondering if it was adequate.

I was so relieved to go home that night, and hope never to be thrown in the deep end again. 

Calm Before The Storm, Thrown in the Deep end and other cliched phrases that make sparkly nail polish seem like a good idea right now.

I'm basically swamped with work and barely able to function like a normal human being. My eyes are watering and stinging from being awake for so long. My nose is ruining and I've had a cold for the past three months because my College doesn't understand air conditioning and my bones all hurt.

At least after this weekend I have a fantastically, delicious dinner (I hope) to look forward to, and at least five whole days of one, Lily being in town. We can do all sorts of things, like talk and hang out. Because after living in each others lives for a whole year and a half. seeing each other literally everyday - four months has been to long.

While I appreciate the fact that I have work to do and that its important work, I feel like my life has the tendency to go in patterns of Everything all at once, to nothing and back again. Over and over until I feel like there is no point any more and I should curl up under my douve and pretend the world doesn't exist.

Here's to a long weekend of homework.

Cheers.

I Wish There Was More Time

I sat in my hard wooden chair, staring out the window, listening intently to the conversations happening at the table. I was paying attention. I was. I adjusted and recalibrated every word that entered my mind, rolling it around in my brain. Its like I could feel the letters slipping in and out of the mushy grey matter that made up the inside of my skull. My ears started to ring and my brain started to contract. I could feel it coming up inside my throat as it passed through my ears, rolled around and settled on my conscience. It was half way through March already, and I knew almost exactly what I would be doing for the next few months as the information I had slowly started to process hit me. There wasn't much time left. It was over before it had even started. I began to curse every fibre of my being. My being here and not there, my inability to take part in life, my being too quick to judge and make assumptions without knowing.

In the car on the way home I thought about what it all meant and why on earth it could be happening and how I could make the next few months as worth while as possible.

I thought back to that night. It had been dark, but we had sat at the end of the table discussing all the plans we had for the city. I remembered, gingerly, my day dreams about adventures and was painfully brought back to reality with the realisation that it might all end without any thing of the sort.

It was, after all, too far fetched.

Existentialist Musings

Curiosity.
That's my problem.
Its mostly the reason for all my "Romantic Experiences  over the years. I cant seem to not do something and maybe it has to do with my FOMO but I need to be able to realise when its something that's way worth doing or if I'm just Curious. While curiosity is a good thing, it often seems to be the ONLY thing that's fuelling my actions rather than emotions and the actual want to do something. So, after I've realised what is actually something real, and what isn't I need to decide on the appropriate course of actions to then take.
And here we go again with my curiosity but, how will I know without trying? Maybe I should stop trying things all together.

Inspiration (or lack thereof)

I prefer days when there are clouds in the sky and when the road is wet and steaming. I prefer days when the air is cold and the wind feels like its blowing through you. I prefer days when you curl up in an over sized jumper and watch the world pass by on the other side of the camera lens.

These days have been few and far between over the past few months. When they do come around, my life is all too full of commitments to take advantage of the fleeting security brought to me by the universe.
Today, though, I'm taking advantage of the cool breeze flowing through the house and the fact that I can wear my jumpers and press the neglected buttons of my laptop.

I some how thought this post would be more entertaining and profound, but its not. I only added the picture to make it slightly more interesting.


Over and Out

A Reason.

There are only a few people in the whole world who can make some sort of impression on your life, and for this past year there have been a few people who have done that, and I'm scared that they wont ever be as involved in my life as I would like them to be, and then the change will stop. I've realised, through my many existential life crisis on the back seats of buses that I'm yearning for people to change my life in some sort of significant way. Maybe I can't realise it now, an maybe I never will, but I'm sure that ill never stop looking.
As for my own purpose in life, I want to make a difference, either to people on a significantly personal level or to people on a larger scale. I want to make things better, in the world, in my life, in my community, maybe in others.
I want people to realise that things do happen for a reason, sometimes big and sometimes small. Maybe it will be something someone says to you in passing or the way that they treat you over a long period of time that causes you to make small changes in your life for the better.

I'd just like to have someone care enough about me, to see what happens to me in the future as I do about other people.

I feel as though there haven't been people in a while that really need to be changed or need my help and that scares me. I feel terribly uncomfortable being in a bubble filled with people who  are all changing at the same rate as me and that are so self absorbed with their own amount of change that they have forgotten that sometimes people need a little push from their friends to have that. I feel as though we live in a bubble of things being controlled. Everything I do has to go through this man who sits behind a desk in a fancy office and doesn't really care about the people he's meant to be looking after. I feel like everything is planned put, but not by me. Like I have no control over my own life and that's freaking me out. As much as i like routine and knowing what's going to happen, I like knowing that I have decided what's going to happen and have made the choices based on an informed decision. I don't like not knowing, and more importantly, not knowing why.

Now that I've had a weird moment all over the internet, here's a great song to cheer you up and to think to.

Tussen Stasies

19 March 2012

Dear Jozi,
I'm feeling rather nostalgic for the early mornings when I would bust huge missions getting out of bed to make tea, braving the cold of the kitchen floor, forcing myself to get dressed for school. Trying to explain the best past of you to foreigners is so difficult.
They don't understand the beauty of being able to go to The Boheimian  or Tipsy Gypsi every night, for a drink or some sweet tunes to the bitter taste of Zamelek. They could never even begin to understand the concept of being able to drive a little ways out of the city down to Splashy Fen, or having RAMfest not more than 4 minutes from your house. They will never understand the Jagermeister girls, or the thought of POGO pits. they will never understand the kind of mutual understanding of gig goers, to llet you go to the front because you're short. They will never appreciate going stage diving at Cool Runnings Fourways and our constant protests and petitions to let the municipality not close down our pubs and bars. I miss only needing to know that its the purple house on the corner and one street down from the Wimpy. I miss
I miss our drunken escapades through the streets of Melville for Joburg Burning and staying out just those few more minutes to cath the last acts in the form of 340ml and Fire Through the Window.
So here's a video, that pretty much sums up the beauty of our Country, our city, the people that we all to easily forget come from the same place as us. We forget that we're united under the seven colours that make up our flag, those seven colours that greet me when I wake up in the morning. Weather we speak Zulu or English or Afrikaans the gesture for a lighter remains the same in every language. We forget that we're all part of the same generation. We forget that we're fighting for the same cause ansd no matter how hard we try, racisim is still a big part of life for us. People here dont understand the kind of society we come from, where you have shacks and mansions on the same streets. Where the languages of Africa are all around you and you have no choice but to listen past sounds and clicks but to peoples eyes, their hands their emotions that they're pouring into their words, trying to express themselves.
They don't understand.

Passionate, but fleeting.

People have been reading my journals since I could join letters together. I dont quite know how I feel about that yet. I think i'm getting used to it, but it still feels like someone has just used my toothbrush and not told me.  I suppose its my own fault. I only have myself to blame for this one. And the one before now. And the one before that. I dont think I'll ever learn.

But it doesnt do one any good to dwell on things or to freak out about the little things. Its all about the bigger picture, and sometimes I forget this, and I know I forget it a lot. I spend too much time freaking out about things to the point where I feel as though I can barely breath.

But, I'd rather live how my heart works: Intense, passionate parts, but fleeting.

The things that I write on my blog are my thoughts, mostly postd in the wee early hours of the morning, or atleast typed out, read, re read, edited and sometimes even scrapped all together during those moments of existencial cisies and ceral parties. But, I cant bring myself to delete them. To remove them. Nor can I bring myself to let them fade away from their purpose. Its like, if I dont post them, my thoughts grew for nothing.
I struggle with words. I struggle to articulate the things I want to. Its so much easier to just type, or write them down, but the meaning kind of gets lost. Thats one of the majour downsides. Theres no expression in text. But, all the people I claim to be 'in love' with. All the books I claim to 'love'. All the movies that I can rant on about for days-on-end are just passing moments that would otherwise go unheard, or unpublishhed without this silly little intenet diary.

Besides, I dont believe in "Love" anyway. Never have, and probably never will.

I know I'm ignoring my rules for life, because I dont believe that you should share your secrets because then they loose their magic and their power and they become less of what they are. Over exaggerated. Made to sound better than they are. The meaning lost, like an old story that no one can quite remember, or a joke without a punchline.

But on the other hand, when secrets are kept for too long, they're over dramatisised too, built up into something that is too grand- too much. The secret then loses its intensity. It becomes less magic.
We have to find the balance.

So, when I'm ready to divulge my secrets, or the little things that have been building up in my brain for ages, its because if I dont, they'll die. Or, More likely, I'll forget them. I feel like when I share these things, I'm not carrying the burden of the secret alone. (Subsequantly, I'd be a very bad murderer.)

So, you should probably read this blog the way it was meant to be read. To bad indie music and with the notion that tomorro, or the next day, or the one after that, I'll have changed my mind. Changed the meaning. Grown a little bit. Slept a little less and take it as intensly and passionatly and in the moment as possible. Thats all I can really ask you to remember. Thats all I can really ask of myself, of life, of people and of you.

~Kathryn

PS: If you try hard enough it rhymes.