Loch Ess Monster

I'm back and with meerkats

2011-11-28T02:30:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged in a while because I don't really have Internet at home. Or anything interesting to say. Also, I forgot my password. And then how Blogger works. In related news, I still drink a lot.

In the meantime, my colleague Carroll (who is actually a man. GO FIGURE.) started Bullshit Friday, where we randomly email each other bullshit until the other person is Bullshitted out. It takes a really long time. We are both filled to the brim with Bullshit.

For example:

ME:

"Dear Staff members, please find your free ticket attached for the upcoming Propak Exhibition. Print and distribute to your clients."

CARROLL:

"There is a pile of them at reception so you don't have to go print that one out...You know, for someone who loves stray animals so much, you show an alarming disregard for rainforests! What you have got against rain forests, Estelle?"

ME:

FACT: There are over 40 cancer-causing bacteria in the rainforest.

FACT: There are 500 species of animals that can kill you in the rainforest.

FACT: We need to stop the rainforest, before it kills us all.

CARROLL (who just returned from Bangkok):

PS… NOTHING is free. Parking at the CTICC costs the same as a liver transplant in Bangkok.

ME:

Did you have one while you were in Bangkok? Everyone could use a spare.

CARROLL:

No but I was offered an opportunity to perform a rhinoplasty on a she-male but declined because I had already had like 8 beers…

Missed opportinities...

ME:

And now you will always lie awake and wonder, “I wish I gave that transvestite hooker a nosejob when I had the chance…”

Last year, David and I had the opportunity to purchase two perfectly good donkeys for R500 from a dude in Wellington. I pointed out that with the petrol price and garden service fees being what they are, those donkeys would have paid for themselves by now…but he was all like“we don’t need donkeys”…and then I said, “well, I ended up not buying that set of taxidermied meerkats I wanted last week, so that saved us R600, so this is like making a profit… he was all like “that’s not how saving money works” and then we didn’t speak for a while.

This is why I never get ahead financially.

CARROLL:

That's ridiculous. I can think of at LEAST 7 good uses for a pair of taxidermied meerkats!

ME:

I mainly wanted to use it to scare off snakes and freak out my cats. What are the other five reasons?

CARROLL:

1. Re-enact the sex scene from "Team America"

2. Receive a disability grant from the government because you introduce them to people as ''your parents'''

3. Pair them off on either side of the bed with your taxidermied warthogs (cause they just look silly by themselves)

4. Hollow them out and convert into salt and pepper shakers

5. Mount one on either side of your car in the ''lookout'' position.

ME:

You forgot "meerkat lighters". Because nothing says "pleasure" like lighting up your pipe with a dead rodent. (See attached ad)

CARROLL: Wow.

ME:

One of us should probably get back to work. It's not gonna be me, though.

Porn isn't a currency. Although it should be.

2011-05-25T04:25:00.000-07:00

I regularly troll the classifieds for ~~things I don't need~~ bargains and I found this gem:

I'm sorry. Porn is not a currency. I've never heard of the explorers swopping land with the Indians in exchange for illicit etchings.

Plastic. It's marketing kryptonite.

2011-05-19T07:28:00.001-07:00

So, I went to an exhibition for Marketing Professionals today. I enjoyed it because all the other marketers were trying to sell their stuff and it’s virtually impossible to come up with a sales pitch for me.

SALES PEOPLE: “Hi, I’d like to tell you about our awesome new exhibition material stand/radio station/magazine that will really boost your business. What do you do?”

ME: “We make rigid extruded thermoplastic sheeting.”

SALES PEOPLE: “Um.”

ME: “Basically we take polymer beads and melt them and put them through a big machine and then it becomes a big, hard plastic sheet.”

SALES PEOPLE: “That’s interesting…”

ME: “Let’s talk about your ideas for a jingle!”

The New Cat is highly defective

2011-04-11T02:17:00.003-07:00

The cat is extremely messed up.

Not only is it asthmatic and wheezes in a very judgmental and pathetic way when SuperDave lights up a smoke, he also pretends like he is starving every second of the day and eats bread, veggies, things that fall off the table, things that stick to the cutting board, things that I leave lying around, flies and the cardboard fluff that comes off the scratch post.

And if no one gets up at 4.15 exactly (which is when he opens his little demon eyes), he claws and cries until EVERYONE gets up. Naturally, everyone has told us “just ignore him” until he stops. That doesn’t WORK with this cat, people. When ignored, this cat simply flings himself from the second-storey balcony onto the golf course below like a high-rise victim trying to escape a factory fire. Then SuperDave has to run downstairs in the wee morning hours and spend at least half an hour trying to extract him from underneath various cars, cursing and inevitably waking the neighbors.

The reason the cat goes into hiding within seconds of his dramatic escape is because he is, not surprisingly, severely xeno- and agoraphobic. Once he gets outside he cowers fearfully in corners, making it seem like we have so relentlessly abused him that he fears all human contact. I can feel the neighbor’s judgmental eyes following us as we drag him back to the flat, nails digging into the asphalt, eyes rolling dramatically. (Of course, the minute we get him home he plunks down on my cushion and licks his balls like nothing happened. Ass.)

I think its karma for when I was little and used to scream, No, Mommy, no! and shield my face in a very cringing way when my mother wouldn’t buy me candy.

I suck at this!

2011-03-29T02:23:00.000-07:00

I have not yet mastered adult reasoning.
In fact, I still barter with myself on a regular basis, e.g. do something mature…in exchange for spending the entire afternoon at work online shopping and buying pajama-jeans in three different color. It’s like my brain is this weird marketplace where scaly Portuguese men try to sell me junk to clutter up my home in exchange for coolie labor (much like the market in Greenmarket Square. I should totally go there this weekend. I haven’t bought a giant inflatable mallet in ages.)

For example, I cleaned the bathroom on Sunday. I even bought cleaning supplies! (SuperDave made me throw out my cleaning supplies when he saw how much mould was growing on the bottle of mould-remover). Don’t get me wrong: I love buying cleaning supplies. Lemony-scented kitchen wipes. Bathroom sprays. Oven cleaner. Those cans of dust spray that seem to do absolutely nothing to the furniture but smell really good in a toxicky kinda way…ah bliss. I could shop in that aisle for hours. I just don’t enjoy using them.

That being said, I scrubbed the tub, sink, faucets and toilet until it sparkled. For three seconds. The cat, who regularly pees on his own feet, likes to play in the bathroom right now. But even as I sat on the couch, thinking, I need to clean the tub again, my messed-up brain was telling me: “No, Essie. You washed the tub 3 days ago. You shouldn’t have to do it again today.” Then it got cocky: “You shouldn’t have to wash the tub EVER AGAIN.”

Every day when I pass that bathroom and think, I need to start being a motherf*cking adult and clean that thing, my brain tells me not to. After all, I did pay rent this month.

Does anyone else DO this? Here’s my list of subconscious payoffs:

ADULT ACT: Ate coucous for lunch
PAYOFF: Good job! You now may eat chicken waffles deep-fried in bacon grease covered in mayonnaise and blue cheese for dinner.

ADULT ACT: Completed assignment on time at work
PAYOFF: Good job! Now you can safely spend the next 7 ½ hours of the workday reading back posts of The Oatmeal and still feel productive.

ADULT ACT: Fed the cat
PAYOFF: Wow. That was hard. Don’t bother clean the litter tray. The poop will turn into dust eventually, thus becoming its own cat sand. It’s economical, really.

ADULT ACT: Paid the bills
PAYOFF: Let’s go gambling! You might get your rent money back!

ADULT ACT: Went to work
PAYOFF: Go to Monkeyland!

ADULT ACT: Bought life insurance
PAYOFF: Buy a ferret!

ADULT ACT: Invest money in shares
PAYOFF: Invest money in comic books!

Happy Birthday, Ouma!

2011-03-29T00:30:00.000-07:00

My grandmother is turning 86 today! My grandma is awesome for a number of reasons.

1) She still lives by herself in a little house, which is amazing considering that she is legally blind and still fearlessly crosses the road all by herself. When pressed about when she'll move out of the little house into some sort of assisted care facility, she always says, "When I'm dead, you can take my corpse anywhere you want to."

2) She had six kids.

3) When I was small, she hit me over the head with a rolled up magazine for backtalking to my mother and told me I was a "bloody bitch". I was instantly in awe of her because I didn't know that old people swore.

4) For saying, "You are too thin. Get fat like your cousin", and then pointing at my cousin.

5) For telling the people on Bold & The Beautiful who to have sex with because she didn't want the actors she liked hooking up with "the mean ones".

6) For saying, "Halleleujah" when I told her I was getting divorced.

7) For letting all of us stay at her house whenever we're in the area and then having sandwiches ready when we get there.

8) Because she believed in letting kids sort out their own problems. In fact, she would let her boys move the beds out of the bedroom so that they can beat each other up rather than keep her awake with their arguing.

9) For pulling the BEST practical jokes, baking the best cookies and painstakingly cooking vats of apricot jam every year as long as I can remember. And back when her eyesight was good, she used to knit me these woolen socks to sleep in that I first hated getting for Christmas and then adored and then missed more than I ever thought I would.

10) For introducing herself to our boyfriends: "What's your name? Nevermind, I won't remember. These girls have so many of you young guys coming and going..."

With my aunt, uncle & cousins having a dignified cup of coffee

I love you, Ouma, and hope you have a great day :)

You may or may not be birdbrained...

2011-03-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

Because I have terrible sense of direction, I always prepare whenever I have to drive somewhere. This week, Dave and I are going to some adreline-weekend-4x4 event that requires you to drive off-road and hike places. (I’ll be spending the day in the beer tent. Thank you for asking.)
I printed a map at work and gave him the directions. He glanced it at vaguely. “Thanks.”

“Keep it.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I know exactly where it is.”

“Have you been there before?”

“No, but I’ve already committed the map to memory.”

“You didn’t even look at it!”

“Don’t need to.”

(Pause) “Did the government implant a chip in your brain when you were in the military?”

Glare.

“Are you sure you don’t remember a time when you maybe woke up in a lab with bandages wrapped around your head and no recollection of where you’ve been the day before?”

Glare.

“OK, but just THINK about it…”

NOTE: I’m always messing crumbs around the house and yet when I get home they are GONE. The only logical explanation is that SuperDave is in fact part homing-pigeon, part-man.

NOTE: Or maybe someone sweeps.

NOTE: Paranoia isn’t so bad. At least I’m PRETTY sure I have all of my own brain. Of course, if someone erased your memory, you wouldn’t remember. So we have every REASON to be paranoid.

Taking a hike

2011-03-22T01:06:00.000-07:00

I found pictures of the hike me and Dave took in December. It wasn't much fun because I have the outdoor skills of Paris Hilton. And the fitness of her Chihuahua. Plus it rained so our idea of having a picnic by the waterfalls turned into...taking our lunch for a cold, wet walk.

"Don't touch the brown dog"

Dave totally touched the brown dog.

The rainbow made it worth it.

Does it say Animal Shelter on my door or what?

2011-03-18T01:03:00.000-07:00

The gay Pakistani gentlemen that lives in my complex brought dropped off a little present. His name is Panthera, and he is a three-month kitten. Apparently the rightful owners were neglectful, so he decided to give him to us. We’ve got a reputation for stealing other people’s pets because the people below us has a cat that drinks out of our toilet from time to time and also because SuperDave rescued an Alsatian and kept it in the flat while he waited for Animal Rescue. He also subsequently rescued the Alsatian after it fell in the pool in its excitement to get to the flat…At first I was nervous because you can't just allow waves of homosexual Eastern men bringing you animals and we aren't technically allowed to have pets but he is very sweet and well-behaved.

I bought him a little ball yesterday that goes “Glinga-glinga” when he swats it. He loves the sound and was absolutely adorable when started chasing it at about 5 pm when I got home.

Of course, at 3 am when all you can hear is Glingaglingaglingaglingaglingaglingaglingaglinga…the cute factor is reduced.

I'm not sure exactly what I do but it's not good

2011-03-01T01:46:00.000-08:00

My professional goal is to figure out exactly what I do. I know my company manufactures Abcryl, ABS and other plastics. But I'm not exactly sure what that is. So I spent a day googling.

Something to keep on file just in case your boss accuses you of googling porn at work

2011-02-28T04:56:00.000-08:00

See, it was perfectly innocent :)

Volunteerism: Fuck it.

2011-02-21T02:50:00.000-08:00

I surprised and disgusted everyone when I failed to volunteer to go to Johannesburg for a conference next week. I know they all expected me to, but I didn’t.

BOSS: “…and there will be a conference next week, and I need one of the marketing people to go with me. Estelle?”

ME: “No.”

BOSS: “Don’t you want to be a jetsetter?”

ME: “No.”

BOSS: “Don’t you want to meet the CEO?”

ME: “No.”

BOSS: “It’ll be good for your career.”

ME: “They always say that. But it never comes true. And then you are overworked and underpaid and also in Johannesburg.”

BOSS: “Come on…”

ME: “No.”

BOSS: “Wouldn’t you rather see the world than be stuck in the office?”

ME: “I would rather grow testicles and have midgets repeatedly punch me in them before I go to Johannesburg for no goddamn reason.”

OK, I didn’t actually say that last part. But I hate air travel. Here’s why.

Getting at the airport 2 hours ahead of the flight as advised, checking in within 2 minutes and then spending the other 118 minutes aimlessly milling around the deserted airport, buying overpriced drinks from stores you do not like.
Lady sitting next to you talking to you for the entire duration of the flight.
Lady sitting next to you breastfeeding for the entire duration of the flight.
Fat man arm on your shoulder.
Removing your laptop and shoes and belt and change and cellphone and chucking it in the little bin while impatient people crowd up behind you.
Crappy movies. The last time I flew the TV broke and Prince of Persia started playing and I had to sit there helplessly while it happened to me.
Being unable to get my shampoo and deodorant into 30ml bottles and having it leak over my clothes in my luggage.
The four in-flight food groups: white meat (of some kind), hard rice, powdered something (just add water to enjoy your delicious eggs/mashed potatoes/chocolate milk/soy burger), and that juice in a plastic tub that will never expire, no matter what you do to it.
People who stand up in the window seats when the plane lands EVEN THOUGH there is no way they are leaving the plane within the next 10 minutes.
Possibility of death in horrible fiery crash.

What do you hate most about flying? Or Johannesburg? Either one is fine.

Top Ten Lies My Mother told me as a Child

2011-02-15T23:45:00.001-08:00

If you are in your 20s, you’ve probably figured out that your parents have lied to you your whole life. I’m not even talking about Santa Claus or the Easter bunny. These are mere trifles. My mother has come up with brilliant, gypsy-like, oddball wisdom over the years which surely – had I been any less stable-minded than I already am – would have resulted in a total nervous breakdown/school shooting/bombing of some kind as an adult.

1. “If you don’t wash your hair, pumpkins will grow in it and it will get too heavy for your head and will fall off.”
2. “If you sit on a table, you will never be able to get a husband. Well, I don’t care what you think. I never sat on tables and I have a husband.”
3. “Chewing gum is made out of old, melted tyres. If you swallow it, they will knot your guts together. And you will STARVE.”
4. “Don’t pull faces. If you pull faces and someone rings the doorbell, it will stay like that forever. Seriously. I know people like that.”
5. “If you fail your English test, the government will make a record of it in your permanent file and you will never be able to get a job. You’ll have to work in a sewage plant for ten hours a day and sleep in a box. I’m just saying.”
6. “Don’t swallow the pips [of the watermelon]. It grows into a plant in your stomach. Its your choice, but those plants get pretty big.”
7. “Wash your hands after you’ve been to the store. People spit on the cans and then you touch them and get germs.”
8. “Just put half a potato on your wart and bury it at night. It’ll fall off…no, I don’t know how it works. It just does.”
9. “I don’t know where babies come from. You weren’t a baby. You were a baboon your dad and I caught and shaved. Why?...I don’t know why. But doesn’t it explain a lot?”
10. “Lock your car door! If you leave it unlocked, a hobo will grab you out of the car and run away when we stop at the traffic light.”

Please share your favorite parental bullshit memories below.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T03:04:00.000-08:00

So far the day has been surprisingly unsucky...I received roses and a card, a chocolate heart and a depressed looking teddybear impaled on a plastic rose. (That last one was a gift from the receptionist, who wanted to do my astrological chart this morning. I would have totally let her do it but I want to work her for at least three months before letting them all know how strange I am.)
Managed to move in over the weekend with the help of SuperDave. Actually, he didn't so much "help" me as "totally do the whole thing while I slept." (He tried piling boxes on top of me in protest, but I didn't wake up for that. But that explains why I've been having weird dreams about being a hobo.) I even managed to de-virus my computer but now it keeps bringing up this weird pop-up asking me "Do you want more privacy?" which makes me suspect that the computer suspects I am viewing copious amounts of porn at work. And that it's judging me.

If your Valentine's Day is more sucky, here's a lovely vintage card for you which proves that gay people have been around since the 20s:

Yes. Nothings says I love you like a fat cop waving a dildo threatening to cop a feel. Happy Valentine's Day!

My drunk accounting face looks sad...

2011-01-28T01:43:00.000-08:00

So, I went for an interview at this company that works with rigid plastic sheeting and apparently got the job. Rigid plastic sheeting sounds boring but I was so desperate for employment I literally read up everything there is to know about things like polyprophalyne and how to use plastic roofing to let natural light in through your ceiling and had a long, animated discussion with the interviewer about it but then he stopped me short by asking me about Kanji.

PS. I had forgotten I put "speaks basic Japanese" on my resume.
PPS. It's true.
PPPS. Well, it used to be true. In addition to forgetting I had put it on my resume, I had forgotten how to speak it. Damn.
PPPPS. Then I realized that the interviewer doesn't speak any Japanese so I just made up a lot of bullshit to impress him. I apologize to the Japanese people for misrepresenting your culture, etc. If you are Japanese and feel raw about it, call me and I'll take you out for sushi. You guys like that, right?

Anywayyyyy, I took Dave out for a beer cause it was hot and he was my begrudging navigator ("So where exactly is your interview?" "Um...I dunno." "What's the company called?" "Um...Plastic...Something?") and then the recruitment agent called me all excited and told me that the job was 99,9% mine and the guy loved me. 99.9% is good odds so we decided to get 99.9% drunk and celebratory.

Eventually I got home but I spent the entire night yacking up my celebratory liquid diet and only got to sleep at 4 am. Dave was not impressed. ("Are you asleep?" "I was. It's 3 am" "I need you to drive me to the hospital" "You are FINE! You're just drunk!" "I never get drunk. This is serious. I probably have cancer!" "GO TO SLEEP" "FINE! BUT YOU WILL BE SORRY WHEN YOU ROLL MY DEAD CORPSE OUT OF BED TOMORROW!")

Side note: Dave was right. I was just drunk. Who would have thought.

Anyway, I got woken up at 8 am by my prospective employer, who said that in order to secure the remaining 0.01% needed to secure the job, all I had to do was prepare a report on the accounting theory of constraints. As in, now.

Drunk accounting at 8 am

Full of bravado at having mastered the plastic industry in under 24 hours, I immediately responded with "That's no problem. There is literally nothing I don't know about the Theory of Constraints."

Looking back, this was not an accurate representation of what I remember about the theory of constraints (nothing).

But I managed to do it. And now know more about costing and management accounting drunk than most people do sober. If that doesn't impress prospective employers, I don't know what will.

Visit Dave's site. Or he'll shoot you.

2011-01-26T08:48:00.000-08:00

SuperDave has started up his own blog - http://www.camelmandave.blogspot.com/. It's a blog for butch manly men who like manly pursuits. Like driving around in nature in a big Landrover. And log-throwing. I don't know. But you should read it. Your man card points automatically increase by 5 if you do.

Weedie died

2011-01-20T00:23:00.000-08:00

SuperDave killed my cat Sweeney's best friend.
It sounds bad, but it isn't, considering that Sweeney's best friend is a weed growing in our porch. (Yes, even my cat is a loser.)

He did it to avenge our new leather couch, which Sweeney maliciously destroyed for NO GODDAMN APPARENT REASON. But later he felt bad and replanted it.

You know you are treating a pet like a real, human child when you feed him, cuddle him, buy him his own toys and when he grows up - you take his weed away.

This post is long but I am unemployed and have nothing else to write about except daytime TV and crippling depression. Trust me, this is better

2011-01-19T05:41:00.000-08:00

Recently I've been watching this show called Army wives. It's a bunch of bull. The dialogue is completely unrealistic. It's just normal people that wear camo gear and talk about their feelings. In real life, it's very different. For example: Whatever minute crummy thing happens to me, has already happened to SuperDave twice...but with Nazis shooting at him. Not to mention living with his overwhelming COMPETENCE at 8 am when I am still sitting on the foot of my bed surveying the room with bleary eyes trying to gather up enough willpower to drag the slippers closer with my big toe and he’s already jogged 20 km and saved his second busload of orphans teetering over the edge of a cliff. Or something similar - I wouldn't know, I never get up before 10 am.

Anyhoo, this is how I would re-write the dialogue to make it more realistic:

ARMY WIFE: “So what was the army like?”
ARMY GUY: “That’s classified.”

ARMY WIFE: “I’m having a problem with my friend. She’s being mean.”
ARMY GUY: “Someone in my unit was mean to me once. I shot him.”

ARMY WIFE: “Got you a Colonel Burger.”
ARMY GUY: “That burger is at the very best a sergeant-major.”

ARMY WIFE: “You don’t know what it’s like being stabbed in the back...”
ARMY GUY: “Yes I do. With a bayonet. See, I have the scar RIGHT here. But no, your friend telling everyone at the party that you were the one who threw up over the rosebushes...that’s awful.”

ARMY WIFE: “Have you ever travelled abroad?”
ARMY GUY: “The official statement I am required to give is...no."

ARMY WIFE: “I cut my finger!”
ARMY GUY: “I once had 10 pieces of shrapnel in my legs while I was carrying two legless men through a minefield...then I floated above my own body towards the blinding white light. You have a papercut. Stop whining.”

ARMY WIFE: “Oh, no, thank you, I don’t eat pork.”
ARMY GUY: “I once had to eat my own foot to survive. But you’re right. Pork sucks.”

ARMY WIFE: “My trip sucked. It rained all weekend.”
ARMY GUY: “Yes, I went to that country once. Killer ninjas fired at me, and put bamboo shoots up my fingernails. But no, I’m sorry the hotel overcooked your eggs in the morning. That’s MUCH worse.”

ARMY GUY: “What are you doing?
ARMY WIFE: “Blogging.”
ARMY GUY: “Stop putting classified information on the Internet!”
ARMY WIFE: “Well, all the GOOD stuff is classified.”

(Ok, that last one was a direct quote from SuperDave.) Kudos, Army friends.

Oh let them eat cake...(and by "them", I mean "me"!)

2011-01-18T06:33:00.000-08:00

I am still grievously unemployed. Apparently no one is yet ready to behold the marketing glory that is me. Let me summarize the extremely frustrating interview experiences thus far.

EMPLOYER: "This job only pays R6000 per month...it says here you've already earned more than that?"

ESSIE: "Yes, that's right. I am willing to work for less."

EMPLOYER: "I am sorry, we cannot accept your application."

ESSIE: "Why not?"

EMPLOYER: "You want too little money."

ESSIE (long pause): "Um...isn't that my problem?"

EMPLOYER: "If we hire you, you will leave us to earn more money. You should just find a job that pays a salary closer to what you are used to."

ESSIE: "The whole reason I am APPLYING for your shitty low-paying job is because I can't find ANY form of work that pays what I'm used to."

EMPLOYER: "We do offer wonderful unpaid internships."

ESSIE: "How is NO money better than a little bit of money?"

EMPLOYER: "If you accept this wonderful unpaid internship, you will work with us 5 days a week plus overtime and will learn a lot with the possibility of advancement to management. Eventually."

ESSIE: "I don't want to be a wonderful unpaid intern. I want to pay my rent."

EMPLOYER: "It is a wonderful growth opportunity."

ESSIE: "If you want someone who will work hard for free, you should have changed your ad from "Marketing Assistant, 3-5 yrs experience wanted" to "Gullible idiots who believe they will actually be promoted and given real grownup money soon apply here"."

EMPLOYER: "We cannot hire you. You look prone to violence. Please leave."

The good news is, I have virtually no standards left and will literally take any job I am offered. My unique skill set includes yoghurt making, cat grooming, garden gnome sculpting and the ability to destroy virtually any electronic device I am given, much like a human EMP. Oh, and 5 years' worth of marketing and PR experience and a degree from a substandard university. Let me know!

Once again yeast infection medication makes me laugh

2011-01-13T02:44:00.000-08:00

I was in the bathroom at the Paarl Mall this morning and noticed this piece of advertising brilliance: Yeast Infection? Don't beat around the Bush...

I wish I had become a vagina medicine marketer. I would have such...POTENTIAL for greatness.

Spiders are evil and want to eat your brain

2010-12-15T00:49:00.000-08:00

I went to take a shower yesterday and found SHELOB THE SPIDER from Lord of the Rings in my bathroom. Horrified, I sent a photo to Butterfly World near my house, asking the entomologist on staff for identification and advice.

Here’s what she wrote back:

Dear Estelle
Though not absolutely clear from the photo it would appear that you have a rain spider (Sparassidae) or giant crab spider in your home. Rain spiders are identified by their legs, which are twisted in a crab-like fashion. They also have 8 eyes and are typically brown or dark grey. You are right that the spider heard you when you yelled, as their hearing is quite good...although I cannot account for the spider’s behaviour if he did, as you put it, “wave it’s little arms at you menacingly, as if shaking a fist”. The females occasionally make threatening movements to protect their egg sacs, it is quite possible that this is what happened.
These spiders CAN bite humans, although this very rarely happens and the bite is completely harmless. These are very beneficial spiders to have in your home as they feed on insects – mainly cockroaches.

I’d like to thank you for not killing the spider – many people do so out of ignorance.

Sincerely

M van Wyk

Here’s what I heard:

Dear Estelle,

This particular spider was genetically engineered in a lab run by Nazis. They are lethal and hell-bent on destroying all of mankind. These spiders are equipped with venomous sacs, laser rays, poisonous arrows, heat-seeking technology and have little chips planted in their brains to make them more aggressive. They will most certainly attack without provocation, relentlessly. They are simply waiting for you to be vulnerable. He will return with others. This particular spider was DEFINITELY shaking it’s evil little fist at you, NO MATTER WHAT DAVE SAYS.

I don’t want to alarm you, but this spider will crawl all over you when you sleep and not only feed on your flesh – he will also lay eggs in your skin and chew off your hair.

You must kill this spider for the sake of humanity. Immediately, and without mercy...

God Speed

M van Wyk

Really, I'm not a terrorist. It just looks that way.

2010-12-14T00:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Metro Cops

I would like to write this letter in response to your ominous anti-terrorism posters. First of all, thank you for not arresting me during my visit to your lovely country – even though I loudly made comments about how easy it would be to steal things there, and how I would like to move there and set up my own African crime syndicate in the heart of London. (My crime boss name would have been Mama Essie. But that's beside the point.) I thank and praise you for realizing that I wasn’t *that* serious about it. (Besides, I don’t have the capital for that now. I spent all my money on an investment that I personally thought would be lucrative, but it wasn’t...Curse you, Magic Beans!!!)

I did think however, that I should offer an explanation as to my (apparently) suspicious behaviour.

Terrorists need storage

At present, I am illegally storing vast amounts of crap in my old flat, even though I moved out ages ago and kept the key... The reason for this is that I live with a military man who doesn’t allow me to keep my precious belongings in the same room as...well. Him. This includes illegal DVDs, a plaster cast of a dragon’s head, Irish beer mugs, Nightmare before Christmas figurines, home-knitted teddy bears I buy at fairs because they are ugly and no one wants them and I feel sorry for them, a very crooked Christmas tree that both resembles and SHEDS needles like a nervous parrot with a skin disease, a GIANT jar of change and buttons that I MEANT to sew back on/take to the bank to exchange, various computer parts, a seamonkey aquarium, collection of bong-shaped vases, notebooks full of scribbling I had meant to turn into a novel, boxes of unsuccessful screenplays, comic books and exactly 24 imitation handbags that broke immediately after purchasing them from that toothless guy that sleeps on the bench next to my office.

PS. I shouldn’t have mentioned the illegal occupation/DVDs. Scrap that comment and replace it with “Christmas gifts for the poor”.

PPS. The vases shaped like bongs are Ok. They are not *actually* bongs. They are shaped like bongs. That’s not a crime.

Terrorists use multiple identities – do you know someone with documents with different names for no reason?

Again, I have different identity documents. It’s because I got married and changed my name because it was all romantic but then it took 8 months to get my identity document back from Home Affairs. And then they printed another one with my maiden surname. And then I kept it, just in case things didn’t work out WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE PRETTY DAMN CONVENIENT. So you are punishing me for being smart, essentially. Which is why the country is going downhill.

Terrorists use chemicals – do you know anyone who is buying large quantities of chemicals?

I use a large quantities of chemicals. SuperDave uses it to remove the stains from the coffee mugs and clean the carpets and various other things. I use them to nuke bugs. Really, I’m not building a bomb with them. Everyone knows the coolest bomb is the one where you put dry ice in a paint tin and slam the lid on really tight so it explodes, showering the world with your favourite shade.

PS. That kid who did that to my dad’s garage was never caught. You might want to get on that.

Terrorists use protective equipment

My dad has like 50 pairs of these goggles at home. They use them to spray-paint helicopters. (Not in the vandalism sense. That’s actually his job.) He just likes to steal them from work. I’m sure it’s perfectly innocent. Once I worked in a restaurant and stole like 50 pairs of snail forks. You do it because you are underpaid. And bored. Or because you like goggles. I’m sure you guys steal guns and shit all the time.

Terrorists need funding

Now, up until I got to this point I was fully behind your campaign. “Terrorists need credit cards”. OMG.

Look, ordinary people need to use stuff sometimes. Call me crazy, but I occasionally use my phone and my credit card and backpack for reasons that DO NOT INVOLVE blowing up the Queen of England. You are deliberately trying to make people paranoid about their friends and neighbours. I mean, I lived next to a guy for 4 years...people never liked him because he was very religious and kept to himself and left the light on late at night and collected newspapers and put up all these satellite dishes and received visitors at all hours of the night...Many people thought HE was a terrorist. Well, of course it turned out that it was perfectly innocent and that he was just a serial killer who cut up hookers.My point is, there is enough paranoia and hatred in the world for things that are different. I think you should let it go. No one is going to blow up London. And if they are going to, they aren’t going to be bloody OBVIOUS about it.

Sincerely yours

Essie

Holy Footwear

2010-12-13T07:05:00.000-08:00

I was on Facebook when I noticed this little gem:

I just wish they'd come up with catchier slogans...

"You'll feel like you are walking on ~~air~~ water."
"Follow in the footsteps of the Messiah - without having to touch all those nasty lepers."
"The Jesus Sandal Company - since 0 AC"
"Jesus Sandals: if ever there was a shoe you'd want to wear to Judgment Day, these are IT"
"Crossing vast amounts of desert? Multiplying bread and fish? Raising the dead? Then these are the shoes for you!"

And if people don't think they are good, the salespeople can look at them all accusingly and go, "It was good enough for, like, Jesus, man...are you better than Jesus?" and you'd feel really bad. I wish I hadn't blown my Christmas bonus on a Moses robe now...

Military people have no sense of humor

2010-12-06T06:26:00.000-08:00

I was watching the A-team movie with SuperDave and this soldier was in it and he had the COOLEST jacket-thing on with different pockets and zippy-compartments and Velcro straps. It was magical. It looked like this:

ME: "That's awesome. I've got to get that."

SD: "That's a combat jacket."

ME: "Just think. I won't have to lug around a purse anymore...I could put my wallet, my lipsticks, my mirror, my drivers, cards, everything in it..."

SD: "Uh, we just used it to carry magazines."

ME: "Oooh, yes, and you could carry magazines in it!"

SD: (long pause) "Wait...did you just actually think I was referring to Cosmo or something?"

ME: "No. I'm not an IDIOT, DAVE."

(For the record, I totally did.)

I've been looking for that sweater!!!

2010-12-01T02:02:00.000-08:00

My former colleague Rene put this weird photo of her baby, Mieke, up on Facebook. Apparently Mieke has taken a liking to putting her toys in the trash. Either because Rene is buying her crappy toys or because she's a minimalist. Either way it's called a power struggle. And you are losing, Rene.

Anyway let's play analyse the photo. Is she:

1) casting a circle of magic protection over the trashcan so that the evil elves that have been emerging would stop stealing her socks and stuffed animals?

2) sanctifying the trashcan against possible future demon possession?

3) trying to make the trash can come closer using the power of her mind?

4) being a 2 year old

5) merely trying to communicate "No photos, please" to her clueless parents?

I hope I have weird kids someday. Oh, and I also found this on Facebook:

I'd analyse it, but that's really a very good shrink's job.

Ostriches: Criminals of the Savannah

2010-11-29T03:56:00.000-08:00

Here is rare footage of me being attacked by a vicious male ostrich. Let it be known that a male ostrich can slice you open with their big toe, and often do. Without provocation.

PS. Dave says that the ostrich was not “attacking” me. I lured it closer with a bag of dried corn to “see what would happen”. And that there was a giant fence separating us. And that all of this took place at a petting zoo.

I'd like to add that he didn't exactly rush to my aid either. He claims he was “too busy laughing” at me screaming and throwing corn at the ostrich. But he did acknowledge that if he hadn’t warned me, the ostrich would have pickpocketed my handbag. I looked up just in time to see it’s ridiculous little head examining my new cell phone. Motherfucker.

Hey it looks like I'm holding my boob in this one. I got your corn right here, asshole!

Strangely, it did not "go" for my boob.

Check out Dave's ass.

Since they are both killing-machines, the ostrich gives Dave "five" as a sign of respect

What unfortunate Christmas lights...

2010-11-19T05:58:00.000-08:00

Do I look like I cook dinner?

2010-11-15T07:42:00.000-08:00

Totally random day. A door-to-door pot salesman found his way into our office. And not the “fun” kind of pot. The kind ~~I cook~~ Dave cooks my dinner in. He interrupted our meeting and starting giving us a sales pitch for his R8500 set of pots (that’s roughly 1000 USD for those of you who earn real money and don’t have to live off gruel and Mopani worms, like me).

SALESPERSON: “These pots cannot break. If you drop them on the tiles, the tile will break, but not the pot.”

ESSIE: “I don’t want my tiles to break.”

SALESPERSON: “Yes, but the pot...”

ESSIE: “No, seriously. Retiling a kitchen floor is like ten times more expensive than buying a new pot. If I had to choose between the tiles, and your pot, I want the pot to lose.”

SALESPERSON: “Well, it won’t really shatter your tiles...”

ESSIE: “How does it hold up against gunfire? Because I mainly use my pots to fashion makeshift armour for myself. Or to use as drums, as a means of communication. And sometimes for curry."

SALESPERSON: “Um. The pots aren’t really...that...”

ESSIE: “So, basically...you lied to me.”

SALESPERSON: “No, it’s just a figure of speech.”

ESSIE: “I’ve never heard that figure of speech. And I have, like, a Masters’ Degree in Language.”

SALESPERSON: “Linguistics?”

ESSIE: “Whatever. I don’t want your pots.”

SALESPERSON: “You can stack the pots in a tower and cook meat, rice and vegetables all at once.”

ESSIE (thinking): “OK. That’s pretty badass.”

I didn't buy them though. I lost all my money buying ~~magic beans~~ furniture and now am trying to save for a teacup pig that I saw on TV and immediatly and without forethought decided I MUST purchase.

Does anyone know the number of a cryptzoological exterminator? No? Didn't think so.

2010-11-12T04:06:00.000-08:00

There are weird markings in the ceiling above the shower of my new place.

My old neighbor, Marius, who used to live there never mentioned it. I can only assume this is what happened:

It also explains why he left so suddenly, and without warning.

How to tell if your colleagues are demotivated

2010-11-10T07:45:00.000-08:00

We wanted to design a banner ad for our new company website.

Here's what I requested:

Here's what I got:

I think it gets the point across, but I'm somewhat hesitant to upload it.

Happy Birthday SUPERDAVE

2010-11-10T01:03:00.000-08:00

It's very rare that you get to say thank you to someone in a public forum, so here goes: Happy 35th Birthday SuperDave! I've counted all the ways you rock below, because your ego is not nearly big enough sometimes...You are awesome! Have a great day!

I've got a LOT on my plate right now...

2010-11-09T00:39:00.000-08:00

Remember when Superdave said he’d come over to fix up my place in what *may* have been an elaborate ruse to get me into bed and I was all like, “No - my place is unfixable” and he scoffed at the idea and eventually I gave in and allowed him to see the place and then he was all like, “OMG, this place IS unfixable” and then I said, “It’s not so bad” and then he said, “This place should be condemned” and then I was like “that’s really offensive” and then he was like, “Wtf is up with all these zombie survival guides?” and I was like, “You gotta be prepared” and he was like, “What about vampires?” and I was like, “I think we’ve established that I can take a vampire in a fight, you moron” and then he had that look of dread he always gets when he realizes I’m not trying to be funny and now we’re moved into the stable next door? Remember? Ok good.

SD: “This is the perfect use of space. And it looks classy, clean and upmarket.”

ESSIE: “You know what we should get though?”

SD: “A Plasma screen tv?”

ESSIE: “A goat.”

SD: “This isn’t going to work out, is it?”

I’m enjoying it because on the one hand I have furniture - which is good - but on the other hand SuperDave is the neatest human being on the planet whereas I am somewhat like a hurricane that wears jeans and has a 9 to 5. I'm trying not to get too comfortable in the house. It’s like when you are little and your mom has bought you a really cool new dress but she won’t let you play in it because you’ll just get it dirty. The new house is my dress. Playing in it is a metaphor for playing in it, because I still have all those old water pistols left over from last year when I tried to "shoo" the owls off my roof.

However, we’ve decided to divide the chores in a way that plays on our individuals strengths to keep the house orderly.

DAVE:

All home repairs
Furniture assembly
Put up pictures
Driving
Shopping
Cooking
Dishes
Cleaning (general)
Laundry
Vacuuming
Dusting
Folding
Feeding the cat
Washing the car
Remembering birthdays and appointments
Stocktake of groceries
Keeping fridge clean and defrosted
Sweeping, mopping, waxing
Arranging CDs and DVDs in alphabetical order
Bug control
Filling documents
Window washing
Entertaining guests and organizing parties

ME:

Being Awesome

Really, I think he got a good deal.

Um...no, just no.

2010-11-08T05:51:00.000-08:00

So I was ~~trying to figure out what this rash is~~ doing medical research for my job and found this "yahoo answers" site for people who want medical advice. Oh...my...GOD. These people DESPERATELY need to go to the doctor, but they just don't. Instead they ask advice from The Internet, which is never a good idea and also exactly how I ended up throwing hot olive oil down my ear last year when I had mono and why my friend Dee ended up washing her hair with mayonaise before her prom. (Conclusion: an evil salad dressing conglomorate is behind WebMD.)

Some of the stuff on there is pretty wicked.

Dear Schwinn Bike,

No, you cannot get sick from doing this. But the rest of us just did.

HAPPY ESSIE HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY

2010-10-29T00:09:00.000-07:00

Twas the night before Halloween and not a sound was to be heard

I drank lots of brandy until my vision was blurred;

But hark! What’s this I see?
Its a horde of zombie and they’re coming for me!

Oh no, I cried, that’s scary, that’s no fun!
Lucky for me I put up a turret gun!

So off to the roof I stormed with fear and alarm
With lots of grenades to keep me from harm

They moaned, they groaned, they dragged their feet
The horde of zombies and my neighbour named Pete

Pete was bitten, oh – Pete was undead!
I cried a tear and shot him in the head

All Hallow’s Eve I defended my house

From zombies and ghouls and even my spouse

He had been turned, you see, his evil eyes glistened

I told him zombies were real and he should have listened

By morning I was tired, my ammo was low
The zombies kept coming even though they were slow

Luckily as the sun rose and my arms had grown numb
I saw the glint of tanks – the army had come!

They blasted the zombies with nary a thought,
Oh, golly, that’s the type of tank I should have bought!

Safe and sound now, my life is still in tact
But zombies are real, children, and that’s a fact.

Global cooling

2010-10-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

The first ever ICEBERG was spotted in Cape Town.

We're still working on the giant glass of brandy and Coke.

Why you don't sing campfire songs in the military

2010-10-27T01:56:00.001-07:00

Conversations with SuperDave.

ESSIE: “What did you eat in the army?”

SD: “It depends if I was in the bush or at base.”

ESSIE: “Is being in the bush like camping?”

SD: “Exactly like camping, but with hostiles shooting at you.”

ESSIE: “Did you fry marshmellows and swop stories and sing songs around the campfire?”

SD: “Initially we did. But then whoever played the guitar kept getting killed, so we stopped.”

ESSIE (sympathetic): “We lost a lotta good men that way.”

SD: “It took three guys getting killed before we figured out that the singing and guitar-playing and fire was blowing our cover.”

ESSIE: “Army sounds like fun. Do that thing where you kill someone just by putting your two fingers on the pressure point.”

SD: “No.”

Having a soldier-friend is totally overrated.

My qualifications for good furniture includes style, comfort and temperament

2010-10-25T07:13:00.000-07:00

I was walking through the mall going furniture shopping with SuperDave over the weekend and saw the GREATEST FUCKING CHAIR IN THE WORLD...nay...THE UNIVERSE. And I was all like, "I'm buying that. Right. Now" and he looked at it and said, "It's ugly" and I was like, "No, it's wonderful. Can't you see it's shaped to make a smiley face?" and then he did the thing where he pretended not to know me but I forgive him because he is emotionally stunted because he spent all those years fighting Nazis in the jungle or something. (I'm not entirely sure what modern warfare involves. I think it's like Transformers but you don't drive around in a yellow car that becomes a robot because that's just conspicious. You should only drive your yellow robot car on the weekends. And only in places where there aren't Nazis. Come to think of it, I never finished the Transformers' movie. But I'm fairly sure there were Robot Nazi Cars in it. The long and short of it is SuperDave probably shagged Megan Fox and now I'm not talking to him anymore.)

You guys see it, right?

The Chair.

Digitally remastered for your convenience.

My view is that if you are going to sit something, it might as well be something that acts happy about it, not like those cold-hearted bastards on the bus when it's full and I'm tired and a bit lonely. I think it will be a great edition to the cottage although I'm worried it's only putting on a friendly face until its lured me in and made me take it home and then tries to kill me. These things happen.

This is also why my mom refused to let my dad buy that house where the windows and door made an "angry face".

Finally someone takes me seriously

2010-10-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

My friend Jenni's baby enthralled and terrified us all by finally capturing the image of the elusive rocket-ship boot-wearing ghost.

I always knew ghosts were sneaky, but I never thought they would go THIS far. We asked Sam how to kill the aforementioned ghost, but he just sucked on a piece of Lego and looked mysterious.

Children truly do carry the wisdom of the sages in their hearts.

I'm just more brilliant than all of you

2010-10-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

Well it is now time to introduce my friend SuperDave. He is an army guy who has (foolishly?) decided to improve my life and turn me into a military-style neat freak. Needless to say all his time in the Secret Service sleeping in snowy holes and eating mud and turning his bare hands into weapons did not prepare him for the mess that is my cottage or my psyche. Originally I had implored Dave to come and do some home improvements for me and he suggested a bulldozer and then I laughed and then I coughed because let’s face it there is a LOT of mould in my house and also a hole. Really, my house doesn't need improving. We are now trying out a “training section” in the house that I have to keep clean. (You can tell which section it is because it’s the messiest one at the moment.)
It’s been a lot of fun because I’m all depressed because DW left me and took all the good furniture and he’s distracting me by doing Secret Servicey things like make fire rubbing two sticks together and showing off his titanium kneecaps and AK-47 bullet wounds. And he's also really freckly so you can sort of play connect the dots with him when he's sleeping but you really aren't supposed to do that because he's all badass and might consider it a threat and then his post-traumatic stress disorder gets triggered and we all die. Luckily I've systematically armed myself to the teeth over the last couple years. But really it’s like having that guy from the Bourne Ultimatum movies come over and make you pasta.

                                                                              *

ME: “So what are you afraid of?”

SD: “I’m not afraid or intimidated by any man or anything.”

ME (cheerfully) : “I bet it’s spiders!”

SD (condescending look)

                                                                          *
ME: “So can you show me how to kill someone with my bare hands?”

SD: “That’s classified.”

ME (whining): “I won’t tell anyone.”

SD: “Why do you want to know?”

ME: “Um...I just want to em...use it for...something.”

SD (condescending look)

                                                                                *
ME: “I’m so much more ghetto and scary than you are. I bet I’ve killed more people. How many people have you killed?”

SD: “Like 157...?”

ME: (thinks) “Pansy.”

SD (condescending look)

                                                                                       *
SD: “You can’t live here. It’s not safe. What if someone breaks in?”

ME: “Oh sure, it’s not safe against BURGLARS. But “if” the zombie apocalypse breaks out, the isolation works to my advantage.”

SD: “I think I know what I’m afraid of now.”

Proving ONCE AGAIN that I am a badass motherfucker.

I'm back but I'm not happy

2010-10-07T06:15:00.000-07:00

I went to see this monkey punk band called Boo! last night, but the night was a total disaster. Not only were there little or even – I suspect – no monkeys in the band, but when I went to the toilet DW had given the guy at the table next to us a bite of my hot chocolate pudding. I came back and it had "stranger cooties". And then the guy BITCHED about it. He BITCHED about MY stolen hot chocolate pudding and its sweet goodness. Not only did I not get to FINISH my own hot chocolate pudding with its delicious drippy centre, I had to hear that it was “too sweet” for two hours afterwards. It’s not like he paid for it. Or ordered it.

These monkey punk events aren’t the refined cultural get-togethers they used to be.

Anyway here's a picture DW took but it came out crappy so it just looks like I'm a death punk sex dungeon again and I'm not even in it. Proving that not only can he not be trusted with my pudding, he also sucks at capturing important family memories.

The world has become a cruel place, children.

I'm sick so you all will put up with my vacation pictures

2010-09-28T00:38:00.000-07:00

I got the day off for being diseased so I thought I'd post you some piccies:

Sticky Fingers. Its owned by one of the Rolling Stones, but they were closed when I got there and then I got so miserably lost I never got my dinner there.

This I took at the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace. It was decidedly boring.

Somehow, this looks more comfy than the golden carriages.

These are the Bobbies all protecting the Pope when he was visiting. None of them carry guns. So really, the Pope was protected by a bunch of guys in funny hats with no weapons. And presumably, the Lord.

This is some Prince or other that they stuck on a giant phallic pole. He had a Napolean complex. Or a Freudian one.

Me. Next to the National Gallery. Looking fed up.

A little piece of home. Proving my theory that South Africa already has invaded Britain.

Riding along the Thames I spotted the famous Gherkin building, famous for its odd erm...gherkiny shape. I think its the headquarters for Anne Summers.

Big Ben. Traditionally you are supposed to lob rocks at it if you are from South Africa.

And I honored the late Princess Diana by walking up and down this long, boring path for 3 hours. I think she'd be pleased.

A pictoral exploration of Essie in England

2010-09-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

I don't feel like blogging about England. I wrote a haiku though:

England
Wet, cloudy
Damp every day.
Ooh, Guiness!
Happy.

I'll leave a big blank space so you all can reflect on the beauty of my poetry.

I stayed in a quaint English Tudor cottage. This isn't it. But it was decidedly quainter than the one I stayed in. I'm all about The Quaint. Yes. That's a real thing.

Here I am at the Queen's Locomotive. It's in a mall in Windsor, so I assume it doesn't go anywhere. I'm not sure why it's cool but my boss made me stand there for a picture and I was rocking awesome oversized earrings, so I obeyed.

Here's me next to the flag at Windsor Castle. The flag indicates that the Queen is home, which is really considerate if you are an assassin or terrorist. I wanted to climb up there for the photo op but then a bobby threatened me and I pretended not to speak English for 20 mins.

Guiness. Happy. Refer to my Haiku for further details. Guiness is actually really weak compared to African beer so I won a weekend worth of free cab rides from these Spanish cabbies in a drinking contest. I'm awesome.

I was trying to be sexy with this guy but in hindsight it looks like I'm kneeing him in the balls. I'm doomed to die alone.

Here I am on the Tube, which is not really a Tube but a dank hole full of Stephen Fry advertisements and unfriendly British people pretending to listen to their Ipods when you ask them for help. This is my "Tube face". A look that just says...Fuck off.

My hotel room. I went to Robben Island once, and I swear Nelson Mandela's cell was bigger than this. But he didn't have TV. But neither did anyone else because we only got TV in the late 70s in South Africa. Sony took away our TV privileges because we put Nelson Mandela in prison. Really, it's a vicious circle.

In Hyde Park, looking bloaty and annoyed because the guy couldn't figure out how to work my camera and I was shouting at him and then I hiked through the park behind them and they pretending not to notice me for 2 hours.

Statue of Winnie the Pooh having dirty sex. Or something. I don't know. I couldn't make out the inscription.

Ode to the Godfather. Somewhere in Kensington. I don't know, I was lost.

I'm so glad to see the ass-end of Dubai

2010-09-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

OK, so I’m flying in an hour and I realized that after 17 hours of travelling I did not smell as fresh as I (and my fellow passengers) might like but of course my deodorant and toothpaste had already made their own way to London because you can’t take it on the plane in case you turn it into a weapon of mass destruction. So I decided that, for the sake of everyone involved, I'll try to spruce up.

First thing was brushing the teeth in the ladies' room with the toothbrush I nicked off the stewardess. The mini non-weapon of mass destruction toothpaste tasted like chalk and all the brush bristles came out in my mouth, but that was OK.

No worries.

But I still smelt sweaty and didn’t want to rely on the Fanny Shower thinger they use as toilet paper so I slipped into the prayer room the Muslim women use to cleanse themselves before prayer. I know that Mohammed might not have approved of it, but let’s face it he wouldn’t have wanted to sit next to me on an airplane for another 7 hours either.

So I washed up quickly hoping no one noticed me (the exposed butt crack being a dead giveaway that wasn’t, in fact, a devout Muslim).

But my t-shirt still smelt kinda gross.

Luckily I remembered my brother had given me a present before we left, that I had quickly tucked into my handbag. I had asked him to bring me a nice top back from Durban – “something weird and hippyish” – while he was on vacation there.

Unfortunately when I took the shirt out of the wrapping I realized he didn’t choose something I would consider weird. He choose something Yoko Ono would consider weird. Something i (although would love to wear in my own free time) did not want my boss to see me in the first time she met me in person.

I didn't realize why all the women ushered their children out of the room at this point. But I suppose a camera flashing in the shower stall would spook me too.

SoI decided to salvage the sweatier shirt by running into the perfume store at the last minute and spraying myself to high heaven with the first thing I could find.

Did I choose the delicate Celine Dion perfume I was eyeing for myself? Or one of the tried and trusted brands I love?

No.

I grabbed “Sex Appeal” by Jovan. You know how most perfumes describe themselves as "wisps of hyacinth" and "floral notes"? Sex Appeal smells like ball sweat. With hints of chalk.

There were 50 Indian people flying to Gatwick all praying to Ganesh that they don’t have to sit next to me.

The Loch Ess...brought to you LIVE from Dubai

2010-09-12T23:58:00.000-07:00

One of the sad things about this trip is that my compadre Mattie couldn't come along. It's been his dream to come to England for years, and I can't say the same for me. So in the spirit of love and companionship I've printed out 10 photos of Matt to leave in random spots around Britain. At the back I wrote, Matthew was here (sorta).

So if you happen to be travelling internationally these few weeks, you might find his picture someplace. Yes, it will be still there. It wouldn't be Mattie if you could get rid of it easily.

Anyway, here are the photies of the trip so far. I've seen nothing but airport so bear with me.

Here we are at Cape Town airport. I told Mattie I didn't need those shoes, but he insisted on buying them for me. BTW, Mattie, if you are reading this you owe me 50USD. Pay me back any time.

The first thing I wanted to do once we landed though was check out an authentic Arabic restaurant.

I ended up going with Burger King though.

Dubai toilet paper. At least it's warm

One of the cool things Emirates does though, is that they have these huge glasses bins with slots on top around the airport where people can stick money for charity.

That's when it hit me. What would Mattie do if he saw bins of money just sitting there?

So I tossed him in there. I hope in doing so I didn't somehow pledge his services to some Arabic harem, but at the end of the day, it's all for charity right?

I'm either in Dubai or the Afterlife. Neither one is fun, though.

2010-09-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

Look at me...Blogging from Dubai. I feel so sophisticated.

It took me forever to find a docking station for my laptop because ever single electronic outlet is being crowded by Japanese people. I tried to ask them to move in their own language, but I can’t remember any verbs so I just went “Sumimasen! Sumimasen!” until they got creeped out and left. I’m very rusty but I think the guy said “Tanaka-san, let us get away from crazy person with no shoes before she stab us”.

I arrived at Cape Town International about at 3 pm (about 3 hours before my flight was due to take off...my mom was worried that I would miss the flight if something went wrong or took too long). Of course, by 3.10 pm I was checked in, had my passport stamped and was waiting to board.
Flight was crap. My little TV thinger broke and would only play “Prince of Persia” over and over again and I just had to sit there while it happened to me. Luckily my boss phoned me wayyy ahead of time and told me to get drunk on the plane because there’s no alcohol in Dubai, so the drunkenness took some of the pain away. Plus I stole their little cosmetic kit with the mini-toothbrush and gigantic socks in retribution. Airportland isnt fun. We ate dinner at 9 pm and then I snuggled under my hopelessly inadequate thermal blankie for a good night's sleep at about 11. Only to be awakened 2 hours later for “breakfast”.

There is no meal I want to eat at 1 am unless I’m hungover. And even then it's always the same meal. A happy meal. I can't face a fruit cup at 1 am on no sleep.

I’ve got another 6 hours to kill in the airport.There is nothing here but giant stuffed camels and Phillipino stewardesses. I still don’t know which gate I’m boarding at and the men in the white pajamas aren’t very helpful either. How come they dress their wives like ninjas but then they make you take off your shoes and belts and jackets at the metal detector?

Here's a photo of me at the airport but it's a bit well-lit and makes me look like a member of the Undead, which is freaky because I dreamt I died on the plane when I nodded off in the vast space between dinner and breakfast. I hope this isn't the Afterlife. If it is, the Afterlife is very lame. Really, you guys have nothing to look forward to.

Dubai, from what I’ve seen out of the window, is very flat and full of fancy hotels. I can’t really give commentary on the place because its my understanding that if I leave I will get arrested. If not for not having a visa, for having my butt crack showing because I had to take off my belt at the security checks and can't be bothered to put it on.

A brief history of South Africa: Part II

2010-09-10T02:06:00.000-07:00

OK, part II of the history of my country.

For the next couple of hundred years the Dutch stole the cattle off the black people, and the black people stole it back and so it went on and on until the French decided to invade the Netherlands.

So Britain was all like, “Oh, we can hold onto the Cape Colony for you. We can water the pot plants and things while you’re away” and the Netherlands was like, “We were going to ask Germany to do that” and the Brits said, “No, we asked them to watch India over the Easter weekend and they threw a massive party and broke our CD player” and the Dutch said, “Well why don’t you just help us defeat the French” and the British said, “We really don't like to meddle” and then they had some tea and handed over the keys and cancelled all the Dutch newspapers and the British went to the Cape Colony.

So then Britain occupied South Africa for a few years and then annexed it, which is a fancy way of calling “keepsies”. And then for the next couple of hundred years the British stole the cattle the natives had stolen from the Dutch and the natives stole it back until this guy called Shaka called everyone together and was like, “Hey. There’s like 250 000 of us, and 200 of them” and the Zulus were like, “Huh. You’re right. We didn’t notice because we too busy discovering tobacco and stealing back our cattle” but they didn’t want to listen to him. Then some dude murdered his uncle and Shaka took revenge by locking the guy’s mother in a hut with hyenas that slowly ripped her to pieces and he set the whole thing on fire and the Zulus were all “Whoa, don’t fuck with Shaka. He crazyyyy.”

The other tribes didn’t like that so the Zwide decided to kick his ass at the Battle of Gqokli Hill but Shaka sent a herd of elephants around the hill to stomp them to death. Just to prove that he was a badass motherfucka.

Shaka was a bit of a momma’s boy, and when his mom Nandi died Shaka told everyone that they weren’t allowed to plant crops or drink milk for a whole year and that any woman who got pregnant would be killed along with her husband, essentially putting an end to nookie in the Zulu Kingdom. He also killed 7000 people “for not looking sad enough” and killed all the cows so the calves could know what losing a mother felt like. Which is a right asshole thing to do.

Shaka didn’t die a particularly cool death either. Basically his brother Dingane said, “Hi Shaka, look over there!” and then Mhlangana (the other brother) hit him over the head and dumped him in a grain pit.

And then we named an airport after him. They put up this statue of Shaka but they took it down because it wasn't badass enough. True story. They said he looked too peaceful in the statue and needed a spear or a dead virgin or a hyena on a leash or something.

Here's President Jacob Zuma and King Goodwill Zwelithini. They are both Zulus. They look really pissed in this picture. I bet they were arguing over who got to cut the airport ribbon. "I'm the President of the Country!" "Well, I'm the motherfucking King" "Of the Zulus, maybe. I'm President of the whole country, so I'm technically your boss" "Yeah, but you are a Zulu, so I'm your goddamn monarch" "Nuh-uh" "Uh-huhhh" "Smile, Goodwill they are taking the picture." "That's King Goodwill to you, dipshit."

A brief history of South Africa Part I

2010-09-09T06:41:00.000-07:00

I got a review that suggested I need to discuss myself and my home country a bit more in this blog because it’s “interesting” but really, that’s just ignorant. Living in South Africa is just like living in America but with more bugs and less white people.

So I thought I’ll give you guys a nice historical overview.

I live on a wine farm in a small town called Wellington. It’s quite a big farm and the wines are quite popular so if you recently got a nice Chenin Blanc from South Africa, chances are it’s from the same vineyard my cat pees in every single day.

South Africa is located to the South of about 5 countries that have gone to shit in the last 10 years, so we are super psyched about that.

Our president is Jacob Zuma. He’s got 5 wives, a fiance, and 21 children. Our taxes are really, really high.

Here’s the three first wives rocking some hats. As you can see, he’s clearly going to score with at least 2 of them.

Anyway, South Africa was discovered by Vasco de Gama. When the locals were very surprised but they had a big orange flag and awesome pantaloons so they let them hang around. A couple of other Portuguese guys sailed past the place and then in 1652 the teenaged Jan van Riebeeck arrived and opened a refreshment station. In Afrikaans apartheid schools we learnt that Jan van Riebeeck was a national hero but when you think about it he really was like, the manager of the Cape Colony Wendy’s.

He kinda looks like one of the Jonas brothers.

For a long time we had his face on all our money but then the historians said the guy in this picture isn't even really Jan van Riebeeck but we already printed the money, so we just ignored that little fact.

Now our money has a sheep on it. Probably better that way.

For every single pot, there is a lid. Even weird pots. Pot-smoking pots. Crooked pots. You get the idea.

2010-09-08T06:25:00.000-07:00

My mom has a saying: every pot has a lid. Meaning: there is someone for everyone. This is, thanks to the Internet, true and scary.

Type the word "dating" into google.

See? Dating for...walkers.

I'm not sure what a walker is. I googled it and it's either:

But the best site by FAR was Zombie Harmony, a FREE and fabulous dating site for those wishing to hook up with zombies. You can select whether you are looking for a slow-moving, fast-moving or immobile partner and even choose how many limbs he/she should have left. Because the apocalypse doesn't have to be lonely.

Now, you all know that I'm not on the market to date anyone (dead or undead) but I'd like to share with you some important information about how to date a zombie.

1. Communication is key

At some point, your partner may pressure to become a zombie too. Becoming a member of the undead is long-term commitment and a huge step. Don't take the decision lightly. Talk to your significant other and his victims about this before committing to anything.

2. Safety first

Remember that your partner has special needs. Your zombie might get over-excited by huge crowds or public transport and rip someone's arms off by accident. If this happens, quickly apologize and move away to a quiet spot where you can help him calm down.

3. No means no

Zombies may not understand personally boundaries. Teach your partner that no means no when it comes to mauling. Use deadly force if necessary.

4. The eye of the beholder

The biggest benefit (I find) of dating a zombie is that they aren't obsessed with your looks like "normal" guys. Almost all they care about are your brains.

5. Plenty of fish in the sea

If you accidentally or purposefully decapitate your zombie, don't despair. One zombie is pretty much like the next, and you will surely find someone new in no time flat.

Happy dating, guys! I've created my own profile just for fun:

Let me know if you guys make a love connection!

I'm off to the UK baby!

2010-09-06T08:35:00.000-07:00

Whoohoo!

I had the amazing privilege of spending the morning in Cape Town trying to pick up my visa. I was looking forward to being back in the city but within 10 short minutes I was flashed by a hobo and tripped over two rats dragging a dead cat into the sewer, so I was reminded why I decided to move to the countryside to begin with.

The application was a pain in the ass but I suppose that what's you get for making jokes about terrorism. (Travel hint: people are not laughing about that yet.) I love my shiny new European visa with all my biometric scans and things. It is much fancier than my African visa which was basically just a stamp with some notes scribbled over it.

I look as terrifying in this picture as I do on my passport photo.

Unfortunatly I have to fly to Dubai first and figure out how to spend a day in the airport. My grandma was very excited to hear about this and immediatly asked me if I could take some knitted socks to my cousin in Saudi Arabia "if you manage to swing by there".

But on the bright side, my boss felt bad about sending me there so she's booked me into a 5 star hotel in Central Lonon for 3 nights. I'm very happy because I really get to see the city centre...and also I have somewhere nice to take Prince William for a one night stand (the man IS the future king of England, after all).

Why I think DW didn't get laid in high school

2010-09-03T01:11:00.000-07:00

Someone posted DW's prom picture on Facebook. It wasn't a good prom. She ended up dumping him in the corner and making out with his friends.

I think dressing as a priest put the nail in the prom coffin.

Conventional Wisdom vs the Loch Ess Monster

2010-09-01T07:16:00.000-07:00

I spent my whole weekend cleaning my house and now it's dirty again. Well I've learned my lesson. I'm never doing that again. It's pointless. Then I got this email with good housekeeping tips, but they seemed a little off, so I've modified them. Happy cleaning, y'all.

LOCH ESS GUIDE TO GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

To remove smells from your fridge, put an open saucer of vinegar inside.

MY ADVICE: If your fridge is smelly, the temperature is set too low to adequately cool the corpse you are hiding inside. It’s time to break out the shovel.

If you have accidentally put too much salt in a dish as it's cooking, simply add a peeled potato. The potato will absorb the excess salt.

MY ADVICE: If you have accidentally put too much salt in a dish, it's a real pity. You'll eat what I give you.

For headaches: Cut one lemon in half and rub it gently over your forehead. The pain will disappear.

MY ADVICE: Take one lemon, cut it in half, mix it with tequila, and drink. What? You have a headache. Sorry to hear that. Have some tequila.

Put a mini-marshmellow in the bottom of your ice cream cone to prevent it from leaking.

MY ADVICE: Sneeze over your ice cream immediatly to prevent people from asking for bites.

If a cake recipe says you should sprinkle the bottom of the pan with flour, use the dry cake mix instead. That way there won't be dry flour stuck to the bottom of your cake when you turn it out.

MY ADVICE: Go to a bakery. They decorate it for you, too.

To open a stubborn jar, place rubber bands around the lid for extra "grip". Alternatively, try wearing a rubber glove.

MY ADVICE: Ask the sexy new neighbor. I'm sure he can open it.

Pour leftover alcohol into ice cube trays and freeze it. That way you can re-use it in sauces and dishes.

MY ADVICE: Leftover...what?!

First Date Tips that really work or will get you arrested

2010-08-31T03:42:00.000-07:00

I'm a member of 20sb.net, which is like having friends, and the adorable dhpotter had this cool question about how you should go about impressing your first dates. Which inspired me to share my advice with all of you. If you don't know how to get a first date, refer to my post 10 types of men you haven't dated yet.

1. Don't tell him about your baby daddy who just got out of prison.

He'll meet him soon enough, anyway.

2. Don't show off how you crush beer cans with your boobs until the third date

It makes you seem slutty if you rush into this.

3. For some reason, men don't respond well to the display of stuffed dead pets I've set up in the living room.

You'd think it'll make a good talking point, but its not.

4. Bring your mom.

It'll save you the cost of phoning her after the date, and he'll be impressed by your thriftiness.

5. I dont care what they say. Restaurants expect you to take the silverware home. Its factored into the cost.

Ok, that's not a dating tip. It's just a general one.

6. Be yourself...

..unless you suck. Then you should be Cameron Diaz. She's awesome. But I'm not allowed to write to her anymore. :(

7. Twitter about the date incessantly throughout the evening.

He'll think you're incredibly tech savvy. Also, everyone enjoys feedback.

8. Bring your wedding planner journal along to the date

That way you can get his input straight away, and know that you've already thought of everything. One less thing for him to worry about.

9. Follow him to his house to "make sure he's OK"

Guys LOVE this stuff. But don't be stalkery about it. I usually send a funny text like, "See, I DO know where you live LOL" or "Your furniture looks great from the back yard." Wave in a friendly way when he peeks through the curtains but DON'T LEAVE right away. That way you can watch over him while he sleeps. It's really romantic.

10. Share your broken heart stories

That way, you get to suss out what his ex-girlfriend was like. And you can track her down. And send him a box of her hair to prove that you don't let anyone walk over "your man". Oh...that reminds me, keep referring to him as "your man" throughout the evening. Guys eat that stuff up.

Seriously, this is totally how I landed my baby-daddy.

Uh-oh

2010-08-31T00:58:00.000-07:00

I feel like a husband whose wife walked in on him watching porn. Sweeny caught me browsing the "puppy" classifieds. Red-handed.

God. That's an evil glance if ever I saw it.

Pet peeved

2010-08-27T01:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, so while I was browsing the pet classifieds I realized something: your pet says something about you. Maybe too much. I of course, have owned numerous garden variety pets named after serial killers, but now I'm looking for something different.

Please vote.

DEMON HUSKY

Pros: Great guard dog.
Cons: Spawn of the Dark Lord.

CAN OF RABBITS

PROS: Conveniently pre-packaged
CONS: I have no shelf space in my house.

PREVIOUSLY OWNED CHICKEN

PROS: Well, goddamnit, who doesn't love chicken?
CONS: For one thing, it's somewhat overpriced. R100 for a whole chicken is a bit steep. The supermarket has them at 30 bucks a pop. Of course, this does not include the head or the life force which animates it. But ultimately I don't feel comfortable owning a pristine white animal. I'd just get it dirty.

EXPENSIVE LIZARD

PROS: Looks like the aliens from that TV series "V".
CONS: a) gives me the creeps, b) I'm sure this gecko thing has got emotional damage. For one thing the owner claims "it's eating like a champ" but then in the very NEXT sentence he says it's on Diet food. This pattern of encouragement and breaking his self-esteem makes for one very fucked up gecko, that may turn on me at any time, c) the evil spider that lives behind my fridge killed the last three wild geckoes that came into my house and strung up their little bodies from my chandelier. And now I'm scared of my house.

SNAKE (CHILD NOT INCLUDED)

I have no pros or cons for this one because I'm in trouble for asking the owner if the children were part of a set or could they be sold separately. Plus my revulsion re: anything with scales with prohibit me from touching, feeding or loving this animal in any way, shape or form. Although I would like to see what a frozen mouse looks like.

HALF-PRICED EMUS

PROS: At under 150 USD this is real a bargain, and I've never said no to a bargain.
CONS: It's Australian.

YOGA PIG

Ok, I wanted a pig right off the bat. I won't lie to you. They like dirt, they like sleeping, and they eat your trash for you. But THIS particular pig has been tainted. The owner is clearly a gym freak who has brainwashed these animals. "Loves fruit and vegetables". "Roam around". And the pig in the picture is clearly doing some form of yoga. I don't need a pig to make me feel bad about myself. I want a pig that makes me feel superior.

BUCKET O' HAMSTERS

PROS: Bulk sale. Very economical.

CONS: Will have to take care of owl infestation on roof first.

WHORISH CHIHUAHUA

PROS: It's wearing a FUCKING SUIT!!!! Awesome.

CONS: Will step on it. Don't want little chihuahua STDs. Don't want a pet named "Hilton". Not for sale, apparently. No go.

For sale: Evil Puppies. Incarnate Demon included.

2010-08-26T01:41:00.000-07:00

I was looking around on Gumtree for a puppy and found this ad, straight from "How to not sell your dog". I'd buy it, because I'm into weird occult collectibles (I feel it ups my "street cred") but I'm scared it'll mate with my cat and give birth to the Antichrist and I just don't want that on my conscience.

Give me a treat, or I'll eat your soul.

I wonder if the owner's house is located on a sacred Indian burial ground.

I replaced my husband with a smiley face. I should have done it years agoooo.

2010-08-25T03:18:00.000-07:00

DW is being a huge idiot about the blog...something about public humiliation and using his details without his consent. He said he's going to sue me because it's an invasion of privacy and might wreck his music career in the future but I think it's because during a heated argument I told him that I fed him the steak I had dropped on the floor earlier.

So I've decided to erase the whole incident of our marriage and pretend that I married a man called WD instead. And he's AWESOME. I've created visual aids for you because I'm such a genius at Photoshop.

Ah, here is me and WD. Eating cake on our wedding day.

He's a musician too. Only GOOD at it.

WD and myself on a date.

Dressed up as Corpse Bride for Halloween.

Valentine's Day

In addition, his hobbies include washing dishes and telling me I'm wonderful.

Oh, and that's what he looks like shirtless.

I love you WD. I'm so glad that humorless moron I was married to before was torn apart by rabid owls in that freak accident. I know it was a gruesome, painful death and most of his organs are still scattered in the pine trees behind the house but I'd like to think it meant something.

Heebiejeebies

2010-08-24T02:28:00.000-07:00

I bought these two cool African masks at the market and I was very keen to know their significance. I dubbed them Heebie and Jeebie. Of course, none of the tribes in South Africa use or make masks, so I went to the only Angolan man I know and asked them what the masks are for and he looked amused and said, "To make money off off white people."

But I'm cool with that.
The man I asked is the car guard behind this grocery store right now, but he used to be a maths professor before the war and people came and burnt down his home and killed his sister and he had to leave the high walls of the university behind. Angola, he says, is the most beautiful land in the world. The whole earth hums with magic and the air smells like spells. Sometimes he draws complicated equations on the concrete wall behind the store that advertises half-off green peppers and talks to high school kids about the beauty of Pythagoras when they walk by.
It makes me sad that they never listen because when he speaks he makes Math sound like the most beautiful thing in the world. Next to Angola, of course.

The Ten Stages of Doing Something Stupid

2010-08-23T11:26:00.000-07:00

Oh God. I have done something unbearably stupid. My boss was talking about this huge seminar they're holding in London next month and how she's looking for someone who will have the guts to stand up in front of a group of private hospital executives and speak to them about the private hospital industry in the United Kingdom - an industry I've worked in for about 10 minutes. I put my hand up. I said, "I'll do it. Oh please let me make an ass of myself in front of these people who have millions of dollars and have met the Queen. I know I don't really speak the language and I still don't entirely know what a cardiothoracic surgeon does, but what I lack in knowledge I make up for in determination."

I don't know why I do this. Maybe it's my chipper can-do attitude that my parents beat into me as a child. Maybe it's because my mother let me watch Spartacus when I was four. I don't know. But it's an inevitable, predictable downward spiral from here.

Yeah, I'm at stage 5 now. I find it a sad testimony to my personal life that I know what Hepatobiliary is but not bangers.

I'm looking forward to visiting the UK though. Not that I don't love Africa. I mean, I love Africa. There's SO many things I love here:

~~AIDS~~

~~Poverty~~

~~50% Income Tax~~

~~Potholes~~

~~Vuvuzelas~~

My parents

~~Media Blackout~~

~~Communism~~

Riots
Dial-up Internet

~~No hot water~~

Oh well. UK here I come!

Holy Shit! The Bloggess!!!

2010-08-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

Guys. The motherfucking Bloggess left a comment on my blog. It saddens me to say that this was the highlight of my entire existance on this planet. I am never washing this blog again.

PS. Someone pointed out that I didn't draw my graph correctly, and that the whole thing makes no sense to anyone with fundamental knowledge of Math. I wanted to draw another graph about that, but could only come up with this:

Instead of having a life, I painstakingly drew this using MS Paint. Enjoy.

2010-08-18T00:41:00.000-07:00

It's Hug-a-Ginger Day!!!

2010-08-17T01:04:00.000-07:00

It's Hug-a-Ginger Day...in honor of my red-headed family, I rocked up to work in ceremonial gear.

KAT: "What are you wearing?"

ESSIE: "It's a purda."

KAT: "A what?"

ESSIE: "It's a sacred Hindu ceremonial dress. It's very meaningful. Show some respect."

KAT: "Where did you get it?"

ESSIE: "I swopped my old rollerskates with some Indian chick for it ."

Some people have no sense of occasion.

Oh Facebook. You suck.

2010-08-16T07:44:00.000-07:00

Facebook just showed me a picture of DW and asked "Whose face is this?"

Enough with the criticism of my marriage, Facebook. We're not close, but I can still pick the guy out of a line-up.

What I was doing on the weekend...

2010-08-16T04:41:00.000-07:00

It was a pretty big “event” weekend for me.

My friend Marize got married. She’s the baby sister of a good friend of mine. Or a former good friend to be honest. (She got very religious and we had an argument because I used the word “shit” in a Facebook post and it pissed her and Jesus off. To which I responded, “Good thing I didn’t say “fuck” then”. We don’t speak anymore.) Anyway, here’s a photo of me and Marize at the bachelorette party. I drank tequila out of a glass shaped like a sperm cell. The rest is fuzzy.

me and Marize

The cocktail I'm drinking is called, unoriginally, a "teapot". It's full of mysterious things that give you a headache at 4 am.

Then my father-in-law had his 50th birthday. Many of you have wondered about DW’s parents. I’m sure you’ve pictured something like this:

But in actual fact they look (and are) fairly normal except for the fact that they’re from that country that looks like Tattooine from Star Wars and that his dad occasionally likes to cross-dress at birthday parties. In fact, they may very well be Sand people. Ah, family.

My in-laws. The day started very romantically until my mom-in-law got blown off her ladder by a strong gust of wind and my father-in-law laughed at her.

Me picking cherries. Still utterly unable to knot one with my tongue.

Also, my cousin Izaan is in town. (Izaan spelt backwards is Naazi, but she's actually really great. We hung out in Johannesburg a few times. She married her boyfriend after only 3 months because of a dream, which is something I can get behind.). That ~~bitch~~ girl is the president of the Derek Zoolander Club for ridiculously good-looking people and used to win all sorts of fucked-up beauty contests for kids when we were growing up so I always get a complex when she visits even though I’ve finally “grown into my feet” like the family predicted.

My cousin looking good. I have those same round cheeks, but on me they look less Hunter Tylo and more Alvin the Chipmunk.

Whenever there was a beauty contest my mom used to say she didn’t want to enter me because I was “too pretty” and she didn’t want to make the other children feel inferior. But I’ve come to suspect this was a lie because I used to wear my brother’s hand-me-downs and cut my hair really short and people suspected I was a crybabyish boy until I was 8. (I really wanted long hair as a kid but whenever it got to a decent length my mom would tell me, “Now remember: don’t put gum in there, you won’t be able to get it out.” This is like the worst parenting on the planet. Of course I would immediately go out, find gum, chew it, wrap my hair around it and then try to wrench it out for 5 hours until I inevitably would give up and decide to hide my foolishness by shearing half my head clean with blunt scissors. Ah...memories.)

My cat is an asshole part 2

2010-08-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

I was hanging out in the bedroom watching TV when the familiar smell of cat vomit started to permeate through the house. First of all, I was pissed because I was missing American Gladiator. There is something about grown men in Spandex beating each other with oversized Q-tips that I find immensely satisfying. Secondly, I hate vomit. Vomit makes me vomit.

I thought the cat understood this because the last time he decided to puke I puked all over him. And I was eating Cheese Curls at the time. (Yeah. I won THAT round, baby.)

DW refuses to help me clean cat vomit and is all judgmental about it. It may have something to do with the fact that the last time we went camping the fire was next to a giant pile of dog poop, and I made him pick it up with a paper towel. And it wasn’t a small amount of poop. It was the Chrysler building of dog poops. (My tent had blown away and I was forced to sleep next to the fire in my little fold-up chair. Which then fell in the fire. Really, the camp sucked in general.

Me in my chair/bed. Note I'm wearing my formal church shorts

The only thing that made it worthwhile was the fact that it was a church camp, and they had run out of supplies so we had Sunday communion with grape soda and dinner rolls. It's what Jesus would have wanted.)

The worst thing is, everyone also says, “Oh, you need to get over your squeamishness...what if you have a
baby?”

Yes, everyone. I know. Babies poop and vomit all over the show. I watched my former boss’s baby, Isobelle, and she vomited all over me within minutes. You know what I did? I vomited on her. I know. She was surprised too. It’s not something I can help. The point is, I still hosed her off and got her presentable by the time her mom got home. Vomiting on a kid does not make you a bad parent. The fact that she vomited because she drank directly from a bottle of my nail polish that I left open in the play room probably does. I’m not Dr Phil, I can’t be expected to know these things.

Also, back when I taught 2-yr olds, there was a little boy who could hit the ceiling when he peed and insisted on peeing upwards. I let him do it on a weekly basis, and cleaned it up just fine. Mainly because I didn’t want to stifle his creativity but also because I was impressed as fuck.

There are too many things wrong with this picture to go into

2010-08-15T05:56:00.000-07:00

My friend Kat has been trying to bond with her very outdoorsy boyfriend by bonding with his dog.

Fail.

I hope he likes it

2010-08-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

Oh God it’s Friday the 13th.

Everyone has been avoiding telling me because they are afraid I will panic and set the office on fire. (I’m sensible like that). It’s already shaping up to be a crappy day. I have to go to my father-in-law’s 50th birthday and I haven’t gotten him anything and then like at the very last minute DW let me know we are all supposed to MAKE him something.

Homemade gifts are only endearing when the gift-giver is five years old, because then it comes from the heart and the kid still has the memory of a goldfish, so you can throw it away almost immediately without hurting their feelings. (I sometimes wish I could have kept that cuteness as an adult. I remember when I was five I took a whole bunch of stuff out of my parents’ closets, opened a “shop” in my bedroom and made them buy their stuff back from me. It was geeeeenius.)

Outside of fingerpaintings, I really only ever made two things in school: macaroni necklaces and a knitted scarf that kinda looked like it was meant to be a doily. (Oh yeah, here's what I DIDN'T make in school: Friends.) Neither seem very good gifts for a 50-yr old. I thought of buying tobacco and rolling him some cigarettes, but DW said the gift is supposed to be inspirational and he was all smug because he’s writing his dad a song, so I’ve decided to put my Art classes to good use and make him this modern piece to remind him of the wise parable of the tortoise and the hare:

They BOTH should have run faster.

Why I probably shouldn't have joined the healthcare industy

2010-08-13T05:03:00.000-07:00

RECEPTION: "Reception. How may I direct your call?"

ESSIE: "Um, yeah, I'm looking for Rosie...she's a urodynamics nurse?"

(Annoying music starts to play)

URO RECEPTION: "Urology department. Can you hold?"

ESSIE BURSTS OUT LAUGHING AND PUTS PHONE DOWN.

I'm pretty sure that anyone with bladder problems would find "Can you hold" offensive...

How to ruin Cake for all of us

2010-08-12T07:08:00.000-07:00

I'd like to think I've never met a cake I didn't like. But I've just started a nursing blog for my boss, so I was looking for some ideas (FYI: this is not a good blog. But if you join it, it'll make me look good) and came across a few of these:

Ortho Nurses...I always knew they were a weird bunch.

Appetizing...

Did they HAVE to put blood on the Band-Aids?

That is a blood cake. Decorated with marzipan tongues and ears. Note that the ears have ear hair.

AND THE WINNER IS:

Colon Cake!!! For the Gastro-Intestinal Nurses!

I've sent this around to a few nurses. Their response: "We're RNs. We've seen it all. You can't gross us out."

Popularity!

2010-08-12T05:51:00.000-07:00

I had a quick look at my Google Stats after 7 people started following this blog yesterday. Once again I have no idea why. Probably because I hung out in a chat room drunk and promised to email naked pictures of myself to random strangers.

Anyhoo, this blog is doing kinda OK! Success! Here's where my blog lies on the "love it vs hate it" scale:

SUCCESS!!!

The Many Faces of Essie

2010-08-11T03:05:00.000-07:00

I've been watching ~~3 seasons of America's Next Top Model in a row~~ thinking about the many faces I have and what they say. I'm going to post them here ~~because I'm bored~~ because I want you all to know the true me:

"You lured me in here with promises of ice cream, yet I suspect you don't have ice cream at all."

"I think you are infinitely cooler than I am. So I'm going to make my aloof face."

"God, get the boredom out of my head."

"I'm going to pretend to be fascinated by what you are saying so that you'll go out with me. Be prepared to see this face a lot."

"You quoted the Simpsons. Kudos."

"Mmm...suspicious."

"Hehehe, you farted!"

"I'm going to pretend I'm not noticing you speaking to me, so you'll go away."

You all know what I'm thinking here, right?

"I wanted more chocolate but then I remembered I ate it all."

"That cute guy is looking at me. Even though he is totally better looking than me and intimidates the shit out of me, I'm going to look right back on him and not embaress myself"

"I love you, cute guy."

"No, cute guy. Don't leave."

"You weren't that cute to begin with. And this guy SOOO doesn't have ice cream."

I'm not thinking anything here. I'm just drunk.

Groupie 101

2010-08-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

I went to a bbq with this girl who’s boyfriend is a musician, but she doesn’t allow him to perform because she’s afraid of groupies. Well, she should be.
Any girl who – when a singer vomits on stage – scoops it up and “bathes” herself in it is scary. So I gave her some tips in how to handle them. It's not difficult. Just stand in the crowd, eavesdrop and say the following at appropriate intervals:

“Yeah, he’s crazy. Must be the final stage of his syphilis kicking in.”

“You think he’s good-looking now, you should have seen him before the sex change.”

“Yeah, who cares if he’s lip syncing? That’s still talent, right?”

“Am I his what? His wife? Well, yes, one of them.”

“Yeah, but I heard he has penis rot. You never heard of it? You should let him show you. What’s left of it, that is.”

Kodak moment

2010-08-09T04:44:00.000-07:00

At the exact moment that I was wondering where the giant lizard crawling over our ceiling had gone, my cat Sweeny decided to ask for breakfast.

DW is evil

2010-08-07T22:41:00.000-07:00

DW went hunting and killed a doe. Please don't think any less of me for marrying this evil, evil man. He says that the farmer told him to because the animals are overpopulating the land and starving and so they had to cull them as much as possible.

I don't care what he says. This is how I interpret the situation.

I would give you all his address so you could burn his house down, but it's also my house. So don't.

Turns out I'm not just insane, I really DID have millions of insects crawling over my skin!!!

2010-08-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

I was brushing my teeth and then noticed what looked like muddy water pouring over the window outside. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was actually an army of gnats flooding to the light emanating from the window. We spent the entire night armed with cans of pesticide trying to get rid of them. There were thousands of them. We switched all the lights off but they were drawn to the light of TV. It was like The Birds but with gnats. Surprisingly it’s even less epic than the Hitchock movie.

DW (spraying them): “Is just me or are they not dying? They keep coming back.”

ESSIE (spraying them): “No, I think these are new ones.”

DW (through a cloud of poison): “Then they are stupid. They should have noticed all the little corpses of their comrades by now.”

ESSIE: “Maybe it’s a strategy. Maybe they keep sending in reinforcements until we’ve sprayed so much poison in the room that WE die. Maybe they are kamikaze gnats.”

DW: “So now what?”

ESSIE: “I say we keep spraying them. I’m committed now.”

At worst, we’ll both be infertile by morning.

Why I'll never get promoted

2010-08-05T02:12:00.001-07:00

ESSIE: “When are we implanting nap time at the office?”

KAT: “We don’t have that here.”

ESSIE: “This job is bullshit. All other companies have nap time. Or at least free juice.”

KAT: “You are thinking of kindergarten.”

Dear Applicant, I think your career counsellor was a paedophile

2010-08-04T06:04:00.000-07:00

I come across many applicants who have chosen to diversify their skill set quite a bit, but this is a weird career choice.

Nursery nurse or massage therapist...? I wonder how the two disciplines are related...

I'm pretty sure we went to the leather fetish factory...or maybe it was just on TV

2010-08-03T04:39:00.000-07:00

ESSIE: “DW, say something stupid. I need material for my blog.”

DW: “I’m not falling for that one.”

ESSIE: “You’ve fallen for it like, thirty times.”

DW: “Don’t write anything. No one’s going to care.”

ESSIE: “Yes they will, DW. They will turn on us. They are a fickle, unstable bunch. And before you know it we are watching the smouldering ruins of our house disintegrate as the fire consumes it. And we’re dead.”

DW: “Well, I’ve told you to stop putting all of our personal information on the Internet.”

ESSIE: “It’s not.”

DW: “Your license plate number is on there. And your e-mail. And a picture of our house. And don’t blog about this, you’ll just draw more attention to it.”

ESSIE: “I won’t, DW. I’m not STUPID. Maybe I can write about that time we went to the leather fetish factory. That was fun. Remember that?”

DW: “No. Probably because it never happened.”

ESSIE: “You’re not fun anymore.”

The reason they don't fill the potholes is because disembodied old people live in there...or so we assume.

2010-08-02T01:59:00.000-07:00

Today was a new record for near death experiences – two in one hour. Well, three, really – if you count the suicidal feelings I encountered after not liking what I saw when my life flashed in front of my eyes.

The first one was when a rock shot up from the embankment where men in lab suits were mowing the grass and chipped my windshield. They had put up obvious warning signs that read “MOWING” but honestly – what can you do about it? The second one was when a cow from the shantytown stepped in front of my car very suddenly. I don’t know why they allow cows to cross the highway. I imagine it went something like this:

MUNICIPALITY: “You can’t let your cows wander free and live in your houses. This is a residential area.”

SHANTYTOWN: “Why not?”

MUNICIPALITY: “Well, for one there is no grass here. It’s cruel.”

SHANTYTOWN: “Well, now that you cut it, yeah.”

MUNICIPALITY: “Well, we’re the municipality. We say you can’t keep them.”

SHANTYTOWN: “Yes we can. It’s erm...part of our culture.”

MUNICIPALITY: “Oh! Well, in that case, it should be fine then.”

SHANTYTOWN: “Also if you could not fill the potholes that would be great. Our ancestors live in them.”

Of course, they could have easily put up fences or restricted the grazing along the highway but instead they put up baffling signs:

They even have one of a cow leaping over a fence that I couldn’t find a picture of. But the cows in the shantytown are kinda rife with Anthrax and live on plastic bags and municipal grass and there aren’t fences anyway so no leaping is being done. I mean, they’re not lemmings.

It's not just the female of our species that talk too much

2010-07-30T01:40:00.001-07:00

Bob Geldoff, phallic balloons and covens of HR managers. How was YOUR day?

2010-07-29T03:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve been put on marketing duty again – something I both loathe, and studied for four years. I was supposed to phone all the hospitals we work for but ALL of the HR directors at ALL the different companies on vacation. (I’m not sure how they coordinate this. I picture something like that movie, The Witches, where they all hang around on a hilltop in a coven and chant and eat chidren. Actually, that might be an apt collective noun: “a coven of HR managers”.)

To encourage me to make 100 calls, I was given a bunch of colourful phallic balloons to pop every time I made a sale. (Sir Bob Geldoff told my boss to do this at some sales conference. Apparently it makes it more fun. I also had to wear stilettos. I fell several times and there were burst balloons everywhere. It reminded me of my 2nd birthday. At least back then I got to eat cake with my foot.) All in all it was pretty horrifying. I was shocked at the paltry service the hospitals offer. I was on hold with one cosmetic clinic for 10 minutes before I got through to reception.

RECEPTION: “How can I help you?”
ESSIE: “This is shocking. I’ve been holding forever.”
RECEPTION: “I do apologize. We have a very busy switchboard.”
ESSIE: “It could have been an emergency.”
RECEPTION: “We don’t do any emergency treatments.”
ESSIE: “What if I had surgery and my lip fell off?”
RECEPTION (long pause): “That can’t happen.”
ESSIE: “Are you a doctor?”
RECEPTION: “No.” (hopeful) “Would you like to speak to your doctor?”
ESSIE: “My lawyer will speak to him thank you very much. Can I speak to your HR manager, please?”
RECEPTION: “She’s on annual leave.”
ESSIE: “Is there some sort of HR religious holiday?”
RECEPTION: “Pardon?”
ESSIE: “I asked, is it HRistmas already? HRannukah, for our Jewish friends?”

And then she hung up on me.
Also, they had the worst porn-type music playing when they put you on hold. The whole thing was very disturbing. Bob Geldoff was talking out of his ass.

my boss and Bob Geldoff, looking pervy

Oh, but that reminds me – a few weeks ago I wrote a very businessy and important guest post about Marketing on Ashley’s site. Check it out, you might learn something. We can’t just sit around and drink all day.

Scraffito says you are ripe for the taking

2010-07-28T00:36:00.000-07:00

6 am. The Nagel household. Although we live on a pristine farm in the Winelands, I am not awakened by the gentle crowing of a rooster. (The rooster gets up at 10 am. It’s why I haven’t killed and eaten him yet. So basically, there is only the thin veil of my waning Judeo-Christian ethics keeping me from bludgeoning DW and feeding him to my faithful rooster, Scraffito.) No, instead, I’m hearing the tinny sound of a Jamaican steel drum band emanating from D-W’s blackberry.

ESSIE: “Turn that fucking cell phone alarm OFF!! ITS 6 AM, YOU KNOW YOU AREN’T GOING TO GET UP!”

DW: “I’m getting up!”

DW (falls promptly asleep)

6.15 am. Jamaican steel drum band starts up. And at 6.30 am. And 7. 7.30. And then at 8. DW once again proves immune to sound of irie jammin’. At this point I start having disturbing R.E.M sex dreams involving the Beach Boys and surfboard wax.

ESSIE: “TURN IT OFF!”

DW: “You’re just not a morning person!”

ESSIE: “Bullshit! Look how cheery I look!”

DW: “God, that’s creepy.”

ESSIE: “It’s not creepy. It’s cheery.”

DW: “I’m going to take a picture.”

ESSIE: “Like hell you will.”

I'm so hardcore

2010-07-27T04:40:00.000-07:00

Well, once again I've out-hardcored myself. I got injured falling off a mechanical bull. A broken mechanical bull. Mattie, who is more hardcore than I am, warned me that it would break. As usual, I'm not particularly good at listening to him.

But on the other hand, this was a positive learning experience.

1. Don't ride a mechanical bull. It's not easy. Or glamorous. Or fun. But it is addictive. The mechanical bull is the cocaine of the mechanized animal kingdom.
2. Don't wear a pimp hat to a cowboy party. People will want to wear it. And also make hooker jokes. Ok, that was just me. I don't have people skills.
3. Vodka jelly shots have less jelly in than vodka. Don't let the gooey candy exterior fool you.
4. I look good in flannel.
5. Like a cat, I land on my feet. Even when pumped full of vodka jelly shots.

Don't trust doctors or tractors. Anything in the "tors" family, really.

2010-07-22T05:59:00.000-07:00

Well I’m at work but I’m sick as a dog. I’m cranky because I didn’t get asleep all night. I amused myself by kicking DW and waking him up at random intervals. He amused both himself and the cat by shining a light in my eyes at 6 am as I finally drifted off “to check if I had made it through the night”. I bet people are really jealous of our relationship.

I couldn’t take the day off because you need a sick certificate from a doctor to take the day off. And I don’t like my doctor. For some reason, she’s convinced that I either am or am trying to get pregnant. I could literally walk into her office with blood gushing from the stump that used to be my arm screaming that I got mangled by a tractor and she would still nod knowingly and say, “I bet I know what you’re here for. You’re pregnant.” (Yes, your arm can get mangled by a tractor. Also, by chimpanzees. That’s not part of the thread, it’s just a safety tip.)

I wouldn’t mind so much but she likes to withhold medicine from me “just in case” I really am pregnant. And then she asks if I would like to do a test. Which is fine, but the way she’s looking at me makes me feel like she has hopes of not only getting a positive result but also of cutting the aforementioned baby out of my stomach and raising it as her own. I’ve mentioned it to Dr L but she told me I need to be less paranoid. (Last week I worked late for a full hour because I didn’t want to leave the office because I was convinced there was a rapist in the parking garage. It was just a bag of trash, but still. Better safe than sorry.)

I’ve bluntly told her that 95% of the time I don’t know where my husband is and when he’s not out there doing whatever the hell it is that he does, he’s certainly not over here doing...well, me. I don’t think she believed me. What a weirdo. I bet she has a closet full of pee sticks at home.

Missing!

2010-07-21T04:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I got up this morning and noticed that my washing line had gotten stolen. They left some of my techni-colored crocodile pegs, a dust rag and a G-string. I’m not sure exactly when the damn thing went missing. I’m not the best housekeeper. I try to buy things that don’t wrinkle and only work for really unprofessional companies that don’t care if I come to work looking like a hobo. (Or drinking like one, for that matter).

I took photos of the crime scene, but I have a theory that my landlord stole it in retaliation because I stole his potted plant. And...erm...a fence. It was more like half a fence, really. My friend Delora’s husband wanted to make patio furniture out of it and I really wanted to see what patio furniture made out of a fence would look like so I helped it disassemble and steal it.

Really, I’m more offended that he didn’t steal my underwear. Anyhoo, if you see it, please bring it to my house.

Where we spent our rent money this month

2010-07-20T08:42:00.000-07:00

I went to Maze Restaurant with my brother Oey and DW for my birthday. Maze is in a five star restaurant in the Cape Town Waterfront and really, really overpriced but it's owned by my celebrity crush, Gordon Ramsay. (He wasn't there. I looked.)

Me and Oey (I'm not really disproportionately bigger than he is. It's just the camera angle.)

We couldn't afford anything on the menu. The waiter kept telling us about this steak that costs 100 US dollars per 200g. Apparently they massage the cows and play them music so the meat gets really tender. I kept feeling sorry for the poor cows masseuses. I'm sure they get all attached to them and then they have to kill them with a hammer. (Of course, if I was a cow, I think I might be more nervous if some redneck farm hand starts massaging me. I'm not sure.) We decided to be responsible and order only one glass of wine and a main meal each. But somehow we kept ordering side dishes, bread, starters, dessert and overpriced quail on a stick. I think they release expensive spending pheromones from the air conditioner that makes you fork out more than you want to.

Highlights included when we were having a heated debate over the politically correct term to use for "mermen/merfolk" and the smarmy maitre'd leaned over and said, "I believe the correct term is "ocean people", madame."

I made a note on his comment card that i was very impressed with his knowledge of mythological creatures and the correct terms to use for them. (I also mentioned that I would visit the restaurant again in the event of a zombie apocalypse, as they were clearly equipped to handle it.)

DW: "I love this restaurant...it has such...cadence."

ESSIE: "Is that a real word?"

DW: "Yes...but I'm not entirely sure what it means."

ESSIE: "Then this may very well be cadence."

OEY (raising glasses): "TO CADENCE!!!"

Essie's Tips for visiting a 5-star restaurant: Wear a surgical mask to protect yourself against the spending pheromones. And don't order the consomme. It's really expensive but it's just an egg floating in some thin beef stock.

If you are the Loch Ess, you may be a redneck

2010-07-20T03:35:00.000-07:00

My therapist got into my blog SOMEHOW and she’s all concerned because I made a comment about her expensive shoes so we did an exercise to figure out where my “societal inferiority complex” comes from. We managed to trace this back to a conversation I had with my mother when I was five:

LIL ESSIE: “Mom, are we rednecks?”

MOM: “Your father is. I’m a poor white.”

It seemed like a good explanation. My mother used to say that rednecks had more fun that wealthy people and I carried it with me. Because of her, I also still go to the bathroom before I leave the house and lock my car doors when I drive because if you don’t a hobo will open the door and grab you when you stop at a traffic light. Really, it’s a miracle I don’t have more paranoid delusions than the ones I already have.

DR L: “But you have succeeded. You are a career woman.”
ESSIE: “I’m not a career woman.”
DR L: “You are a marketing manager.”
ESSIE: “Not a very good one...I mean, I blog at work and am half-drunk all the time.”

So, she suggested that I start looking for something that “challenges” me a bit more. Here is my skill set:

• Slightly used Degree in Marketing Management
• Can operate a frozen yoghurt machine
• Able to describe what an endoscopist, colposcopist and variety of other complicated medical professionals do
• Can explain the exegesis of a given Bible verse
• Can organize wine and cheeses
• Knows what the secret in the secret sauce is at Spur Steakhouses (it’s just mayo that we leave in the sun)
• Has the telephone number of Heinz Winckler on cell phone

If you guys hear of anything, please recommend me.

How (not) to drive

2010-07-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

I was in a minor car accident. It turns out my usual tactic of swinging wildly into traffic making my Wallace-face while screaming "Sorry, sorry!" doesn't always work.

For those of you who aren't familiar with my Wallace-face, this is what it looks like:

For those of you who don't know who Wallace from Wallace & Gromit is, this is him:

Anyhow, I'm disappointed. The value of my car already went down because the bumper fell off last year. I keep it tied to the car with cable ties so I don't lose it. I'm hoping to sell her soon. I took a picture of her to post on the Internet.

Notice how I cleverly fill potentional buyers with a sense of majesty and awe by including a majestic rainbow in the shot. And my dad said a degree in Marketing was "useless" in the real world. HA!

More Conversations with DW

2010-07-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

DW: "Could you do me a favor?"

ESSIE: "No."

DW: "Why not?"

ESSIE: "Because you never want to do me any favors."

DW: "Yes, I do!"

ESSIE: "No...you don't. You never want to. You wouldn't piss on me if my hair was on fire."

DW: "I would! I would totally piss on you!"

DW (takes a second to consider what he just said.)

DW: "That must be the weirdest compliment you've ever gotten."

ESSIE: "Not even close."

I won something!

2010-07-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

My self-proclaimed creepiest follower Shinxy gave me this award to add to her constant self-esteem raising homoerotic comments about me, which I love. She’s a cool Australian chick who’s into S&M and therapy, so I know you’ll all love her various blogs. Also, if I don’t accept one of her awards soon, she may rape and kill me. She’s very exciting like that.

Here's why I love her:

And here is my award:

This is the best award I've ever gotten. Also the only award I've ever gotten. Which is somewhat pathetic because I went to one of those progressive schools that gave out awards for "neatness" and "penmanship" and "greatest effort".

Also I noted that a full 80 people are now reading this blog. Introduce yourselves below, it's nothing to be ashamed off. A full 79 other idiots also think I'm funny.

Pour me over tuna, I've melted

2010-07-14T00:32:00.000-07:00

In general, I like to blog because of my low self-esteem. When people follow me I feel like I’m liked. Last week, Blogger had technical difficulties, and no one’s comments showed on my site. I kept going back compulsively to check and then I started uploading posts like crazy. The gist of my internal dialogue was: “See, I’m funny? You don’t like that? That’s Ok...how about this...? No? No comment love? Um...Ok...just give me a second...we can laugh again, I swear! Don’t leave meeee....”

Also I realized with shock and horror than DW is getting more friends than I have on Facebook. I can’t allow that because he is the only person in my life that I feel superior to. But that’s OK, I’ve just added a whole bunch of people from the Horny Asian College Boys group. That should put up my stats a little.

Game set and match, DW! Or whatever. Actually I don’t know any sports terms...where is that from, tennis? When did I see tennis? My God, I was drunk last night. Who gets drunk and watches tennis? I’m so pathetic.

I'm actually OK with all of you knowing that I pee

2010-07-13T00:29:00.000-07:00

I was at my shrink’s office and I really needed to pee and she told me I could use the one in her office and I didn’t want to because peeing where other people can hear me gives me performance anxiety. It’s really bad. My bladder seizes up and no matter how badly I have to go, I can’t. And then I always end up NOT going because I’m scared people will think I’m pooping. No one must ever know that I poop.

I explained this to her and she was all like, “Why do you think you don’t want people to know you have normal bodily functions?” and “How long have you had this fear?”

I tried to explain that it’s not about fear, it’s a bladder seizure, and that I couldn’t possibly be held responsible for my bladder’s hang-ups. Then I told her I was in fact so cool about people knowing that I pee that I’ll publish it on the Internet and then she went quiet and made notes and that "mmm" noise.

I would KILL to see my file.

Confession time...

2010-07-12T00:47:00.000-07:00

As most of you know I spent 6 years of my life in an extremist religious group. It's fun if you are a leader, but being a follower kinda' costs a lot of money and you have to go to church 4x a week and also be kind of a douche-nozzle to innocent people whom you think are going to hell. You also can't wear short skirts or see PG movies or smoke or drink or swear or date. It may seem like a great way to spend your early twenties, but it's not. Any way, one of the practices I really miss is confession. We had to confess all the gory details of our sins every week. It was kinda' cleansing and I enjoyed shocking people with my flagrant impurity.

Of course, my conscience has since died but here are my top seven deadly sins for the week:

1. Remember my friend who is really shy about sex even though she’s having it a lot? She would kill me if I ever revealed her real name on here so I’m going to call her...Lebecca. We were all sitting around drinking wine after work and she finally opened up and shared some of her (fairly straight-laced) fantasies and was like all red-faced and insecure and asked in a whisper, “Are my fantasies...normal?” and everyone was kinda quiet so I went, “GOD, no.”
2. Reading the Twilight books.
3. Owning a vuvuzela
4. My (vast) Japanese subculture porn collection. And the fact that people I hardly know keep sending me more links to Japanese subcultural porn sites with the words “This made me think of you” in the Subject line.
5. Once while on the phone to Telkom (our phone company) I got desperate for service I offered to send naked pictures of myself to the technician if he could fix the Internet problem.
6. That he didn’t take me up the offer.
7. Accusing DW of “stealing” various of my possessions, finding them in the bottom of my closet, moving them to his closet and then miraculously “discovering the evidence” when he comes home.

Ok, now your turns. Raptor Jesus will forgive us all. Or eat us during the Raptor Rapture. I'm not sure. I'm still writing our Bible.

Disturbing places to put Robert Pattinson's Face

2010-07-11T00:48:00.000-07:00

We all know this Twilight-thing has gotten out of hand. Seriously, we should have put a stop to it, but Stephanie Meyer's Mormon powers overwhelmed us and let's face it: we were all distracted by Paul the Psychic Octopus and other important world news.

Here are the most disturbing Twilight spin-offs to date. I may have missed a few, so feel free to add them:

Edward Cullen is a Girl's Panty

Ladies, men find nothing more attractive than stripping you naked and staring into the face of that pasty kid from Twilight pasted onto a pair of granny panties. At the very least, they could have chosen a less disturbing picture...maybe one where Edward is winking in encouragement. Like, "Yeah, we know she's thinking of me, buddy...use it!"

The Repackaged Wuthering Heights

Anyone else ever get the idea that Edward is a raging homosexual? What kinda guy likes Wuthering Heights?

If however, it's true that Stephanie Meyer based Twilight "loosely" on Wuthering Heights, I'd definitely buy the next Twilight book. Cathy fucks a bunch of rich people and Heathcliff kills puppies. It can only improve the "plot".

Tattoos You will live to regret

Matt always says you should never tattoo a girlfriend's/band's name on any part of you. I'm not sure what he'd make of this.

The Edward Cullen Dildo

I'm usually supportive of people's self-loving equipment...but the Vamp just blew me away. This dildo not only sparkles but can be placed in the fridge so that you can have the full "sex with a corpse" experience "remininiscent of the New Moon's glow". By the lovely folks at Tantusinc.com - God bless their twisted little libidos!

Oh, yeah...now I remember why I loved high school...wait, did I say love? I meant loathed.

2010-07-09T23:31:00.000-07:00

My therapist Dr L, told me I need to get rid of my inappropriate sexual fascination with Edward Cullen and get out there and socialize (Team Get-a-Life, whoohoo!) so I accepted the invitation of an old school friend of mine and attended a reunion barbecue.

I should explain that I have known this friend since we were 7 years old. He was the single most boring child I’ve ever known – kinda a combination between Spock from Star Trek and the pukey kid that used to be on The Simpsons. My earliest memory of him was the time he stood in front of me in the playground and asked me if I could recite the alphabet yet, and I said no, and he said in a completely deadpan, disdainful voice, “My 2-yr old sister can already recite the alphabet backwards. I shall demonstrate. Z, Y, X, W, V....” (At this point I’ll stop quoting him, because I still can’t do that.)

My first clue that the party was going to suck was the fact that he gave really, really thorough directions. That’s a dead giveaway. If someone gives you directions to their house with two or more alternative routes and/or attaches a map, the party WILL SUCK. I don’t know why. It’s how SCIENCE works. I barely know where I live and my parties always rock if people can find them.

The second clue was the fact that my offer to bring a keg was politely but firmly declined with an email reading: “Although some of our guests may indeed appreciate alcohol, I myself do not. Feel free to bring your own drinks, if you feel it is absolutely necessary.” (For those of you who don’t speak WASP, that means they think you are a redneck alcoholic. You are allowed enough booze to steady your hands but not so much that you lose your shirt and vomit in the azaleas. Like last time when you didn’t eat enough and actually had a cold coming so you took a Xanax you found in the back of the cupboard so it wasn’t even really your fault and when Lindsay Lohan does it everyone thinks it’s cool so I blame society for the whole incident, anyway. You know what? Fuck you guys.)

I followed my suspiciously good directions to what must be the cleanest house and yard you’ve ever seen and was greeted by my friend and his wife, who is a professor of literature at a local university. The “men” (four Babylon 5 geeks and the captain of the high school debating team) were standing around the fire drinking...sodas...and I was herded into the kitchen to “help make the salad” (not a euphemism for lesbian experimentation in this case, unfortunately! I won’t make that mistake again!) where the womenfolk were discussing (of all things) the Twilight-saga. I tried to keep out of it, but then the Literature Professor turned to me and said, “Do you know they are now repackaging Wuthering Heights with stickers that say, THIS IS EDWARD AND BELLA’S FAVOURITE BOOK? Isn’t it...dreadful?”Of course, I had to blurt out, “Yeah, I know. Edward didn’t even LIKE that book” and the room went quiet.

Needless to say I was the only person with a steak to barbecue, so it took forever and the five hungry Stepford Wives glared at me with hatred in their eyes all night like they couldn’t wait to rip off my little head and stuff it with that microchip that makes you bake muffins all day (not a lesbian thing, either. The porn movies have it so wrong sometimes). I started drinking more and more of my unwelcome beer on an empty stomach and over-sharing about that time I went on a Japanese sex house tour and lost my keys down the bondage grate. They really should put bigger warning signs over those things. A child could fall in. Well, maybe not a child. Children aren’t allowed in. But surely your average S&M sex midget is at risk? I'm only thinking of the sex midgets, here, not of myself.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the next morning when I went to work there was an email from the school friend...with a detailed memorandum of the night’s events. (Told you he took himself a tad seriously.) It included a list of detailing the lives of the guests in attendance and what they had accomplished since high school. Peter – who was now a chemistry major at university...John – a geneticist...Susan – an accomplished journalist. And wayyyy at the bottom was my name .

“We were delighted to receive Estelle Nagel, once a treasured member of our high school drama troupe. Estelle is still in Cape Town and she once ran into Clint Eastwood at the airport!”
AHHHH SUCCESS!!!!!

How to see me naked

2010-07-09T02:04:00.000-07:00

My friend Matt is mildly peeved at Dee for thinking he looks like Fred Flintstone in my artwork so I’ve come up with a comparative photo montage. He hasn’t commented on it yet because he’s stuck indoors during hurricane season and was too busy calling the bank manager a “goddamned stinknugget”. (That’s part of an elaborate vocabulary that includes “knucklefucker/Smurf fucker” and “giant oozing pulsating regurgitated afterbirth of a lesbian clusterfuck”. You can’t buy charm like that.) Incidentally Matt is also the one person who told me I don’t need therapy because I’m the sanest person he knows. I was pleased for a full five minutes and then I remembered that Matt knows a lot of trannies and strippers and genuinely crazy people who sometimes email me pictures of their cats in different outfits. The victory is small. But I’ll take it.

MATT: “What’s this thing on the blog about me marrying you?”
ESSIE: “It is because I’m irresistible. You are longing for some sweet, sweet Essie.”
MATT: “You’ve been reading bad literotica again.”
ESSIE: “Not...bad literotica.”

But here are the photies of Matt and Fred and PaintMatt. (As you can plainly see his cat hates me for no reason.)
Dee says you all should vote and agree with her and if the vote goes her way she’ll put the naked pictures she has of me on the Internet.

Stupid woman. The naked pictures of me are already ON the Internet. So I won that round. Or lost it. Depends on how you look at it.

I think I've discovered our productivity problem

2010-07-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know - when I'm not being aweseome all over the Internet, I work as a Junior Consultant at a UK medical headhunting firm (some childhood dreams DO come true!!!)

Well, it's a sweltering day at the office and I hurt my neck when I fell off the rickety wheeled joke I have to sit on at my work station. I really wish our boss would pay for air conditioning or at least a decent swivel chair or business cards or a pension scheme, but she doesn't think we need all that "James Bond shit". I don't mind really, it's the only office I've worked in where I'm allowed to lug my laptop around in the Nightmare before Christmas-satchel my brother got me for Christmas and blog all day.

Anyhoo, we haven't made our targets in a while and the investors would like to know why. Instead of typing a whole long report I'm going to submit this photo of my manager. Note the motivational book "The Rules of Work" being used as a coaster to her right.

I love Champagne Wednesday.

Zombie Mad-libs

2010-07-08T00:56:00.000-07:00

As an avid fan of zombie movies, I’d like to invite you all to play a game of Zombie movie Mad libs with me. It is a scientific fact that is how zombie movies scripts are written. The best Mad-libbed zombie movie script will be produced and directed by myself and Steven Spielberg. Well, maybe just by me. And you'll have to front the money. And borrow a video camera somewhere. And also I dont know how to edit it. Really, it'll be more like a play I'll put up in the garage.

The scientists combine ( noun ) with ( noun ) that leads to the creation of a super-virus that infects humanity and makes them crazy. Zombies start devouring people and the remaining ( number ) survivors take shelter in an abandoned ( place ) where they run into more ( adjective )( noun ). The survivors soon start bickering over who gets to be the leader of ( noun ). The rebellious group devises a plan to escape to ( destination ) where a ( adjective ) ( noun ) told them there are no zombies.
During the escape, a ( noun ) gets bitten and does not tell the other survivors. Just as everything seems to be going smoothly, the bitten ( noun ) goes apeshit and starts attacking everyone. At this point, the screen goes ( adjective ).

This was the results of mine:

The scientists combine hamsters with meatloaf that leads to the creation of a super-virus that infects humanity and makes them crazy. Zombies start devouring people and the remaining four survivors take shelter in an abandoned Starbucks where they run into more annoying waitresses. The survivors soon start bickering over who gets to be the leader of Gone-to-shit-ville. The rebellious group devises a plan to escape to Kokomo where a squeaky radio told them there are no zombies.
During the escape, a stripper gets bitten and does not tell the other survivors. Just as everything seems to be going smoothly, the bitten stripper goes apeshit and starts attacking everyone. At this point, the screen goes black .

Fuck yeah, Low Self-Esteem

2010-07-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

Well, usually when I wake up with a pimple on my face I do pretty much everything short of setting fire to it to get rid of it but then my mom called and told me that she once had a patient who did that and then his face rotted off. (This was a very clever tactic my mother employed all through my childhood whenever we did something she disapproved of. Apparently during her brief stint as an occupational therapist, the wards were entirely filled with people missing limbs because of tattoos, piercings and masturbation.)

Anyway, I was feeling fairly confident - I just dabbed the offending thing with some of DW's theatre makeup and headed out the door. (DW is appearing in the straight-to-DVD film, The Lost Boys III. He started off as an extra, then got promoted to vampire, then to featured extra vampire. The trailer is on Youtube. You can see DW's arm in it, which is unfortunate because now he is under the impression that he has succeeded in life.)

I decided to not obsess about it. I decided that I was beautiful no matter my small imperfections. I put on my makeup and those boots all the little children died making and decided to go seize the day. I almost got away with, too, until DW shouted, "OMG YOU HAVE A HUGE PIMPLE ON YOUR FOREHEAD!" at me.

Goodbye, Self-Esteem!

So I decided to use my new-found angst to become an Emo. All the kids are doing it these days. At first I thought it was something like being an Eskimo but it's all being a douche and putting your hair in your eyes. Here's a pic of me glowering and being all discontent and mad at my dad for some reason. I'm so hardcore.

If you don't like the look, go kill yourself. It's what I would do.

Guest blog awesomeness & Technical Glitches

2010-07-07T04:52:00.000-07:00

It turns out the reason all of your comments didn’t show on this blog was due to a technical fault and NOT because you all don’t love me. I’ll stop hating you all now and direct all of my wrath towards the technical department at Blogger. DON’T DRINK THE KOOL-AID.

In a related note, Whitney The Graphic Design Goddess came up with this brilliant new header for the site. Worship her. I'll be posting up more info about her and also changing the background as soon as I figure how to do it. And when I say "I" I mean Matthew.

I was also featured on another awesome blog called Stir Fried Dinosaur because literally everything I say is awesome.

Life Lessons I've Learnt at the Bar

2010-07-06T07:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, I showed this post to my friend Dee and her immediate reaction was "What kind of bars do you go to?"

The only kind worth going to, Dee. The only kind worth going to.

1. If you are at the bar talking to your friends about your abandonment issues you have with your father, and some guy overhears and shouts “Dibs!” – DON’T GO THERE

2. It is impossible for a ceiling fan to support the weight of a 27-yr old woman in a catwoman suit and here’s how I know....Oh never mind, just google my sex tape.

3. Never ever get drunk in a cold room when it’s warm outside. Trust me.

4. The only reason men over forty live with their mothers is to a) avoid doing housework and b) so that when she dies they can skin her corpse and parade around in it while listening to vinyl music in the soft lamplight. You decide if it’s worth the risk.

5. The second best oral sex tip I ever got was that you can deep throat someone really easily by lying with your head dangling off the edge of the bed. The BEST tip I ever got was to withhold it until you decide what pair of shoes you want.

6. If a man says he’s been “on TV”, always be sure to ask him what show he has appeared on. If it’s ever been broadcast on the Crime channel, I’d pass.

7. They stopped making good music in the late 70s.

8. You cannot grind up a human body using the garbage disposal. I’ve learned my lesson on this one.

9. Do you like movies? Go to the cinema. You might get a treat.

10. Do not wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.

You're welcome.