2007 my digital heaven...

OK OK I know. I haven't posted an entry for a while. Nothing worse than revisiting a blog just to find the same old story up there from 2 weeks ago. Truth be told I'm still in love and enjoying getting to know everything about the new woman in my life but on top of that it's coming up for our fiscal year end at work and the amount of new projects I've had to give input on, reports I've had to write and numbers I've had to crunch have not been very condusive to my writing some exciting new blog entry.

I work in the media, more specifically I work in online media. Having just come back to this country I can't begin to tell you how excited I am for the major developments that have taken place in the online market while I have been cutting my teeth over in London for the last 5 years. The south african blogosphere here is now a major force to be reckoned with, there are so many new ventures and interesting local websites, brilliant entrepreneurs with bright and bold ideas, social networking has become a way of life rather than just another innocuous pursuit and there is a real enthusiasm amongst all the people I know in the industry. It's like we're all at the forefront of something great, something that we can't quite control, something that leading us on a journey who's destination we can't quite fathom yet but who's path excites and inspires at every turn. Collectively as a growing culture that lives and breathes through the internet we feel a sense of real excitement every day as new developments happen, as new blog entries are written, as new ideas are generated and become realities. We have so much at our fingertips in this day and age, so many opportunities afforded us, so much to learn from each other and I for one am very excited.

It's great to be young an passionate in the digital age.

I'M IN LOVE!

I haven't updated this blog since february 23rd. There's usually 3 reasons why bloggers won't update their blogs, they have too much work to do (not likely as we wouldn't be bloggers otherwise), they have been on holiday without access to the internet (also, very unlikely. Most bloggers will hike 42 kms to the nearest dorpie just to dial up on a 56k modem and wait 3 hours for their blog to download to write a post) OR they've fallen in love, are getting copious amounts of action and are way too distracted to be even remotely interested in writing about anything other than how much they're getting and how good the sex has been and let's be honest that can become a little boring for everyone else after a while.

I'm glad to report however that the latter has happened to me in the last 3 weeks and ironically began on the last day I posted an entry on this blog. It has nothing to do with the girl in my office but rather a friend of a friend I met on a weekend away. Now far be it from me to get all sentimental on your ass but ever since I was a wee teenager hyped up on hormones and romanticing love in all it's big hearts, red roses, and french kissing glory I used to truly believe that everyone on the planet had one other person out there for them and that if you managed to ever find that person you were not only incredibly lucky but would be incredibly fulfilled for the rest of your life.

As we grow up, we all know that these romantic views are horribly skewed by some of the awful experiences we have in love, by the breakups, the heartbreak, the infidelities, the bad sex and poor decisions we make. That we become so much more cynical about this thing called love and start to wonder if we'll ever meet that one individual we so strongly believed we'd fall for when love was all about writing letters in colourful pens to each other, stealing kisses in the dark and slow dancing to songs from the Bangles, Alphaville and Glen Medieros (I was child of the 80's, sorry...)

Anyway, my point is that I have never lost hope in that dream that one day I would meet my soul mate, that without even having to speak to each other we would know we were going to be together and 3 weeks ago it happened. I went away on this weekend, I knew as I arrived and saw her for the first time I was in the grip of something bigger than me. An external force manipulating me like a love-struck puppet and after an evening of stolen glances, coy smiles and eventually blatant staring into each others eyes, we kissed and I felt my soul's recognition of it's counterpoint in another (if you've watched Wedding Crashers, you'll know what I mean).

I know this might all sound incredibly cheesy and believe me I am the one of the most cynical people when it comes to big red love (I've been known to rassssp at the top of my voice at incredibly cheesy moments in films - whilst in the cinema and put my finger down my throat at any talk of things like valentine's day, one month anniversaries, stuffed animals and terms of endearment like pookie, pudding or petal)
Love I'm afraid has become just another rationalised emotion that only ever happens to me briefly like frustration or anger or hate - as in I love coca-cola in glass bottles or johannesburg thunderstorms or I'm frustrated by bad drivers or I hate any manifestation of confidence that is class derived. You get my drift.

But being IN LOVE - god i've forgotten how good that can feel. In fact I don't know if I've ever felt it or at least not like this. I'll stop harping on about it now. I just want to say that one of the things I love about blogging is the anonymity it provides you to say things like this. I want to shout it from the rooftops, write messages on billboards and light it up in the stars. I want to tell everyone I know in every way possible that I've finally found her. I wanna to do all those cheesy things cos I'm truly THAT happy but for now I'll settle for sending it out into the blogosphere for a world full of strangers to read...

There's this girl who works in my ofice that I really fancy. Unfortunately every time I've had even the slightest opportunity to be my charming self I've been so drunk, she just stands there smiling haughtily as I bumble my way through some diatribe on how attractive I find her, enquiring desperately if she feels the same way bla bla bla. I have to be honest I'm intimidated by her and I think I drink in order to have that drunken courage to say what I feel. It really does beg the question though, why do we find it so necessary sometimes to drink our way to that false confidence that helps us lose our inhibitions and say what we mean when the truth of the matter is that we all become so much less charming the more drinks we've had. It's like a very poorly worked out equation. Drinks + attraction = less inhibition x less charisma = faliure to convert.

One of these days I'll have the confidence to approach her sober and tell her how I feel. Until then I watch her across the office wondering what she looks like naked...

Sonic the Oral Hedgehog...

I went to the dentist this morning. For the first time in years it was actually good news...no fillings required. I put this down to one thing and one thing alone. About 8 months ago I bought myself a phillips sonicare toothbrush. I call it the hedgehog. It's like an electric toothbrush except it uses sonic waves to break down all that plaque and other nasty stuff that accumulates on the gnashers after a couple of meals. My mouth has never felt so clean and clearly it's paid dividends. I hate going to the dentist (as I'm sure most people do) but today I left there with a smile on my face knowing that I'd made a sound investment in a quality product that works.

If you wanna know if she loves you so it's in her kiss...

So the date happened. I met her at Mama Themba's in Greenside. She was more attractive than I remembered although no stunner. We drank a lot and smoked way too many cigarettes and the conversation soon became quite flirtatious and flowed towards the possiblity of a kiss at the end of the night.

We ended up staying almost till closing time with our waiter clearing tables and chairs away around us. We were both quite drunk by the end so I leaned across the table and kissed her. Eish! talk about a sobering moment.

I've always been a big believer that you can tell everything about a woman by the way she kisses you. Obviously these are generalisations but:

Too much tongue - way too keen and probably very inexperienced in the bedroom.
Too little tongue or mouth pursed closed into a kind of bottle-capped sphincter - well she'll probably fold her clothes before she sleeps with you and then want you to do all the work while she just lies there.
Hands on the back of your head - you're in for a wild ride
Eyes open - can be a turn on unless she keeps them open all the time in which case she probably can't really relax completely during sex and has some issues with her body.

AND THEN...my absolute worst....

The Helicopter Probe - this is what happened during my date. The kiss started out ok. A bit of gentle petting followed by some seductive open-mouth kissing but then horror of all horrors she pushed her tongue in my mouth and started to rotate it around my mouth like a weed-whacker on full tilt. It felt like someone had thrown a miniature bouncing ball into my mouth and it was rebounding off of every available surface at lightning speed. I tried in vane to slow her down but it was clearly going to take me having to tell her to do so in order for her to calm down. I told her I'd be in touch and we parted ways.

I haven't called her since but I would implore all women out there - please work on your kissing (practice with each other if you have to). A kiss should be unpredictable, sensuous, it should connect you deeply with a person and take you to a place where you can find out about each others desires and passion, it should fulfill you in a single moment, make your heart race and your loins stir. When it ends you should feel like you've taken a beautiful journey together that's left you breathless and wanting for more.

I've kissed many women in my life but only with a few have I really taken that journey. I guess that's the appeal of it all and the reason we seek that one kiss that makes us want to spend so much more time with a person. I firmly believe a beautiful KISS with a person you're attracted to is the foundation for a strong, unyielding and long-lasting relationship.

Making the first move...

I went out over the weekend to a few different braais around joburg at a number of different friend's places. At one such braai I spent some time chatting to some girl I didn't know for all of about 5 minutes. You know the usual, have we scored before (my opener), you look familiar, why are your pupils so large? Random chit chat.

Anyway, I didn't stay at the braai long, I had other people to see so I left and continued on my Joburg rounds. Last night I get this call. I don't recognise the number. I'm having my kitchen redone at the moment so thought it might be the builders calling to tell me when they're arriving in the morning. No such luck. It's this girl. She's got my number through a 'friend' and is phoning to ask me out. Now I'm a man and I should be flattered I hear you say but 2 things are going through my mind while she's nervously trying to get to the point. Firstly, why do people (my friends) find it acceptable to give my number to this stranger just because I'm single and then not at least warn me about it. I mean if I had actually wanted to ask her out I would have taken her number myself but anyway, at least tell me you've sold my number to the highest bidder. Secondly, what does this girl look like. I met a few women that night through random introductions. Who is this girl? Was she cute?

Anyway, I had no pre-planned excuse so I accepted her invitation. To be honest I admire her 'balls' for phoning me up and let's hope she's attractive enough (I don't recall talking to any fatties)

Unfortunately, and this is the point of this blog entry, I don't hold much faith in the latter. No matter what people choose to believe, whenever a woman asks you out she has A. given away the upper hand B. probably a little needy and C. probably not that good looking. But then I have a tendency to be a little shallow at times. Something I'm addressing by agreeing to this date so let's see how it all pans out....

London to Jozi...

I spent 5 years in London. It is truely one of the maddest baddest places I have ever had the good fortune to experience. I am of course happy to be back in my native land of south africa but there isn't a day that goes by where I don't think about the big smoke. I know there are so many south africans who've done the same thing, left the country, gone to london, either loved it or really hated it and then either decided to stay or return home. I have thought long and hard about it and neither place is really any better or any worse, just completely different. These are the top 5 things that I love about London and the top 5 things I love about being home:

London

1. Anonymity - the joy of being able to be anyone you want every day of your life. Nobody knows your history (nobody really cares). You can go days, weeks even months never bumping into anyone you know in London if you wanted to.

2. The music scene - from ipods on tubes to live gigs of the greatest bands on the planet, from music festivals to 3-storey virgin megastores, music in the UK rocks!

3. The bookshops - you can get any book imaginable everyday in so many different locations and you can have it immediately without having to wait like 2 weeks for it to be ordered and delivered.

4. The advertising - so much advertising, so much of it very clever and very humourous, and it changes on a daily basis so it never really gets old. Very stimulating.

5. The women - with over 7.5 million people in one city, the amount of women from all over the world converging in one place is just beautiful. Russian girls, french girls, italian girls, swedish girls, spanish girls, brazillian girls, and on and on. Everyday you see at least 30 absolute 'oh my god, have my children' belters.

Top 5 things I love about South Africa:

1. Exercise/Activity - I did hardly any exercise in London (apart from walking about 5 kms a day through the underground and around London) Here I play cricket, football, squash and tennis, something different every weekend. Great to compete in team sports, great to get the endorphins flowing.

2. Going to the bush - there is nothing quite as magical as sunsets in the african bush. Being one with nature, hanging with your mates, talking shit over a few lagers and feeling truely south african

3. Watching sport and braaing - even though the english are as obsessed about sport (especially football) nothing beats a warm summer's day, rugby or cricket on the TV, a whole bunch of friends and a braai to keep things social.

4. Cape Town - is there a more beautiful city than that one?

5. Eating out - Joburg has some of the best restaurants. The portions are always generous, the wine is always top drawer and really when it comes down to it they are all very affordable.

Two very different places but as South Africans I reckon we should take comfort from the fact that being in London has so many advantages and being home really makes you feel like you're part of something great. I loved my time in London and I now smile everyday I wake up to the sun shining.