nature's valley (of oh shit not again)

so. leaving today for nature's valley with mr hardman and co. he's got some crazy fuckoff 4x4 truck thing that i'm sure it's going to be a lot less comfy to drive in than betty.

but he's stoked. as miss k says, 'die bull het 'n nog paar balle gekry' (the bull got another pair of balls).

speaking of bulls and balls, i bumped into HWSNBN at gym last night. well, i say bumped. i poked him in the arm as i tripped up the stairs trying to look non-plussed. as one does.

fortunately, he barely noticed.

i haven't told you much about him apart from the brief mention in that one column neh?

well.

HWSNBN is not exactly in my 'circle of influence'. He's not really in my circle of reality actually. Basically he is everything i am not about.

he drives a black bmw for crying out loud.

but he is the first man that actually made me feel weak at the knees. very, truly, literally. it was like being in a perpetual celin dion song when he was around. silly really. the man had such a physical reaction on me that i actually had to leave the room when he walked in. either that or i'd make a complete tit of myself. ya know... talk louder, laugh louder, trip over things, choke on my peach... real sexy.

anyway. totally over that of course.

totally.

Tavi

you know. sometimes, someone comes along who is just so awesome you want to shit.

they are filled to the brim with light and awesomeness and creativity and smartness and uniquability and personality and marketability and real and success that you just want to fall on your face with shame for being a lazy, conformist, grazing poopl.

usually these people are older than i am, and i console myself with the only thing i can:

they're almost dead anyway, so the fuck. they've had more time to accumulate awesomeness.

but then. i came across Tavi. Just the other day.

Tavi is 13 frikkin years old. She started blogging at the age of 11. ELEVEN. she blogs fashion - which i care little for - BUT she does it with such sass and voice. worse, she's unbelievably ... what's the word ... cultured. and clever.

Tavi at 11. ELEVEN.

here's what wiki says:

Tavi Gevinson is an American fashion blogger. She began her blog, “Style Rookie” on March 31, 2008 as a 11-year-old. Initially, her parents did not completely know what Tavi was doing until she asked for their permission to appear in an issue of New York Times magazine story. Since then, she has had as many as 50,000 readers.

While Gevinson describes herself as a “tiny 13 year old dork that sits inside all day wearing awkward jackets and pretty hats”,many look to her for style inspiration.In mid-2009, Gevinson partnered with the London-based Borders&Frontiers to design and sell her own t-shirt.

'tiny dork' indeed.

what life-time of experience does a pubescent have to be self-deprecating. YOU NEED REAL PAIN IN YOUR LIFE FOR THAT TAVI. REAL PAIN to be WRY about it eventually. this type of cool takes YEARS. YEARS. more than 20 at least.

goddammit.

when i started clicking through her blog, my mind raced and raced to explain this anomaly. was she a front? was it actually some much older, far less cute older sister/brother pulling the heart strings of fashionistas and japanese people the world over?

but no. there was nothing. it became clear she is actually that cool for really realz.

i was just about to melt into a puddle of self-loathing until a convo with jade made it clear what her secret is:

Me: SHE'S JEWISH!
Jade: yes, 'Tavi' gave that away. But good point. over achievers
Me: they have that whole 'promise people' thing going for them with that yaweh dood
Jade: yes!
Me: promised people
Jade: she is Yaweh's puppet!
Me: i didn't pick up on the Tavi thing. damn. i must learn more about this god
Jade: the middle letters of his name are 'awe' short for 'awesome'
Me: DAMMIT
Jade: as in, if you follow him you shall be AWEsome
Me: I'm converting i must be a jew
Jade: is it too late to be circumcosed? *cised
Me: you need to have a peen for that
i will convert after dinner tonight
Jade: yes cheese and bacon burger first
Me: tomorrow i will be famous
Jade: or, you know, something non kosher veggies can eat
Me: i'm vegetarian - i'm halfway to famousness already. many famous poopl are veggies
Jade: excatly
Me: halfway
Jade: gimme the damn map

Tavi is now 13.

She talks about the Breakfast Club and references Marianne Faithful, Bob Dylan, Blondie and mag layouts from the 90s (she knows who kim gordon is. wtf.) with all the aplomb of association you'd expect from a thirty-something-year-old (read: me). She talks about her 'childhood closet' as if it was more than a month ago that she left the heady days of Grade 6.

she uses words like 'epiphany' and 'narcissistic' in their proper contexts.

i want to dislike her exquisitely 100% personality. i want to resent her so wonderfully immersed creativity.

but i just can't. she's just too awesome for that. so. onward and clickety click, plums - check her out here:

all pics, barring anna W, from tavi's site

i blame my parents.

post secret pic of the week

postsecret

my mother always says 'you don't regret the things you do, you regret the things you don't do'. so troo. happy mm plums. i feel a good one in my belly. mostly because mr hardman and myself (and two of his mates from mud island) are going away for a wee minibreak to nature's valley on friday. it will be fun. we will play in the treetops.

him tarzan. me jane. awesome.

Dear Dot

Plums.

Occasionally i get mail from my three regular readers asking me all manner of questions.

I think they do this to make me feel important because most of them are my friends pretending to be strangers and they want me to feel special OR they do it to waste my time and annoy me.

Either way, i am grateful because it makes me feel less alone in the world.

So hence, i shall now answer questions here for all to read. who knows, you might have the same problem.

...............................................

Dearest Dot,
A moral quandary, raised during a discussion over cocktails:
What are your views on wearing lingerie given to you by a former boyfriend for a new boyfriend?
Curious

...............................................

Dear Curious
Much like other intimacies like chinese balls and nail-clipping, the origins of your lingerie is not something new partners need know about. Unless there's a stain. Or a rip. In which case you shouldn't be wearing it. (Also, patching is a no-no. even on VS. That is your only moral quandry.)
Much hugs,
Dot

Swing City

Would you sleep with your friend's ex? Sharing is caring in sex columnist Dorothy Black's world.

I heard a juicy little nib of gossip the other day. One of Cape Town’s darling restaurants, I was told, turns into a swingers club after 12 on some nights*. Being the investigative journalist that I am, I SMS’d Miss America for textual confirmation. If there was a swinger’s party happening in the city she'd know about it. And, hell, I ought to know about it, dammit. I got this back:

LOL. I’ll find out later. But really Dot, you NEED a swinger’s club? This is CT after all.

Read more...

so i've written about mr hardman before but had to really mull it over about actually bringing him into the columns. it's ok for me for people to slag me off, but i worry about people slagging him off (as they probably will with biscuits like anne s around).

anyway.

there you go plums. chat later.

crisis

beatie. i know i missed yesterday's blog post. forgive me. i was so trying to squeeze out a column.
i love you. ps i have a surprise for you soon...
kisses,
dot

lonely willy

most totally awesome HIV/Aids campaign. NSFW.

dear god

thank you that i survived yesterday.
yours in sobriety,
dot

wtf wednesday

yesterday sam said, 'let's meet for a quick and dirty at beluga's'

i said 'ok'

it all started innocently enough.

i got there and the sun was shining. i met the delightful brian porter, simon willo and candice turner.

it all seemed soooo, sooo OK. you know?

and then someone said, 'beluga makes a pretty fab cranberry long island ice tea.'

(we did say 'quick and dirty'. how much dirtier can you get?)

so i said 'ok'

there wasn't that much ice in mine

it didn't end good. let me just say i stopped counting at five. and there were shooters. i don't know how many.

i don't know how that happened. osama made me do it.

• so um, dear waitron, thanks for being so obliging. i hope the ample tip my friends gave you made up for it.
• fellow patrons, we generally are nice people. we just wanted you to join in the party when we insinuated ourselves on your convos.
• table that paid for our astronomical bill (long islands sure aint cheap) - i'm not entirely sure why you did, but it might've been to shut me up and get us to leave. (sam thanks you also and says i was awesome. so does jean. i'm going with that.) ((oh and that thing i said about your sex life, you know, like, how to stop being a shitty lay and pleasure your woman, ja...))
• dear beluga floor, i totally inspected you last night and you're good to go.
• dear taxi driver, i really am not as cunty about driving- oh wait, i am. sorry anyway.

oao plums.

post secret pic of the week

postsecret

wow. depressing. not sure what more to say about that really. was very little of the secrets i identified with really; so maybe it's telling that i chose this one.

i guess it reminds me of when i realised i could actually sleep with someone without loving them. that we didn't all succumb to the girly stereotype of emotional octopi just looking for a man to suck on to.

i suppose it surprised me that i could, in the words of Miss America, fuck like a man. in the stereotype, men can fuck wildly and without emotional involvement. all the time.

christ. the stupid relationships i wouldn't have had if i'd just realised that sooner.

anyway.

diesel porn ad

a little light friday humour.

blood and honey

Blood, guts and more, more, MORE!
When it comes to sex and menses, Dorothy Black thinks you should go with the flow...
I figure myself to be fairly open-minded when it comes to men. I like to think I’m quite accepting of their otherness and strange peculiarities. But there is one thing I judge them on without mercy – how they respond to menstrual blood. Read more...


I've been told that this week's column is a little aggro and judgmental. i'm ok with that.

menarchy: menstrual anarchy - includes “simple efforts to speak openly about periods, radical affronts to negative attitudes and campaigns for more environmentally friendly sanitary products” - Kira Cochrane. check out the full article from thefword, here and her article in the gaurdian here.

an interesting snippet:

It would be easy to lampoon those who are breaking the menstrual taboo, to accuse them not just of navel-gazing, but of setting their sights quite literally lower. Of all the feminist issues in the world, why this one? And might it not prove an invitation for men to talk about their bodily functions too? (Something surely to be avoided.)

But, as Kauder Nalebuff's book illustrates [My Little Red Book] , this is a subject long mired in shame and confusion – there are girls who know nothing about periods until their first one arrives, and assume it is a sign of impending death. Many grown women still feel embarrassed about buying tampons. When touring her film, Chesler [Giovanna Chesler - Period: The End of Menstruation] says that she met groups of women who had never heard the term "ovulation"; audiences would nonetheless have two-hour conversations about their experiences. And then there are the environmental issues, which are still far from being resolved.

so ja. blood. and the grossness or lovliness thereof. asked cm (and MANY others) if he slept with women when they're on and his response was one of my favourite: Of course. Anything else would be totally gay. If anyone finds menstruation disgusting, I suggest they stop going out with women.

troo.

yoni had some cool responses from people about sex and bleeding though some were just downright weird ass. do check it out.

post secret pic of the week and dead people

now look, beatrice, i said mondays, wednesdays and fridays; i didn't specify time.

anyway. my pspoftw.

postsecret

thing is, for the longest time i had this fear that every time i opened a cubicle door in a public restroom i would find a dead person on the floor in a pool of their own blood; wrists slit and hair manky from stale sweat and matted adrenline, alabaster skin drained to blue...

dunno where i got that from.

but i can tell you, google was no help in trying to find any kind of pic that even closely resembled that image. sucks.

i typed in 'dead person toilet' and got this. wtf?

anyhoo.

speaking of blood, i'm busy with wednesday's column. also, i'm hiding in my room while Miss K is in the lounge writhing on the couch with a tummy bug. i'd like to think its that and not the baby tatsoi i made for dinner that she just vomited up.

i. said. i. don't. eat. leaves. god.dammit.

it's kinda cool have flat mates again (her current is an italian health nut who insists on talking to me when i'm occupied with matters of monumental importance, like watching the final episode of momma's boys.)

they leave soon for bella italia. oh well. onward with the column. oao plums.

facebook FAIL

oh this is toooooo much! click to enlarge.

popcorn

sparky sent me this wrt my post on avatar and eating buckets of popcorn in movie theaters. fkn funny ass.

reminds me of eddie izzard's popcorn and movie piece.