January 2008

This whole Eskom debacle must be having an interesting effect on the South African population.

I know that people are pissed off and frustrated. Businesses, that rely solely on power provided by our government, are going to lose millions. But all these are givens. What I really want to know is what people are now doing with their free time.

No electricity means no distractions. No late TV, no Sunday night movie and no reading before bed. Are people talking more? Are people having sex more regularly, or for some couples at all? To both of the questions above I think the answer is an unequivocal yes.

Now is this increase in action going to lead to a spike in the birth rates and a decrease in the divorce rates? I’m positive there will be births, many unplanned, because lets face it South Africans are not known for their rigid adhesion to the most effective methods of birth control. The decreased divorce rate I’m going to fob off on the whole increased communication aspect. More talking equals less festering and all in all healthier relationships.

So perhaps we shouldn’t be all that angry with Eskom? We can be pissed of at their sheer incompetence and lack of foresight, but at the end of the day they are helping us have more sex. Maybe, as a peace offering, Eskom could produce limited edition T-Shirts for every child born 9 months from now that reads “I’m a product of the 2008 black-outs”?

My relationship graveyard is littered with poor boyfriend choices. I’ve spent a long time searching for some deeper meaning behind my history of less than fantastic significant other decisions.

None of those men were mean or nasty, they just weren’t right for me. On some level I knew that they weren’t ‘the one’ pretty early on in the dating game. Did I say anything? Did I follow my own famous advice? Did I run, scream and hide? No. I let it run away with me. I turned what should have been, at most, a two week mini-commitment into a full on meet-the-parents vibe.

I didn’t know why that was. I didn’t know what made me need to hold on to something that was so wrong.  I couldn’t work out why I had to make it no matter what.

Then, one day, in one of those lightening bolt moments you read about it came to me. Ok not really. The truth, I’m afraid, is far less glamorous. I went through lots of therapy, stopped looking for external things to fix internal issues and voila thing got better. However I still struggled to put a finger on what was wrong. I could never explain it. Then, as is so often the case, someone else did it for me. They pointed out that what had really changed in my life is that I was no longer desperate for love. How very profound, how very simple and how very true that statement is.

I have discovered a new method of birth control. It’s unlikely to become a major rival of the pill, condoms and IUD’s, but techniques like the rhythm method had better watch out. Ladies hold onto your panties because I’m about to introduce you to something that’s going to blow that whole ‘I have a headache’ avoidance routine out of the water. I call this new method the “I have a life” approach.

For those of you that are interested here is how it works: Simply fill up your day. Pack it full of anything and everything you can imagine. It’s important that you get your partner to do the same after all birth control is both parties’ responsibility. Plus it’s nice to have buy-in and commitment from everyone involved, I personally find that it gives everyone a sense of ownership in the project.

By the time you both fall into bed in the evening you’ll be too exhausted to do anything more than spoon.

Just think of the long-reaching effects a method like this could have. If our government adopted this approach and they kept more children ridiculously busy there would be no need for that ridiculous ‘no kissing until you’re older that 16’ policy.

This could be really big. It’s going to be the thing that lands me a spot on Oprah’s couch. Now all I need is some stars to become early adopters and it’s guaranteed to be a success. I wonder if Britney Spears would be interested?

I imagine that for most people the prospect of a new year is a very exciting thing. It is a clean slate, a chance to improve on your previous years performance. I am, unfortunately, not one of these people. Sure the idea of a new year seems exciting but I can’t seem to escape the panic that grips my entire body. The New Year in all of its gaudy glitzy glory paralyses me. Welcome to no-mans land. The limbo between half-excited and half-petrified.

I have found that the beginning of a year means there are no limits. Or at least not the ones that you find yourself constrained by come June. Everything seems possible and if you are the kind of person who finds ordering off a menu difficult, then you are going to find these kinds of options irresistibly overpowering. The choice between chicken and beef is going to seem trivial in comparison to the ‘what am I going to do this year’ conundrum. There’s something about all that ‘prospect’ that, for me, has always been utterly overwhelming.

Of course you can’t go through life like this. It is a little self-defeating and it is also, I am afraid to say, completely pointless. What an unbelievable waste of time and brain-power. So what I am trying to say is don’t bother being afraid. It’s pointless, it reduces your life expectancy, I do know it definitely gives you wrinkles and I am presently trying to link it to cellulite.

Little girls dream of getting married and boys, well they dream of cars, bikes, planes, boats and sex. While they’re growing up they never give marriage a second thought until their friends start doing it. When this happens marriage suddenly becomes the thing to do. Like all things boy-like [which means that it involves very little planning] they find someone they like, someone that most often reminds them of their mother, and propose.
It’s for these reasons that I find it completely ridiculous that boys and men are the ones who are traditionally left with the very serious job of proposing? All that bended-knee nonsense, the stuff I grew up dreaming about, is left in the immature hands of a group of people that are unable to concentrate when a body with a nice pair of boobs goes running by.  No wonder so many marriages are ending in divorce. Frankly I’m surprised that so many people are getting married in the first place. After all you are leaving the proposal up to a sex who still reminisce about their Spiderman pajamas.
It is not even like women can’t propose! Lesbians are doing it every day. It’s just that in heterosexual relationships it seems to be less common. I personally think women, who are for the most part more romantic than men, would do a stellar job. They would make it so memorable and touching that they would knock the underpants off a male proposal any day.