yardsticks

So what others are doing with their lives on an average day.
One needs a measurement - a yardstick - of where exactly one is. Is it normal to be hibernating? Is it normal to be eccentric? What is normal?
……………………

Mum: I’m just warming up some soup. One of the Germans is trying to start the Corolla, and Isidingo is ….ooh wait! Peas you need to watch Redneck Antics on 101. Now, before you miss any, quick!

Peas: Oh dear, imagine missing that.

…………………………………………………

A mate: I’m just working like a cunt and doing lots of house stuff.

Peas: That doesn’t sound familiar at all.

……………………………………………..

Poen in Kenya: And Swahili lingo for ‘bye’, informal, is ‘visi.’

Peas: I just threw Milo in my shoe.

…………………………………..

Ant: I went to this awesome Bastille Day dinner last night, where David Bullard spoke and we ate foie gras and tore baguettes open.

Peas: Do one. Seriously just do one.
…………………………

Mate: Joining a club about bat paraphernalia isn’t going to solve anything. Even if you do get a free fridge magnet.

Peas: Get bent.

………………………………………

E2: So funny story. My dad was in the tube with his mate, two doddering old tourists. And they spot a dude who looks EXACTLY like John Cleese sitting diagonally opposite them.

So amongst themselves they’re whispering to each other 'Oh my! Do you think that’s John Cleese?' It MUST be, no. No, do you think it is?'

All the while John is reading a newspaper, minding his own business.
Next thing, out of nowhere, he stands up, shoves the paper under his arm, marches up to the doddering men and screams - no SCREAMS, nose-on-nose:

YES. I'M FUCKING JOHN CLEESE!

Straight into their astonished little faces.

And then stalks off doors closing behind him. They didn’t speak for like 5 minutes.

Peas: That sounds like something my father would do. He and John Cleese are practically cut from the same cloth.

…………………………
A Brit friend: So funny story. We went down to the pub and all that, and one of my mates is particularly wobbly when he’s drunk.
So he fell off the toilet. And while doing so, completely pulled it off the floor.

It wasn’t screwed down properly.

Peas: Holy suffering fuck. That just made my day.

Friend: We were downstairs, heard a loud bang and an "OH NO, OH NO, BOLLOCKS," and I said to the chaps, 'it sounds like Tony has fallen off the bog.'

And he actually had.

*Sigh.* Why couldn’t I have been there?

nakedness, cathartic howling & flying creatures of the macabre

I promised myself this week that I would do something – actually action something to get me out of this awful, depressed I-Hate-Joburg rut I have found myself in over the last few weeks.

Getting myself to actually step out of a bad comfort zone and do something different is another ball game altogether, so I’m going to have to start slowly.

Otherwise it’ll sit on a list and I’ll never do it. Baby steps.

Maybe teensy little things that automatically make me feel better. Or things that can propel me into a new space.

My three objectives for this week:

Be naked as much as possible
It’s simple – you start to lose your sense of sexuality, or any iota of sensual awareness when you’ve been wearing clothes for too long. For the last few months, I’ve been layering and pairing fucking vests, stockings, socks and coats, and I’ve forgotten what it’s like to actually show a little skin already.

I’m not talking about going outside in the freezing cold without a bloody jersey, but sleeping naked. Prancing about my house naked. Dancing in front of the mirror naked. I used to do this shit. In summer. And it felt good, albeit scary for any neighbours.

The one thing that got me all excited about the concept of Mozambique is being able to direct my big, fat white ass towards the sun, in a bikini. Suncream, skin in the open.
What does that even feel like anymore?

I’ll bust up the heat in my flat and go full out starkers as much as possible. Attend to simple things like body butter on my stomach, where before now, I was so cold, I’d jump from the bath and straight into my fucking Bridget Jones winter pyjamas. No lathering of cream.

No. No more. I’m sleeping in Chanel No. 5 going forward. Only Chanel Number 5. It worked for Marilyn, and it’s going to fucking work for me. Even if I’m the only one smelling it.

Cry
I’m a girl, I really should be doing more of this. I realised I haven’t cried – like properly wept, in months. I’ve been close. There’ve been a few tears, but it’s short lived, and it’s usually because of something like MJ dying.

I think I need a good old fashioned howl. Enough Whitney Houston will do the trick.

Join a club or go to fucking gym
I’m looking at clubs before I look at gym. Something I might even enjoy see.

Did you know there’s a fucking Bat Club? The Gauteng Bat Interest Group. I jest it not – can’t find a bloody ‘Let’s Talk German And Swig On Frothing Tankards Of Ale Club’ – oh no – but it seems there are a few questionable people in this city who have a bit of thing for bats.

How very odd. I like it.

I’m thinking they probably all dress up like BatMan and drink absinthe while doing weird pagan rituals while hanging upside down. Maybe, maybe maybe it’s just a front for a really really cool club.

Or of course, they really could just be interested in bats. Bat wingspans, bat crap, bat anatomy, bat diet, bat mating habits.
Maybe I should go, I mean, I’ll let everyone else cover the usual dinner party topics of marriage, politics, religion and economic crises, and I’ll fill in the blanks with random pieces of bat trivia:

‘They say the economic crisis is on an up, but by next year, it will double bounce and be on the down again.’

Peas: Yeah, I heard that bats are known to eat whole bananas in Hawaii.

‘I think we’re going to try and get pregnant this year.’

Peas: Yeah…did you know if bats fly into your hair, they’ll crap, and then tear your hair out.

my dog likes beer & other weekend pick me ups

Friday evening I felt like I was lost in a [particularly shonky] episode of Seinfeld.

And I wasn’t Jerry, I was George.

Like most Seinfeld episodes, it was laughable and slightly ridiculous, at the cost of being seriously awkward.

My local pub is more local than I realised.

Not an ideal way to end off the week over a few bevvies, but not completely disastrous or terrible either, just more uncomfortable than one would usually choose. For everyone concerned. The good lesson here is that we all can behave like adults if we try. Isn’t that nice to know?

Even if it means I did drink two glasses of rouge in very quick succession and focus on whoreganising a recent and upcoming trip a group of us are going to do in August.

I cannot believe it’s been 3.5 years since I was in Mozambique. Out of all the places I’ve seen, Mozambique is still one of my favourite chill spots on the planet.

For one, it’s accessible. We’re gonna fly straight to Vilankulos. No fucking about. I don’t need a visa - fuck yes!- and it’s not 10 hours away. (And with my passport pages currently running out 2 years before it expires, I have to choose locations carefully visa-wise).
Most of us going are in search of five fundamental objectives:

1) Sun. Winter is a load of old pony, it must get bent and do one.
2) Postcards. White sand, blue waters.
3) DeusM. And fresh crayfish.
4) Chill out time. And a good time.
5) Feel what it's like to walk around in almost nothing again.

Plus one can’t scoff at the Bazaruto archipelago. Even if one of my mates once did an…oh god…aqua turd out there near Benguerra one time.
Serial.

Truth is, a long weekend away in Northern Mozambique is what the uDokothela ordered.

My father:
‘Peas, Ombre [my staffie] got lost yesterday. But don’t worry we found him.’

Peas: Dad. What, how do you lose him?

Dad: Don’t worry he headed straight to the pub.

Peas: He went to the pub.

Dad: Yeah. He arrived and basically stayed there the whole day, talking to customers and knocking glasses of beer off tables with his tail, and then they had to chuck him out at closing time.

Peas: This is the dog we’re talking about.

Dad: They dropped him off back home, and he was very happy it seemed. If not slightly confused.

Peas: Well he is completely deaf, poor little baby.

Dad: He’s old, but they know him there at the pub.

Peas: I don’t know whether that’s funny or worrisome.

Sunday I spent brunching with my family – half of them German and hilarious, at least the non-blood step-relatives.

There’s something about having an extended family that screams ‘Genau! Schtimt, ja, vergessen das umlaut, und tschuss? ’ to each other while braaing steaks on a Weber outside.

And then DVD Sunday with my new mate. Chilling in his garden, talking shit and then kicking back to Southpark.

Great weekend but realised with a start: I think my dog may have more of a life than I do.

stress b gone

Speaking of new friends, I have one under my nose.

Fever blister.com. And yes, it’s the herpes B virus, infidels, before you point out the obvious.

Picked up this little friend in a sandpit or some such when I was 3. And whenever super stress mixes with low immunity, one of these guys every so often, pitches a tent on my lip, or like now, under my frigging nose.

Fuck it’s sore. The last time I had one, I started having a fling. The time before that I also started having a fling. So in some sordid and deeply twisted way, having a cold sore has been somewhat of a lucky omen in the recent past.

Interesting. Ironically uncool as well.

The fucker has gone and planted itself under my nose, much like in the picture on my Greek Schengen visa mugshot.

Pretty as an oil painting.

And not a complete and deniable fail criteria in official bureaucratic circles, when it comes to issuing visas, it would seem.
[‘You wanna go where? With what sprouting on your lip? Denied, Next.’ Just in case you have a similar predicament and were wondering.]

So these things seem to spring up overnight, and like this time, almost completely obliterate the left nostril.
After a few days, it’s kind of gone, but the impact is immeasurable.

Like yesterday. Yesterday I was stressed out of my bracket – didn’t leave my desk for more than 5 seconds – and spent much of my day solving technical issues over the telephone while typing furiously on my keyboard with one hand, and freaking out whilst doing so.

It starts to physically ache when the stress piles on. This bad boy has it's on heart beat. And yesterday was no different – WTF – except the ache started creeping up the left side of my face.

Dude. Totals.

First my mouth started aching, spreading to my gums, and then my left eye. By the end of the day, looking haggled and so forth, my left eye socket had become one of those poster boy pictures of the lazy eye. And hell it hurt.

All because of this thing under my bloody nose.

I think what I’m trying to convey here is this: I need a weekend. In a burqa. If I venture into a public arena.

So if you see a chick who is clearly not Islamic, prancing about in a bar for after work Friday drinks with a flamboyant Italian mate (The Ant), sporting a burqa around her face – and one lazy eye popping out - that would be me.

Hello. In advance.

PS: Stress kills.

PPS: 3RM, this would be a handy time to deliver my present you promised. My Mate Went To Libya And All I Got Was This Lousy Burqa.

fossils & new friends

I’ve made a new friend.

When times are dull and you’re whordering the complete box series of Friends (that comes in crate format to your hoffice, FYI), and your best mates are moving to Kenya, or otherwise involved in other issues, and you’re desperate for something new in this town, because all you can think of is moving elsewhere, fresh faces are always super minna minna welcome.

I’ve made two new guy friends, actually, who actually live in Johannesburg, and seriously, I'm as stoked as Princess Beatrice when she realised she doesn’t have to be as monarch-like as her cousins when she’s pissed out of her bracket after a night out in Chelsea.

Right.

So I went out for a drink last night with 8Ball, to our local – ye good old pub in our neighbourhood – and after a particularly fucking crazy pilates session – dude. Dude. I have hamstrings. Or I did. Yesterday. Until she snapped them on some spring machine – fuck me Richard Hammond - it was nice to talk to someone new and refreshing last night.

And then got home with stomach ailments, probably only because my stomach is used to Diemserfontein Pinotage, and not some other excuse for red wine bollocks, to watch Series 1 of Friends.

Instead of buying a cat, I invested in the Friends series. One step to spinsterhood, one purchase at a time.

Also, and I mentioned this like 3 years ago, how much I love this fossil, but seriously - I’ve been listening to Tchaikovsky all day.
Dude. I love him. He was super gay, and broke both his pinkie fingers to play better, but he’s nothing short of a farken genius.

His music is just insanely beautiful. I had the most productive day yesterday, blaring him directly into my earlobes – all day, his Piano Concerto No.1 - all Movements.

I studied classical music in high school, but, in all honestly and adversity, this beats the shit out of Beethoven. Tchaikovsky appeals to the romantic senses.

Totals.
And you want to die in a bath full of crème brulee, with him on in the background. If you do, of course, have a choice, in which manner you’ll kick the bucket.

That Russian bastard will own you if you let him.

Besides productivity, Tchaikovsky will give you:
1) A very musical orgasm
2) Purity. His music is so pure and Austrian Alps-like
3) Reminds you of no one. Just gets your soul all excited and happiness-bursting for no reason except for crazy ass utopia piano concerto-ness.
4) Taps into your classical musical nerd

Pass me an apfel strudel. He sorts me out more than Brad Pitt ever would.

Brad Pitt could stand in front of me, dangling his nomthondo in front of my face, and Tchaikovsky still wins, because he actually gives me something. He feeds my soul. Brad would only feed my….sexual cavity, if I’m gonna be blunt.

And yay, I have a new friend.
Bless.

cockjangles & sundry

Was updating Dove and Poen on some of the lingo I learnt from my strapping Brit friend in London.

It's so classic, Jesus suffering fuck, it has me falling off chairs pretty much everytime he opens his mouth to say something.

I’m not sure where it’s derived, it’s not your classic cockney speak, it’s something else. Perhaps because he hails from Dorset originally, or something, but get a load of this lingo:

Dove: How are you?

Peas: I’m minna minna minna mental.

Dove: Yes. You are.

Peas: DO ONE.

Dove: Do one what?

Peas: No mate. DO ONE.

Dove: What the fuck do you want me to do.

Peas: Fuck off.

Dove: Fuck you.

Peas: No it means Fuck off. In Britspeak. That’s what they say.

[pause]

Peas: You’re such a weapon.

Dove: Right.

Peas: Check your bad self out.

Dove: OK.

Peas: Check your bad self out. You’re being such a weapon.

Dove: Is that a wanker?

Peas: More like a tool.

Dove: That’s WELL tidy.

Peas: I know. Bad check out HIS bad self. [Pointing to staunch dude with tattoos all over his arms]
He’s such a UNIT.
And check out those…Tough Stickers.

Dove: What?

Peas: His tattoos mate. His TOUGH. STICKERS.
Are you a window licka or summat?

Dove: What the fuck are you on?

Peas: Nah I’m just a bit of a dude.

Dove: No, you’re a girl.

Peas: Yeah but I can still be a bit of a dude. And still bake bo bo bo bo bo brownies.

Dove: You’re a fucken retard.

Peas: No, a retard is a window licka.

[pause]

Peas: She’s lush you know. Even though she’s well rough.

Dove: ….what.

Peas: It’s rubbish. But when you say ‘Rubbish’ you have to accentuate it to the point where you almost say ‘That’s Wubb-ish!’ Or it’s just….. ‘jank.’

……………………….

Peas: An ass like a busted sofa. Because her jeans – her Milton Keynes – are too tight.
I wonder if she’s a council gritter.

Poen: …and that would be?

Poen: Shitter. Does she take it up the council? Really, it’s just a load of old pony.
Oh and mate?

Poen: ....yes?

Peas: Girls never nip out to release a chocolate hostage.

Poen: That’s disgusting, no we never do that.

Peas: Exactly, and that’s why we never see a brown friend out to the coast. Screaming abdabs.

R50 off just for you

So hold the phone. Look what I got couriered to me the other day. Whilst at my desk, hating the world.

A spanking, bright new Give Peas A Chance t-shirt.

Isn’t it a meneer?

Even from this angle which was meant to slightly accentuate my tits a bit more [fail]:

Now I buy a ton of promo crap, as you might’ve established. Stupid crap like Jaesors and a shirt emblazoned with ‘Tiger Wheel & Tyre’ or a Flora margarine nail brush. Or like that one time, a fucken cap with ‘Absolute Vodka’s Blogger Of The Year’ on it.

Only to bash my head repeatedly against a wall and ask of the Universe, ‘WHY? Why do I do this to myself?’

This guy, I love. And it came with a FREE badge, no strings attached. It also obviously is slightly applicable to my life, what with the vibe being about peas.

And peace. If you hate peas, or even if you hate me (couldn’t imagine why, I’m so fucking lovable), you can always buy one of these bad boys for world peace. Made for girls and wankers – kidding for girls AND guys – that’s YOU, yes you dog, who gets a R50 discount - because you read this blog.

I’m not Isobel Jones, this is for serious.

Just by adding ‘PeasOnToast’ in the coupon section. Fifty. Ronts. Off. An. Already. Reasonably.Priced. Kiff. Shirt.

And you’ll be supporting South African design, a true blue pukka awesome South African website, and fuck, frankly, you’ll look as dashing as me.

Not convinced? Fine – check out this bad boy with all the right props:

With a loaded gun* [Jokes parents]:
At your next bacherlorette party [intentionally hazy because you’ll be fucked on tequila either way:]
With a bicycle pump: [Why not?]
At Mardi Gras, baby:
When you get arrested by a man who poses as a policeman with a toight set of man-buns:

Thank you to the dudes at Springleap.com. You guys seriously rock the foam party.

like it was 06

God.

So E was in town over the weekend, just as I, ironically, decided to reintegrate into the social scene, and just as that Pink Punter parade thing was on.

Apt timing, sure, a few of us went along and partied like it was 2006.

Crisis, can you cope. Arrive and these Jaeger girls are prancing about selling shots in test tubes.

And if you buy 5, you get a free Jaesor. Not a lasor, but a very average, stupid piece of consumer marketing shit that Peas usually goes bosbefok for, because it seems:
1) free
2) really cool before you realise its not cool, 5 seconds later

So we drank Jaeger out of test tubes, passed around a bottle of wine while dancing under heaters in a sweaty tent, and cane and cream soda.

I kid you fucking not, and Christ if I didn’t have losers yesterday.

E was like ‘Ooooh! Let’s have a John Deere, we don’t get those in Egypt!’ (Consider that a serious fucken fortitude, friend. You don’t see John Deeres, which means maybe you live in a cultural place, you lucky bitch.)

And so, suddenly, out of nowhere I was as drunk as I was 3 years ago.

On the way home, I stopped in at Woolies.
And I wake up, open my fridge and find:

1) a fuck off brie cheese – with a giant wedge out of it, that appears to have been hacked away with a spoon
2) A new bottle of tomato sauce (I have two in there already. Come ON.)
3) Half a smashed chicken pie
4) An untouched package of sliced sandwich beef (WTF for?)
5) A bucket of croutons.
6) Wieners. Kids wieners with the cheese inside.

That’s a monolithically stupid midnight shop, if I’ve ever seen one.

But it gets worse:
7) Two magazines, still in their pacakaging, (Cosmo and SL, if you care), sitting. On. The.Middle.Shelf. Of my fridge.

The magazines have literally, been chilling, in my fridge all night.

Christ. Where is my life? What am I doing with my life? Where am I going? Need to stand back and reassess, shit?

You know when you wake up at 4:00am, parched, drier than a nun’s poenani [sorry – but no other description is more apt at this moment], and you just reach for whatever so that you don’t prunate yourself by means of decanedration?

(Honestly, I know now why I stopped drinking that shit. Besides finding men with three eyes attractive, it’s poison. Pure unadulterated poison. It felt like I’d spawned myself directly out of Satan’s man-womb the next day. Besides the mental side affects of 24-hour retardation.)

So I find like five empty bottles of water strewn about my kitchen counter. Amongst a foray of stray pie crumbs.

Was a good night clearly.

Sure, felt like an extra in The Hangover, and did watch it in a post-party stupor to cure myself of all my evils, but hell. I thought nights like these were over.

PS: Monday morning, taxi stops in the middle of intersection, causing massive traffic jam and congestion behind him. As I roar past, I think, 'Damn. What a cunt.'

hoodie rest

It’s been a while since that happened. At least in this country.

Eating steak with three strapping men.

I even tzackled a fillet, and I don’t usually whoreder steak in a restaurant. E is back in town from Egypt for a while, so managed to catch up over a glass of Diemers – the girl needs it – I now understand her vibe what with living in a Muslim country – and then had a delightful dinner with three gorgeous men.

Aren’t I a lucky bitch?

It was medium rare, with a side order of pepper sauce, FYI.

What an astute order, if I shan’t say so myself.

Have some plans to reintegrate into the social hemisphere this weekend. It’s a big step. I have the entire Friends series being shipped to me in nothing smaller than a crate from Kalahari.net today, and yet, I’m thinking: perhaps I’m keen to don some heels and a bleedin’ frock and make heads and tails of a few social situations this weekend that otherwise I wouldn’t be interested in.

I’m coming back to life. Wow.

Thank God E is in town for the weekend, there’s enough reason to celebrate.

Question though. (I credit this to steak and wine at the Grillhouse, and because Big T was wearing a mohair suit. Which is mentionable, for the very reason it was fucken mohair):

You know how we all see life through our own set of glasses? Which means neither logic or reason is even applicable in a general sense, because that has to fall away if we’re all seeing life through out own opinions and experiences and eyes?

Does this make any iota of sense whatsoever or am I speaking absolute rubbish?

Say one person sees a situation like so. And you see the same situation very differently. In simple terms. Doesn’t that mean then, that all the wisdom and experience you have garnered over a period of time, mean nothing at all? Because everything is relative? To everything?

Fuck.

Abort control alt delete. Time for bed. I’m starting to sleep in a hoodie. Mock it all you want, but it keeps your fucken head warmer than a Philippino’s armpit on a particularly humid afternoon, and it also protects you from the dark that can be scary on your own, if, say, you’ve seen a nailbiting thriller just before bedtime.

Just saying. I might look as if I’m from Staines, and I might be thinking in inconclusive circles right now, but I also:
1) dined with three hot men
2) ate a steak
3) have a warm head
4) have nothing short of a fuck off interesting weekend ahead
5) dined with three hot men

eppis

Guys, I’ve done it. I’ve actually – actually – fucken honed into my domestic skillz, dog.

I has got skillz in da kitchen, innit.

Seriously. I promised myself I’d host more dinner parties, and not the kind like in the good old days when I heated up a few frozen chicken nuggets, squirted a sneezing of t-sauce on the top and told my guests if they complain, they can fuck right off.

No no, now I’m making something the common man might call an effort.

That menagerie of cold meat and crackers above - that's me starters mate.

I did it just before I went to Turkey – had four friends over. Can only host four, perhaps squeeze in a fifth, at a time, so that they don’t have to chow in the bath tub.

(How did I ever think a piano would fit into my palace? God only knows.)

I bought slices of smoked Norwegian salmon, crisp Melba toast, and layered on the fucken tapenade. And made fucken canapes.

Last night, for my French friend, who leaves tomorrow for back yonder, I did the same, except with prosciutto crudo, spinkled with garlic pepper.

We know how ze Franch love zere garlic, so I thought it apt to make her extremely happy before she gets on a flight home. Through the medium of garlic. Which I would say bonds nations, but then, I’d be wrong.

The rest I need to work on. The one dinner party I whacked three already-made chicken pies into the oven. Last night, I whacked a Woollies soup into the microwave, but then delicately garnished it in basil croutons and feta.

Because it looks good. See? I’m fucken learning. I'm presentin'. Am finding an teensy miniscule droplet of passion beneath my 'I-buy-prepared-meals' exterior.

Even plunged my Brazilian coffee for the first time, after popping the obligatory Diemers cork.

No more chip and dip for my guests! No more ‘Pop in some toast mate, and help yourself to Marmite.’

No no no – I’m embracing my inner Nigella with the need to be AMAZING in the kitchen. Wearing heels and not pregnant.

As my Greek friend put it: try to be ‘experimental and messy with food.’ Then maybe he’ll consider marrying me for the passport.

Next time, maybe I’ll even cook the meal myself! Big T is gunning for a steak from Giovanni’s tonight – cool – no cooking – just masticating and socialising – but next time I might even take on a full on steak.

My French grandmother is a genius in the kitchen. Everything she touches in the way of comestibles becomes instantly and insanely delicious. The genes have been watered down, with a big gap between my mother’s talent and hers and, to finally trickling down to me, someone who can’t be fucking bothered with all this chopping and dicing and sprucing and carrot Julienning and sauteeing.

Until now!

I’m a changed woman, someone get me an apron – I’m going to master this.

French, over dinner: So Peas, today I had an eppi-fanny.

Peas:…er, I’m almost too scared to ask what an eppi-fanny is.

French: You know, an eppi-fanny. I was sitting zere, and suddenly, out of the bleu, I realized zat I was having a grande eppi-fanny.

Peas: …and that would be….?

French: Zat you can never be too skeeny or too rich. Zat was my eppifanny.

Peas: Oh, EPIPHANY. You had an Epiphany. Thank Christ for that. I really thought there was something wrong downstairs. What a relief! You need to emphasis the ‘Piff’ part of epiphany, seriously, let’s practice, because this word could lead you into all sorts of trouble.

French: Ta mere apoil devant le supermarche.

Peas: My mother stands naked in front of the supermarket?

French: Oui. Eet eez good insult in Franch.

Peas:....isn't it just.