Post for Po...

i do not even know when and how she started following my blog but one day I logged onto my blog to rant a bit more and there was a comment from a "spindrifting South African Sea Monkey" called "Po" and her logo looked like a unicorn or pony dipped through a rainbow. And she has been leaving comments, funny, encouraging ones at that, ever since..

Today I decided I would pay homage to Po, the Durban chick who is stuck in a lab in the UK, ok im not sure if she is from Durban or Cape Town but I remember us discussing Durban a lot at some point.

I would like to thank Po for the positivity, you seem like a really lovely lady and I love reading your blog because you are always positive even when you are whining like me sometimes :)

Tonight I will have my first drink in your honour, thank you for making cyberspace a friendly space. Keep being you.

holiday mode...

I asked the photographer if I can use this as my background on that site that hosts my ego: Twitter and he said yes. So everytime I look at what my twittering twits are up to, i am reminded that  ireally should be on holiday and not reading other people's thoughts.

more from him, check out http://75.co.za/rudzani

four days before Christmas...

and im at the office. Isn't that just fantastic? While everyone else, ok maybe not everyone, but you know what I mean... as other people rather are lying on the beach; getting piss drunk then passing out before midday; shopping in malls full of screaming children, BoneyM blaring and tacky decorations , I am at the office...

I have tried as far as I can to avoid shopping malls and I have managed quite well as I am always broke. That was until yesturday when I had to go to Centuary City, that pseudo-Tuscan monstrosity to buy some drinks because that is one of the only places around Cape Town that sell alcohol on a Sunday.

Screaming children everywhere, families that look like they just walked off the set for the Klumps munching away and general pandemonium of too many people and too little space and little or no tact (RE: the decorations).

I really do not like Christmast decorations. No other time of year is it ever normal for gold, silver, green and red to be put together (the Christmast tree) and we are all supposed to marvel at that and call it beautiful, I do not understand?? and all that spending...it is safer at the office for broke grinchs like me.

I think I might even ask to work on Christmas day too because the beaches are full, not a single spot to lie down and read a book. We had to go all the way to Langebaan for some piece and quiet and time on the beach.

oh well, as long as no one is getting hurt right?

"Eat drink and be merry, forget the weary" someone once said to me!

Trying to remain unaffected on Aids Day

pic from www. blog.bioethics.net/world-aids-day

I was not going to do a World Aids Day post, to be honest, it has been so fashionable to scream at the top of our "laptop activism" lungs slogans urging people to wear condoms and be safe and then 02 December comes and all the rock-concerts are gone, we go back to our daily lives and forget about Aids Day till next year, or for some of us, until someone we know dies of "Aids Related illnesses". So, what made this year different was that I was chatting to a friend of mine, lets call him Mr No-Nonsense Journo a.k.a NNJ, who was telling me that he is depressed with this whole World Aids Day. And if you had to be out in Soweto at 10pm to do a story, I guess you would be too. But he was saying that it was because you feel so helpless when you sitting there interviewing three sisters, who live in the same house and are all HIV positive, on ARVs and one of them is terminally ill. When it is your JOB to speak to these people and remain unaffected, it gets to you says Mr NNJ. Those are the kind of stories that the media laps up and the rest of us turn our noses up as we read about "those people" as if they are not our colleagues, neighbours, family or even friends. Being the journalist in this picture says No-Nonsense Journo, is the one who has to feed this to us and after doing the story drive back to Sandton, maybe buy a cooldrink on the way and remain unaffected... And these are stories that make World Aids Day worth it for me. The fact that as much as it is fashinable to scream RED, having a day like this makes people conscious of Aids, because we do need to talk about it more, not only on the first Day of December. On my way to work, for the first time I was noticing the red in everything. From the colour of the taxi speeding past me, to the little baby boy on the train in a red top, to the fire alarm in my office. And I was embarrased for only noticing today, for not doing more. This feeling of helplessness. So I tell these thought to this NNJ, asking (almost demanding) to know how one stays detached and he aswers simply "smoking and drinking" but we both know it is not that simple.. and then he ends our conversation with " but its all good man, one thing I know for sure is that Blacks always prevail bra, no matter how detriment circumstances may seem, they've become so resilient to suffering that it's bad to underestimate their capicity to survive" and it is this quote and the story about the ladies that reminded me of the importance of World Aids Day and made it worthy for me want to write, to have to write something in the hope that I inspire someone else to do something and if they are also feeling helpless, that is okay too..