It was my friend Tony’s 50^th birthday party tonight. It was at the Troyeville Hotel and he had a fantastic band called Them Particles. And I wore high silver heels and it was a little painful, but I shook my booty with great tentative vigour and felt like the almost tallest person in the room, which I was.

And now I am home. I feel the last, retreating waves of buzz from the evening, from seeing people I have not seen for ages, and in spite of the fact that I am sitting in the chaos of my own recent activity: books papers pieces of dress patterns fabric some pins overlocker sewing machine cotton reels more books still in the bags from Exclusives, I have a sense of order and… reason.

I wonder if it is natural that the significant and recent life-choices I have made should come back to tease me in the form of people I hardly remember meeting but who were embedded, somehow, in a universe that drove me crazy. And then I ask myself, what is natural these days? And really, does it matter? (I should write up my thoughts on In Defence of Food soon. But this is an aside.)

Tony made a great speech, based on Sinatra’s It Was a Very Good Year.

And quite rightly, he pointed out that on his way to… fifty, he did not have (passing seventeen) small town girls on the village green on soft summer nights. Neither did he know those city girls up the stairs with the perfumed hair that came undone when he was twenty-one. OR the independent girls in of independent means driven by drivers in limousines at thirty-five.

He was a bit indignant that the song stretched from “thirty five” to “vintage wine” without any additional possibilities that he might have lived up to, but he was funny, and people laughed, and after all, we bought the fact that fifty was a good vintage wine year.

First Joost, now Vuyo Mbuli? Not that having an affair with another woman is illegal, and not nearly as explosive as snorting cocaine off a hooker’s ass (I could be wrong about that last part) but I think the implications for Vuyo as a Morning Live presenter could be at least as serious. Are they going to fire him, too?

I want to laugh. Not at Vuyo, or even at Joost. One of my favourite songs of all time is Son of a Preacher Man, as sung by Dusty Springfield. And my favourite line is “…being good isn’t always easy, no matter how hard I try…” One of my favourite quotes is Mae West saying “when I am bad I am better”. Sometimes a girl just has to let her hair down, and do something that is out-of-the-ordinary and perhaps more than a little indulgent.

I made it through relatively wild twenties and thirties without accumulating any diseases or addictions. For this I am grateful. I have settled into (by comparison) sedate forties. And sometimes a desire to be delinquent manifests in early sushi dinner by myself at Willoughby’s with a two glasses of Graham Beck chardonnay and the newspaper or spending an entire Saturday on my couch watching ten episodes of The Closer back to back.

But I am a person without commitments to others, and not famous to boot, which means that any (by my own standards, very mild) impropriety is strictly my own concern. More than that, I have never denied accusations of being anti-establishment, so a little deviance on my part is not going to blow the roof off the SABC.

Sleaze can be irresistible, and it is not evil. What is thoughtless and harmful is lying. And pretending to be someone who you are not is lying. (Men often don’t understand this, in my experience. For this reason it is so easy for them to say “I never lied to you,” because in THEIR book, omission is not the same as lying (so that of course is a lie Right There), and they think that saying “I am on my way,  I will be there in five” when they are standing in their mother’s kitchen forty-five minutes away, is somehow not untrue. But that is another story.)

I don’t mean to make light of the pain that Amor and Vuyo’s wife and Vuyo’s alleged girl’s guy  are feeling – the humiliation, the betrayal, the embarrassment. The people who have been touched by these spectacles are miserable and deserve sympathy. When I started this piece it was an attempt to look at the whole, but it turned out impossible to do that without examining the sum of the parts. Which is a pity. Human tragedy comes in packages of flesh and blood, and we are not islands. So what we do very often affect other people, especially when there are children involved.

And that is why children should be taught from a very young age (between beatings) that as long as they do not lie and hurt people, they can do pretty much what they like, and to hell with the rest of the world: with what it thinks, with what it expects, with its double standards and Hollywood-morality lessons. Vuyo, it seems, lied to his wife and by implication, perhaps, his kids. That was wrong, but that is not where the focus of the scandal will be. For me, that is the real tragedy.

So the latest thing that has the DA (the hero on the white horse) frothing at the mouth is Julius Malema’s 24-hour security detail that has been approved by the police ministry as a result of actual death threats he has finally received.

I guess one should not be surprised. We know that Julius simply does not know when it is time to take his feet out of his mouth long enough to put a sock in it, and that eventually, the temptation to shut him up forever must become great. On the other hand, it is hard to believe that there is a person dumb enough to risk getting it up the bum in our correctional services facilities on that count.

ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu feels that the DA and ID’s objection to spending R300 000 a month on Julius is “outrageous and insensitive”.

The real problem with the cost is that Julius’ need for protection may outlive our capacity to run a fiscal deficit. I mean, can anybody really imagine a time in which somebody would NOT want to kill Julius Malema? It could turn out to be an expensive exercise.

This is, of course, a golden opportunity for Pravin to show us how he intends to root out wastage and corruption. Or is this what he meant by the “reprioritisation of public spending”? Is it?

So the other morning, having nothing to wear,  I squeezed into a pair of jeans that loosely embraced my thighs not one year ago. Now they fit a little like an islander clinging to a tree during a tsunami. This was, of course, why they were clean and had been so for, er, months. Anyway. As I was going to spend the morning at the Wits computer lab, where it is required  to wear your jeans either two sizes too small or two sizes too big, I did not worry too much about it. There was no sniggering or pointing, and if I did not move around too much, they were not all that uncomfortable. This is not so bad, I thought. I could wear these more often.

When I got home, however, Mary stopped ironing and greeted me with, “you are too fat. It is time for you to lose some weight.” I had only dropped my bags and taken off my jacket, but I felt quite naked. I wondered if Mary remembered that November is very close to end-of-year bonus time.

I immediately phoned Ruth. “Mary says I am too fat.”

Ruth was a little surprised by this. She thought for a while, trying to remember if Mary had said something similar to her in the past. No. She thought not. I thought that was so unfair.

Later, having been unable to let the whole thing go or to stop eating rice cakes with that great Woollies basil pesto, I concluded that the long and the short of it is this: if Mary says a thing is so, then it must be true.

It is done. Of course there will be the loose ends between now and the time it finally goes to print, but the text has been written. Instead of feeling jubilant, I have simply moved on to the next pile of papers on the desk, as one does when one earns a living sitting on one’s ass.

I wanted to make some wisecrack about a treadmill, but that reminded me that I should go get on one, rather, seeing that writing about nothing requires quite a bit of good chocolate to prevent one from plunging into despair.

I thought I should post an excerpt, just so that Guilietta can see WHAT EXACTLY writing shit is. By comparison, the rest of the blog is a page-turning crowd-puller replete with wit and fresh insight.

…a luta continua

President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation address on 9 February 2001 had a lot of good news.

In the previous year 1,1 million subsidised homes had been completed, or were under construction. Almost 400 000 electricity grid connections were made. Clean water supplied through the Community Supply Program had increased a hundred fold to 6 495 205. Four hundred and twelve thousand new telephone lines were installed in the preceding financial year. One hundred and twenty seven clinics were built.

A distorted distribution of income and wealth persisted (84% of low-income earners were black, and 71.9 per cent of the high-income earners were white) and increased efforts needed to be made to achieve gender equality by government as well as the private sector. But on the brighter side, the Bureau of Market Research of UNISA reported that between 1995 and 2000, real personal disposable income of all categories of South Africans had increased.

On the whole, the economy continued to improve. The foreign trade surplus in December 2000 was a record R9 billion and the consumer inflation rate was 5,3 per cent, compared to 15,3 per cent in 1991. The share market was approaching record highs and South Africa jumped 14 places to the number 33 spot on the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report.

And so on. There were good reasons to start the year filled with optimism. The MGDA* did its best.

[* Mystery Government Department Acronym]

Then you add a couple of words (120) of what exactly went on in the organisation, and then you call it an overview of a year in which absolutely nothing happened, and that most people who still work there cannot even remember. They scratch their heads and stare into space. They “hmmm” and then call to the person in the office next door… “Sheila! What happened in 2001?” and Sheila shouts back “Before my time… ask Mpho.” And then they say, “Did you look at the resolutions?” And if you did, then there is not much more help they can give you.

Of course, in any government organisation a lot happens every year. But I guess rampant back-stabbing, politicking and manoeuvring for position is not really something that you want in your 10-year anniversary book.

Anyway, the text is done now, and I am pleased with it on the whole.  (Post script, Sunday morning: by “on the whole” I mean ALL of the 14 000-odd words and 12 sections I wrote and that are “the text” – not just the three paragraphs I spoke of here… really.)

Now for the treadmill.

Okay. So. I am going to be honest and say that it has been at least four days, three bottles of wine and two slabs of 70% cocoa chocolate since my last to-finish estimate, and I am still not done with the Overview (sic) of 2001 and 2002. (In the meantime I have spent three very long days at the Wits Power Reporting Workshop – just in case you think I have been watching the 4th series of The Closer  by the box set.) I have found some information, and I added it to the near-empty page. Now I have to figure out how to stretch this information, which can easily be squeezed into the first paragraph of a very short news story, into 200-300 words. And to make it sound intelligent.

Once could argue that, two CI manuals later, I should be able to do this in my sleep but let me tell you – writing about nothing is never an easy task, unless you went to advertising school or work for government. There they teach you to write entire pages full of words that say absolutely zero.

And I can’t escape. The after-hours crowd at the Seattle really scares me and honestly, getting into bed at 19h00 is just too strange if one has already avoided spending the day there in its entirety. I have to sit in my flat and churn out 600 words about nothing. My last refuge is the couch and the TV. I have often found inspiration during the ad-breaks in Lipstick Jungle, and have managed to write unbelievably coherent crap in this position. Ask Giulietta – she will confirm that this is the only thing one can write on the couch in the company of etv.

When you hear from me again, this nightmare will be over, and after that I will be riding off into the sunset as soon as I have written a 4500-word essay on investigative journalism and ethics. Cheers.

I am killing an hour before the start of day two of the Power Reporting workshop. I read the Short and Curlies again, and when I got to the one about the guy in the grey suit with the massive bunch of flowers, a new, interesting thought came to me. I still like the “quiet moment” theory, but this one is probably closer to the truth.

He was having a cup of coffee (flowers on the table) while he was either scraping together some courage or getting his story straight. The flowers were to secure forgiveness for something. He may have forgotten a date they (wife, girlfriend, mother) had (with each other or with her sister and her sister’s husband) or he might have hung around at the 19th hole for, what, three or four hours too long. He might have groped his secretary and in the morning, he was expecting to be charged with sexual harassment. Something.

What are the clues?

The flowers were many and large, but they were from Pick and Pay. He did not stay long enough to enjoy an unencumbered moment of solitude… perhaps not even ten minutes. I did not get a good look at his face so I cannot say if he had the desperate, florid skin of someone who had just edged through an extended day while nursing a harrowing hangover. (Even if one can hide behind the laptop and pretend that actually, one was just staring into space, there are limits to how much shameless scrutiny one can do.)

But that is my theory for today.

The end is in sight on the book. What remains is the Way Forward (busy with that now), the Introduction (half way done, already) and then what should be an intense session figuring out how the hell to write an overview for two years in which basically fuck-all happened. I think I may rush to the Spar for a good bottle of wine, because I think I am going to need it.

It is a lovely rainy Sunday afternoon and I have chosen to write the final few bits and pieces in my bed. It offers a premium workspace for final stretches, I have no idea why, but it is here that I managed to finish my second Corporate Identity right on schedule, and as we all know, THAT really is the kind of writing that makes you want to kill yourself.

But this is neither here nor there. While writing the GPs’ Way Forward, I tried to find a comprehensible definition of the organisational rights of trade unions, and I happened upon this little gem from a website called polity.org.za. I really thought that I should share it. The company in question is “World net, a German owned company which operates in Gauteng, Western Cape and Kwazulu Natal.” (sic)

“Satawu is trying to cure the ulcer it has as a result of the alleged racist attitude and arrogance by the company’s managing director by the name of Joachim Bade. This honorable gentleman allegedly told workers whom he employed that he is not in South Africa to “enrich Blacks” but to do business. The union has been caught by surprise by statements of this nature as it was not expecting that there are still people who still live in the past.”

Really Joachim, I am also surprised. Seeing that you have no idea why you are here, I suggest you go home.

Okay. So working in coffee shops in order to escape cabin fever has more advantages than one can count on one hand. First of all, you have the opportunity to observe a specific environment over a long period of time.

(Look, for me it is impossible to write for three hours at a stretch, and as it is not possible to dance around the place and do a couple of hamstring stretches without making a spectacle of myself, my short breaks from the screen are used to stretch my eyes to the neighbouring tables and couches, and to stare unashamedly at the stuff that goes on there.)

So, you get to see how men and women are together in public, and it really is very funny. Sometimes. Sometimes it is quite dull, and then I get a lot of work done.

And this is a Short and Curly, so there will be no “second of all” for now.

I have been working at the Seattle this afternoon, and, as happens when one has a lot of work and you cannot stand up and dance a little in the kitchen for a bit of diversion when the going gets dull, the afternoon has drifted into evening. All of a sudden I am in a place where I am frequently, but at a different time.

And at this time, there are different people here: the folk who don’t hang out in coffee shops during the day. They come in after work and have coffee. It seems normal, but I expect them to start staggering around any minute and advance upon me slowly with empty eyes staring at nothing.

Even if they don’t, their paraphernalia tells a story. A grey-haired, portly guy in a fine charcoal suit has a massive bunch of flowers. I wonder why he is not rushing home to give them to his wife. Perhaps he is meeting her here, and will surprise her. Maybe they are not for his wife. Maybe they are for his wife, but right now he needs a moment free of anybody who might bother him, or might need something. Maybe he will just sit quietly for a few minutes and do nothing, before stepping into the parking lot and heading home with a bunch of flowers that may or may not put a happy grin on someone’s face.