Oh Blog It All

This is a story of a Teenage Crush, Gambling, Blasphemy, Deception, Religion, more Deception and a Threesome. It is the story of a love affair that began 15 years ago and is still going strong. It is the story of my obsession and I share it with you today because, well, this is my blog and I can ;-)

I think there are only two things in my life that were fated to happen. Finding my soul mate (yes, in case you’re in any way confused, I’m referring to my Geek) and falling in love with the look, the sound, the brilliance that is Depeche Mode. On both counts Fate steered me in the right direction in sometimes very subtle and obscure ways.

In the case of Depeche Mode, Fate started in Std 8 with Greg. Greg who I sort of fancied who was (and I’m presuming still is) a DM fan. I know this because Greg had Depeche Mode scrawled all over his suitcase and I noticed his suitcase because I sort of fancied him and when you’re in Std 8 you do corny stuff like notice everything about the person you sort of fancy.

When we had a raffle at school, Greg bought ticket number 101. So when ‘101′ was released and ‘Everything Counts’ made it to the ‘Toyota Top 20′ TV show I watched and listened because I knew Greg would be watching and listening. At the end of the song everything counted except Greg. I needed to own that album.

So along came the Gambling. In those days we lived an hour and a bit’s drive away from Sun City and my parents liked to occasionally spend a day there, hopefully winning big enough so that we could actually afford some food. While my parents gambled I browsed in CNA and no surprise, they had ‘101′ just sitting on the shelf all innocent and unpurchased.

At R40 the album was a steal and indeed I considered stealing it because I only had R5 to my name and was not allowed to legally gamble. But I was legally allowed to buy scratch cards. I got lucky at the scratch cards, Dad got lucky at the slots, we had groceries for a month and I got to own my first bit of Depeche Mode ever.

My parents never took to the Mode way of life. My mom took strong exception to the song ‘Blasphemous Rumours’ but only because she caught the line about God having a sick sense of humour. She didn’t think it was funny and she was pretty sure God didn’t either.

I never quite figured out what my dad didn’t like about them, but I know he didn’t like them because when I asked him to play my tape in the car he’d threaten to throw it out the window if there was any Depeche Mode on it. I resorted to taping DM songs between those of London Beat (who? - yes, exactly) and leaving off Blasphemous Rumours so as not to upset the parents. They never noticed the difference and I got to feel like I was being a little subversive. From there it was a short step to me getting a tattoo but that is another story entirely.

The first DM CD I ever bought came at a bad time. It was right after college and before I moved myself to Joburg (okay Kempton Park but it’s close enough when you’re coming from the sticks). I was unemployed and bored and so I found religion. Specifically, the born again Christian type.

Depeche Mode had just released ‘Songs of Faith and Devotion’ which might have been a very spiritual album but certainly didn’t qualify as Christian. At least my born-again self didn’t think so. But I bought the CD anyway because, born-again or not, I was and still am a loyal fan. A loyal fan who felt extremely guilty over the purchase and took solace in the fact that even though I owned it, at least I wasn’t listening to it - we didn’t have a CD player.

Curiosity eventually got the better of me and a friend of my mom’s ripped the CD to tape for me. Amazingly, once I listened to it, lightening didn’t come down from the heavens and smite me for my wickedness. I gave up the born again thing soon after because it was making me fat - no sex, no swearing but but fatty food is okay.

I finally moved off to Kempton Park and got a job. I continued to add to my DM collection, purchasing the CD versions of all the vinyl albums I already owned and once even maxing out my credit card to keep my collection current and complete. I got the videos and DVD’s because what kind of fan would I be if I didn’t have those in my collection. I even bought a pair of Docs because that was what Mode fans wore and what kind of fan would I be if I didn’t have the right foot ware.

Then along came 1994 - a momentous year for South Africa, Depeche Mode finally toured our beautiful country. Okay, so we also had a our first non-racial elections and we won the Rugby World Cup but let’s not get our priorities screwed up.

I was earning R200 a week at the time and wasn’t sure I’d have the money to afford a ticket so I immediately started planning to rob the local ABSA. The plan wasn’t going well though, sperm donor refused to drive the getaway car, I didn’t know where to get a gun and that damn balaclava was just so itchy and stuff. Things were getting desperate. But then Fate stepped in. In a rare moment of insight and generosity sperm donor actually bought the tickets for me as an early (and only, but I’m not complaining) Christmas present. Sperm donor may have given me a crappy set of genes but he sure gave me one of the best gifts ever.

February 11, Standard Bank Arena. I wish I had taken the time then, when I had just gotten home from the concert, to write about the experience, the songs that were played, the mood of the crowd, the thrill of seeing Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andrew Fletcher and Alan Wilder reach out and touch close. But I didn’t. Damn, where were blogs when you really needed them?

It was at that concert that I purchased my first, and so far only, Depeche Mode T-Shirt. Not quite the devoted fan now am I? But if it makes you feel any better the T-Shirt is still kept in the clear plastic bag it came in and so are the remaining ticket stubs. I’ve worn the T-shirt maybe three or four times and when my time on earth is done I fully intend for the T-Shirt to go with my remains to wherever my remains are to remain.

I said there would be more Deception and indeed I have a confession to make:
Dave, Martin, Fletch, I’m sorry but I hope you’ll understand. I strayed a little. I listened to another band. I bought their CDs. I’ve even had naughty dreams about their lead singer - just like I have had naughty dreams about each of you. Again, I am sorry, but if I tell you that this other band is Linkin Park, do you understand? Can you ever forgive me?

While the guys digest this devastating revelation let me get back to the story, specifically a few weeks ago when I wished (but then was sort of glad) that I could not reach through the radio and french kiss the DJ - Nicole Fox may not have appreciated my showing my appreciation that way.

Dear Nicole played the 04 remix of ‘Enjoy the Silence’ and I stopped breathing. Forget naughty undies, nothing breathes new life into a romance like an incredible remix of an incredible song.

I fell in love all over again. And would have rushed out to buy the CD were it not for a little no-shopping rule the Geek and I follow for a month before every gift giving occasion. Rule came about because my Geek would just simply buy what ever it is he wanted which left me with nothing to get him for a Birthday / Christmas / Valentine’s / Arbour Day gift. So now it’s a rule and it works.

Anyway, so even though I wanted the CD as well as the next three box sets (4, 5 and 6 - naturally I already have 1, 2 and 3) I had to put all of that on hold and focus my energies instead on getting my Geek something really fabulous for Christmas. Which I did, by the way. Nothing says I love you more then Woollies Marmalade.

Now I know it would have been all sweet and nice of him to get me the box sets and the Remix album for Christmas and I think he was going to get them for me but then opted for an iPod instead.

Yeah, truly, like I’d choose the box sets over the iPod - I’m a DM fan but I’m not a stoopid DM fan. Besides which, now I can rip all my box sets (which previously adorned the top shelf of my wardrobe because they’re way to precious to be kept in plain site to be seen by the unappreciative) to my iPod and I can actually enjoy them every day, as opposed to saving them for ultra special occasions.

And I got to treat myself to a few post xmas pressies - namely the box sets and the Remix album.

It would perhaps be misleading of me to say that I had my first experience in a threesome yesterday but that is what if felt like when I discovered that the amazing remix that I was prepared to tongue a DJ for was done by none other then Mike Shinoda. From Linkin Park.

For a few moments it was a bit strange having DM and LP share audio space. I felt a little weirded out - like that guy who’s having an affair and one day the mistress says they should have a threesome and she has a friend who is willing and the friend turns out to be the guy’s wife. But then I realised that we’re all adults here and long as it didn’t do any harm to the hi-fi it was all good.

Of course this is not the end of the story, just the end of this chapter. And because I totally suck at decent blog entry endings, I’ll just borrow from ‘Enjoy the Silence’ and leave you with this:

“Words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm”.

He would always try to kill me in winter. It took me years to realise that his attempts at ending my life always happened in winter. He’d come at me and put his hands around my neck and really squeeze for a few seconds before the anger subsided and he’d let go. I’d go to work the next day wearing a scarf to hide the bruises. I guess he knew that he wouldn’t really go through with it even though he had to try. And once he’d tried and failed, he knew his secret was safe, hidden by yet another scarf.

I don’t know why I stayed for 22 years. Perhaps I really liked scarves and needed a reason to buy them. But after 22 years of his trying to kill me he finally realised that the one he really wanted to kill was himself. And so it was that when I came home from work on a lovely summer’s day in December, that also happened to be our 22nd wedding anniversary, I found him hanging from a wooden beam. His one, and only, anniversary gift to me.

The policeman did not understand when I told him that I was responsible. That because I’d refused to die, that finally he had to take his own life to get rid of me. The policeman called it suicide, I called it murder.

During those first few winters, when he would wrap his hands around my throat, I’d fight it, I’d struggle, claw at his face, I’d spit and kick. And all he would do as he squeezed a little harder was smile. He liked that I fought to stay alive. He’d only not kill me then so that he could experience the pleasure again.

But when I realised that I hated wearing scarves, that I’d walk around the whole time feeling as if the scarf was trying to finish what he had started, I decided not to fight any more.

So he came at me again, his hands around my throat, I said a prayer to the God I wasn’t sure I believed in and then I died. I gave up my life and my body gave up its struggle. The first time I did that, he squeezed harder and I started seeing spots before my eyes (was that what my life was, spots?). I could feel my heart slowing down and my lungs slowly folding in on themselves and just before I was sure I’d solve the riddle of God’s existence, he stopped. He let me go. I fell to the floor, I hit my head on something. There was blood.

When I woke up, I was in my own bed, wearing a clean nightie and a bandage around my head. He brought me breakfast, he fussed over me, he held my hand. And he smiled at me. For this, I thought, I’d die again.

And so it went,every winter, he would kill me, I would die and be reborn. He would take care of the new infant that was me.

I miss him, miss the special times we shared when he took care of me and I knew what love really meant. I hope that he is with God now.

The policeman says that I was very brave, to have put up with all that abuse for all those years. The policeman does not understand that it was not abuse, but the cycle of death and rebirth, the cycle of nature, the cycle of life.

My cycle has finally come to and end. As I tie the infinite variety of scarves that I have collected over the years together to make a noose, as I drag a chair from the dining room to the lounge where the ceiling beams are exposed, I think of him.

I know I will not see him on the other side, he is with God I’m sure, just as I am now sure that there is a God. I know that I will be burning in Hell for what I am about to do. But I have no choice, my cycle has ended and there is no one here to squeeze.

With these scarves I damn myself to hell, again, for murder a second time.

The January issue of Cosmopolitan came out on Wednesday. I got myself a copy today because I had an e-mail telling me that my blog was getting a mention or three on their back page. Yes, I am human and have an ego and the only thing of mine that was ever going to get into Cosmo is my blog - my bum is way too big.

Yes, I still got the mention (or three) even though I said some not so nice things in a previous post (refer “Why I’ll only date black men”). I’d like to think that Cosmo is soo cool that they can handle the criticism (someone called it dissing, but I disagree) and still mention my blog in an article. Truth is, the article was written and done long before that entry was posted. They might have done things differently if they had the chance.

I could of course just delete that post and pretend it never happened. But if you’re that guy in the Ukraine that reads my blog regularly to learn English you’ll know that once I publish it, it stays. It might not be the most witty and articulate entry, it might tread on a toes, it might make even me cringe, but still it stays.

I started my blog so that when I list ‘writing’ as a hobby I can actually prove that I do write. Finding things to write about however is not so easy. I didn’t deliberately set out to rip Cosmo to shreds but the only reason I started reading the mag is because I knew I was getting the mention. I had high hopes that they would give me more reasons then a mere ego boost to continue reading. They didn’t.

Of course I could have said nothing but I felt very strongly about that particular article and that issue of the mag in general. A letter to the editor may or may not have gotten published but my blog is available 24-7, and I don’t have to worry about the best bits being edited out.

If you’re visiting my blog for the first time, solely based on the Cosmo mention, well, hello there!

If your’re going to stop reading Cosmo purely because of some comments I made in a previous blog entry, well then Cosmo can probably do without your subscription. I’d like to think that the Cosmo readers (and there are more then a hundred thousand of them) are smart enough to make up their own minds.

And lastly, for the record, the January issue is so worth it, not because of my blog getting a mention (or three) but because they have Ryk Neethling presiding over the whole month of January in an unbuttoned shirt!

I wanted to include the ‘ooh hoo’ bits like from the song but I’m not very good at writing ooh hoo’s in a such a way that even if you’re unfamiliar with the tune you could probably figure it. I also don’t know who sings the song or even if the song is called “Love Hurts” but I do know that line is in the chorus.

Anyway, I had to stop wearing my engagement ring yesterday. No, not because we broke up, we will never break up and if my Geek ever tries to break up with me I will hunt him down, tie him up and keep him locked in the bathroom. Forever. It helps that he would do exactly the same thing to me were I ever stupid enough to even think about breaking up with him. Yes, our relationsip is part mutual admiration society, part obsessive stalker and it works just fine.

Getting back to the ring, I had to take it off because this being the hottest summer in Hell, sorry I meant Cape Town, my fingers keep swelling and my ring was chafing my finger rather badly. It hurt a lot so I had to take it off.

The ring itself has always been a bit small and my Geek did offer to get it made bigger but I had waited a loooong time (like from about five minutes after meeting him in person for the first time) for this ring and no way was I taking it off and giving it back to him. Even temporarily. What if, God forbid, he decided there was so much more he could be doing with his life and his credit card limit then wasting it on jewellry and a lifetime commitment to me? Not a chance I was willing to take, despite what I said in paragraph two.

But it got really bad, you understand, so I had to take it off and now I’m sitting here wondering if I am still as engaged without the ring as I was with it? The answer is probably a yes but I’m still expecting some comments at work today about me not wearing it.

That is assuming my colleagues notice. It took them nearly an entire day to notice it in the first place. I don’t know how they failed to notice it, it’s not a small ring, or rather, it’s not a small rock.

I mean when colleagues did finally notice, one guy took a look at my ring and exclaimed (in Afrikaans) “Is hy mal!?!”

Roughly translated this means “Is he out of his frigging mind? What right-thinking, sober, sane man would spend all that money on a ring. He could be out buying serious power tools, season tickets to Newlands and maybe a sports car. Either he loves you way more then you can imagine or it’s fake. I’m going with option b because nothing that big can possibly be real and no one person can ever love another that much anyway.”

Of course I might have misunderstood him, spending three years and one term in an Afrikaans language school really doesn’t qualify me as an accurate translater.

Right, so I’m posting this ringless - which just sounds so wrong on so many levels - here at work where no one has yet noticed. Whether they notice or not is rather irrelevant in any case as I still feel naked without it, as if I came to work not wearing a bra. I’ve realised that I just don’t have enough perk to go around braless.

I am seriously considering going home at lunch time and putting my ring on. But what if I do wear it for the whole day and the chafing gets so bad I get my whole finger chafed off? What would I do with the finger - give it to my Geek?

“Here Honey, have a finger!”. Just what kind of message is that going to send out? That I love him a lot but not enough to give him a whole arm, just a finger. And isn’t giving someone the finger a rather rude thing to do?

Luckily for me I’ll be working through my lunchtime so I don’t have to worry about making any rash decisions. Meanwhile, please excuse me as I need to nip off to the ladies to, uh, pep up my perk.

Sometimes working late has its little moments.

It was late yesterday, after normal business hours were over and done with that my boss (no. 1) found out that our company had won some award. My other boss (no.2) was really excited about this.

Here’s the scene, the three of us standing at the top of the stairs discussing this. Well, when I say discussing, it was more like boss no. 1 grinning like the Cheshire Cat (because he got the news first) while boss no. 2 was making whooping noises, doing the whole “yes’ thing complete with hand motions. I just stood there smiling and think ja, whatever.

Up the stairs comes another co-worker, takes one look at this scene and asks, “Who’s leaving?”

Today I had yet another disappointing lunch from the company canteen - fish biryani. I knew I should have opted for a plate of hot chips but I was just so excited at there still being ‘meals of the day’ left over that I didn’t stop to think why, I just grabbed.

It might not have been so bad were it not for the the octopus tentacles cooked to the point where Moses could have used them to carve out the ten commandments. I didn’t finish it,could not finish it and ended up throwing about half of it away, feeling very guilty as I did so.

You see, when I was a child my parents were always sure to remind me of all those starving children (then in Ethiopia) that did not have any food while I was wasting mine. So for a brief moment I considered sending my leftover fish biryani via FedEx to wherever starving children find themselves in the world today, but then realised the poor sods might mistake my philanthropy for misanthropy.

The canteen, though, is the least of my worries in that place. What really gets me is working hours of overtime and Saturdays too for zero pay, the vague hint of a Christmas bonus (that you can be sure will be put to better use sending the CEO off to Paris or the Caribbean) and the odd thank you, which is immediately followed by “…but this needs changing, that is wrong, and the other thing I have yet to think of but will remember just before you want to leave so that you can end up staying for an extra few hours”.

You see our CEO lives and works in another country, on another continent, in a time zone several hours behind ours which means that when we’re near ready to drop, he’s just arrived at work all bright and perky.

We pretty much get on with things here at the tip of Africa, despite his absence. We build boats that may spring the occasional leak but none yet have sunk (and even if they had, we can find a hurricane somewhere to blame). We don’t need him and he knows that we don’t need him. But rather than letting us get on with the job while he sits back and makes money, he has to remind us that he is the boss and must do as he says and if we don’t like it, well, we’re more then welcome to leave.

Most don’t. They have kids to feed, accounts to pay, bookies to pay - the usual, and unless they have another source of income, they can’t leave the current one.

Funnily enough, I don’t have these problems. Well, I do have accounts to pay (I love my credit card) but the cat is the only kid in the house and she doesn’t eat that much (also she could, in theory, catch her own dinner - but that is only if things are really desperate and her humans fail her completely you understand). And I stopped gambling when I realised I get better value for money at Sweets from Heaven (I can always look at my hips and see where my money went).

I’m very fortunate that my Geek is in IT and hence earns caboodles of money (like every one ‘in IT’ does -don’t they?)so he can afford to support both of us, mainly because I’m cheap (cheap as in I prefer sensible, hard wearing, long lasting practical shoes and the two outfits that match those shoes).

So why don’t I quit? Simple, I feel like I don’t have a good enough reason yet. I know it sounds crazy but I’m really waiting for the one event / comment that just pisses me right off the edge (bit of a peculiar visual but you know what I mean), then I can pick up my handbag and flounce out of there and drive off into the righteously indignant sunset. Until then I feel l need to stay here.

Besides, unemployment scares me. At home I have ADSL and a PS2 to keep me busy. If my Geek gives me just a few days of unemployment I’ll give him back the me that lives in her pj’s for days, playing games, surfing the net, watching way too many Ricki Lake reruns and he’ll have to live on pizza because I simply won’t have had time to cook (I was busy). He might not mind living on pizza but when I no longer leave our bedroom because I can’t fit through the door he may become a little worried.

So I stay, promising myself that I’ll quit just before Christmas shut-down, when I know the bonus is a non-event. Or maybe I’ll wait till after our wedding in February,when I’m decently married. Or I could wait until I’m pregnant and be a stay at home mom. Or maybe I should just wait for retirement - only another 30 years away.

In the meantime I ate the biryani in the hopes that it would make me violently ill and I could at least go home early. That plan didn’t work. But maybe tomorrow I should retrieve my leftovers from their resting place and have them for breakfast. Then I could stop feeling guilty about the starving kids and end up on my Christmas break two weeks before the rest of the company.

Hospital food has got to be better then the biryani.

Not the most original title, but until I can think of something better it will have to do.

For the first time in my entire adult life I finally have my Christmas shopping done weeks (three of them) before the big day. Go me.

This is a very serious and important milestone for me. Usually I leave shopping, be it for birthday, Christmas, anniversary, Valentine’s or whatever to a day or two before the event. Then I dash into the largest mall that is closest to home and run around trying to find that something perfect for the someone perfect in my life. Of course there never is anything perfect to be had so I end up buying a metric tonne of crap stuff in the belief that quantity is always more appreciated that quality. I know and you know it’s not true, but I have to delude myself and my aching feet into believing that all that last minute panic buying is worth it.

But not this year, oh no, I took myself off to Tyger Valley and in just over two hours (had it been just under two hours parking would have been free, making it a perfect shopping day) had everything I felt I needed. There is still one item outstanding but that’s just one of those things and totally under control I might add.

I can’t say too much, my someone perfect reads this blog as well, don’t want to spoil it for him. Except I now cannot wait for Christmas - I am so excited. I love giving presents, watching people’s faces as they unwrap their gift gently, or rather gingerly, whilst praying for something nice and then getting something horrible and having to pretend they love it to bits (oops, will you look at that, I dropped that lovely vase you gave me and it’s shattered into a thousand pieces, oh dear). Just kidding, I really do love it when I give someone something they really wanted - the look on their face is so worth it.

Some dweeb whom I once dated (and who had yet to admit to himself that he was in the closet to begin with) gave me a really crappy gift - this after his hinting about how wonderful it was. Turned out to be some bubble bath and soap. Oh yeah, originality and thoughtfulness, two totally overrated concepts when applied to gift giving. And there I was thinking I was getting a microwave oven, Lord knows I hinted my heart out for it. Bastard, I hope he suffocates in that closet. (Why did I date him? Because I was lonely and desperate and there was bugger all else to watch on TV).

Buying gifts can be frustrating, expensive, stressful and downright scary. So what is the secret to my success this year (and it was a success, I even have the pressies wrapped and tagged)?

First off, I adopted the rule that I only buy gifts for the people I spend Christmas day with. Last year I spent a good bit of money and even more time on buying gifts for the family, even though I would not be spending the day with them. Some have yet to call and say “thank you, your gift totally sucked but at least you thought of me even though I couldn’t give a toss about you”.

Then I moved so damn far away from anyone that the only person I’m spending Christmas Day with is my Geek and I prefer it that way. It’s a helluva drive for us to go round to the folks, both mine and his and with Christmas being on a Saturday and him having to work the following week, it’s just not practical for us to go there. God I love being 30, I can get away with lame excuses like “it’s just not practical” instead of the honest “no fucking way do I want to spend Christmas day with my ’sad’ (my mother’s euphemism for suicidal) brother”.

When I arrived at the mall, I had a list and a plan. I knew what I wanted to get and where I could get it. Granted I did not get everything on my list and added an item or two, but because I had a plan, I didn’t spend hours thinking “will he like this, is it a good idea to get it for him, let me have a look at a few more places before I decide” Indecisive being the nicest thing I can say about myself - I end up wandering around the mall like a lost fart in a perfume factory (my dad just loves this expression, I have no idea why), feet aching, hungry, dazed, confused and buying stuff totally not related to the gifts I was looking for - not that I knew what I was looking for in the first place.

As I said though, this year the shopping is all done. I stuck to the plan. I am so damn proud of myself, this may be my single biggest personal achievement of the year. No Gran, getting engaged is not an achievement, times have changed you know.

Oh shit, forgot about all the Christmas peripherals, you know tree, decorations, crackers, cards, tinsel, booze, food. Guess I’ll be heading back to the mall.

But at least I have the presents - isn’t that what Christmas is all about?