Home Sweet Home

Beautiful moon lamps...

Thinking about having my own house - okay, okay, my own flat - next year has really activated some recessive homely genes in me. I dream about decorating, cooking, baking, shopping and organising all day... What's wrong with me?!

No, being absolutely serious here - having a home for the first time is a pretty exciting thing. Not some room in a big house of little homes, where you are like a tiny insect in a big hive and you don't really matter - but a house (no matter how small) that is yours, and yours alone... And obviously also that of the person or people you choose to share it with. Making my own decisions, taking responsibility for my own life and just plain rocking every single day is what I look forward to.

How beautiful are these little plant-pods?

In the spirit of home decorating and starting to think of what I would like in my own home, I wanted to share a really awesome website with you - LikeCOOL is totally awesome, and everything on it is interesting, awesome, mostly beautiful and awe-inspiring. Find everything on there from gadgets, home stuff and appliances, food, clothing... Pretty much anything that counts as interesting, unique, cutting edge and certifiable design eye candy goes there. Never has my heart drooled for things like these before. Bookcases such as this beautiful, fun and quirky alphabetised storage system are busy rocking my world, I would do anything for any number of the amazing wall clocks they post about - and this Nintendo ES coffee table never ceases to amaze me!

Look at this hidden piano table - wouldn't you sell your children for it?

...and this beautiful sculptural furniture also blows my mind away.

Take a look at the homeware, and tell me you would be able to resist it! If this is what porn is like to men, I understand. I finally understand. I never want to stop looking!

A Time of Dreams...

These exams have been not only a time for study, but have also offered me a chance to reflect on me, my interests and my dreams for my life. Increasingly, I see my interests manifest themselves in all kinds of ways in every aspect of my life, and I spend days dreaming up elaborate plans for my life, incorporating all things I find interesting, enjoyable and that I have a passion for. And finally, for the first time since early childhood, I have found a mind-space that is both serene and incredibly exciting at the same time - my dreams seem to line up, each more colourful than the last, beckoning me to test the waters and my ability to fulfill them.

The first of these dreams of mine is to start making my own clothing. Ever since I was able to read, fashion magazines were my drug of choice, and I could spend days drooling over outfits and pieces that I would never see in real life - let alone own. Luckily, I have outgrown my phase of moronic label deification, and I would love nothing more in the whole world to make and wear my own clothes.

Making a series of life-sized ragdolls over the duration of the last two years (wow, excluding this year - it's already over!) has reinforced my confidence in my ability to sew and to envision beautiful things. Call me a material girl, because my love affair with cloth is a deep, passionate and inextricable one. If I had to count the amount of times a friend or family member has asked me (with humour, concern, and sometimes both) if I could ever have enough clothes. The answer? No. Never. Raiding second-hand stores for unique, eclectic timeless and not-so-timeless pieces is my favourite hobby, and if I could be able to turn this hobby of mine into a business plan, I think my life troubles would be solved.

What troubles can't, when clothes are involved?


My second most pervasive dream is that of making vegan meals for myself and Ben. I look at different recipes for everything from salads, baked goods, pot pies, cakes and breakfasts from morning until night, and I ache for the luxury of having my own stove and oven - and my own rules. My imagination sees this interest (read: obsession) extending into the future in the form of a 100% vegan restaurant, working on slow, organic food principles and simply existing for the pure pleasure (harm-free!) of environmentally and ethically conscious individuals. I envision a big garden, with a jumble of different pieces of furniture and cushions and bright, wild plants surrounding it, blocking out the noise from whichever city I choose to live in one day... I will serve big salads, cold dishes, warm dishes, a wide array of desserts (this is one thing people don't understand about veganism - it tastes damn good!) and just about anything that comes to mind. Maybe I could even sell some pieces of my own homemade clothing there as well!

...dreaming feels so good.

The Problem with Today

The problem with today is that we have been turned into big, fat, all-consuming children. Too comfortable in our materialistic ignorance and our vapid entertainment to ask any questions, to work towards a common goal or to improve our society. Firstly, the world economy forces us into this position with the unbeatable forces of the media, the government, the corporation, and the endless allure of more, more, more money on its side. To see the large, naked animal, greased up and depraved, all intuition completely lost with years of unnatural consumption and over-simplification, makes me completely crazy.

It's sickening. I can honestly say that I am ashamed to be a part of this weak, unnatural race that is wiping itself and all around it out in the blink of an eye, relative to the age of the earth.

Those who are not completely blinded by their lifestyles of over-indulgence and ignorance are also unable to do anything. The complete and utter inability of anyone to truly see and understand the state of our planet and our species (I don't claim to, myself) is causing our final disintegration into nothingness. Humankind most definitely has a suicide complex, and it is going about it as quickly, as efficiently and as disgustingly obtrusive and destructive as possible. The utter helplessness that I feel, as well as many, many more people out there, is a direct cause of the deliberate scattering of our attentions, the trickery of our minds and the enslavement of our psyches. We are not only doing absolute and utter wrong to ourselves, our fellow human beings, our fellow creatures and the planet that bore us, but we are doing it happily and there does not seem to be a single answer to the dilemma.

We don't leave one chicken uncaged, or one cow untethered or unmilked. We can't stomach the truth about the meat industry, so instead of mobilizing, joining forces and changing things, we are frozen stiff with our inability to act and to think and to reason. Instead of reducing personal carbon emissions, we look to corrupt businessman-politicians for answers, - of which there are none to find here. Instead of switching off our computers and taking a walk or reading a book...

We stare, transfixed, insipid. Dead.

I had an argument with someone two days ago. My argument was that every person who chooses to eat meat and to enjoy dairy and egg products should be forced to study the whole lives of the animals they feed from so easily and with such ferocity. From birth to death, study that chicken, fish, cow, lamb, ostrich, leather handbag and shoes (I mean, snake) or whatever other animal whose life it is you have claimed as your rightful property. Spare no gruesome PETA video or animal rights poster - because they don't stage those situations, they are truly happening every single day (and worse, I am convinced). The person I was arguing with could say nothing more insightful or more thoughtful than: "But... that's so cruel". "To whom?" I asked. "To people - you can't just do that to people!". What am I doing, exactly? Am I violating your right to ignorance? Am I offending your delicate sensibilities - oh, I'll excuse you to wipe that bit of chicken dribble off of your chin - by way of telling you the truth?

When the truth becomes outlawed, you know you have a serious problem.

"Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." - Chief Seattle

Scatterings of Scattered Scatter...

I've been wracking my brains to figure out why I find it so hard to update my blog recently, and I have come to the conclusion that it is a side-effect of the debilitating illness all modern human beings suffer from - the extremely short, scattered attention span. Ever since the birth of the computer, people have been thinking less, but still thinking more... Confusing? I mean to say that people might think about more different things, they think less about these things. I see it manifest in the smallest parts of my life - picking a movie to watch on a weekend night - as well as the largest - what the hell do I want to do for the rest of my life?! - and it has become an extremely frustrating and ubiquitous part of my daily existence.

To combat this, I find reading a book I enjoy - truly and deeply, for no other reason than that - to be quite helpful in centering the mind and allowing it some well-deserved rest. Being able to do it all and think it all is actually not so impressive. It has made me into some half-formed and completely uninteresting creature not fit to assume the name of 'human' - which I am really not pleased about. Being a brain-vegetable is a despicable and lowly waste of time, food, oxygen and space.

If you're reading this - and if you have a short attention span or... HEY LOOK! A butterfly!

Anyway, as I was saying - if you are reading this and know what I am talking about, do yourself a favour and turn off your computer. Read a book. The last book I really loved was Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. I also read Kerouac's On the Road, but found that it had been oversold to me, and had subsequently under-delivered. Right now, I am reading A.S. Byatt's Angels & Insects, a book that is filling me with happiness as we speak.

...I think I'll go devote some attention to that piece of art right now.

Love!

Exam time!

Hello, everybody!

Here, things have been going... Well, things have been going. Very busy, very tiring, very crazy, so, so, so, so, so, so exhaustingly crazy! Right now, I don't even have the energy to write you a proper blog post. I really hope I will be able to, soon, because I know you feel a little let down at my tardiness.

My first exam is on Saturday - Macroeconomics, woop! I will be studying like a crazy little ferret for the next few days. Look out for a new blog post really soon, as in really very soon! About... Monday?

Happy, happy sleep...

Medical experiments...

If you thought that students only agreed to be part of dodgy medical experiments for cash in movies, think again! I am spending the day as a bona fide guinea pig for Dr. Mike Skinner's skin blanching studies. This morning at 7am sharp, he applied some corticosteroid cream onto small spots of my arms, and if my skin reacts to the cream by lightening sufficiently, I will have bought my ticket to a weekend's stay at the medical centre and R950 at the end of it all!

It's safe. Really.

Playing dress-up...

As most of you know, charity and hospice shops are pretty much my favourite kinds of shops, even more so than candy shops and shops where you can buy good essays. And my kind of shopping puts Sex and the City to shame in that way that only a whole wardrobe of yummy new stuff for only R99 can. Today, I made a serious mission down to the Sunflower Hospice Shop in Grahamstown and came back with some super-snazzy buys. Remember, I said R99. Only. For all this. Oh my god.

Check them out, and let me know what you think!

Brown high-rise harem pants
and white ribbon:Blue jersey and white Daniel
Hechter denim slacks:
Light blue cut-off top and
white cloak overcoat:

Purple shirt-dress:

Black cross-over halterneck
evening gown:

Deep red evening
gown:

Purple evening gown
with velvet floral
inset: