I am legned. And so are all of you.

It’s always strange for me when I get recognised in real life from blogging.  I’ve had a dude in Jhb walk up to me in the Spar and make me autograph his Spar slip recently.  There I was, trying to not look obvious buying tampons and the stranger up’s himself against my behind, taps my shoulder and says “dude, tell me you’re SheBee and I’m not making an ass of myself?”.  I was shocked. I also kicked my own ass because in hindsight he was a hottie and I totally should’ve got my flirt on.

Getting emails from anonymous readers has been interesting.  I was once sent a whole list of random questions from “what colour is your nail polish today” to “did you really fall in front of Ryan Kankowski that one time?  I’ve been sent hate mail, which is par for the course I suppose, especially because my views don’t always gel with everyone else’s.  I’ve been interviewed a few times too, the most recent one being over here. Oh yes, and I was on the radio that one time for blogging.

Of course, nothing beats my birthday from last year, where I jokingly put up a wish list of really insanely optimistic gifts and my readers went out of their way to make sure I got each and every item on that list barring one times hairy man.  But then again, I do have Bergen Larsen in my life now, and his beard is so damn sexy.

Pity he went all blind date on me and got himself a new giiiiiirlfriend before I got back to Jhb to claim his fine self for me.

All in all, I’ve been a really lucky girl blogger.  I’ve got the best readers anyone could ask for. You guys laugh at me, you support me, you spoil me and you entertain me.  I’ve had other bloggers claim jealousy and say that it’s not fair that their readers aren’t as cool as mine and I agree – it must suck.

But now I have something extra to add to my list.  Lee-Ann Liebenberg.  You know, the hot if-I-was-lesbian-I’d-totally-do-her South African model and celebrity?  She totally sent me a message on facebook after adding me saying she was a fan of this here blog.  DO YOU KNOW HOW COOL THAT IS, PEOPLE?  I have a famous person, right in this very cyber domain, saying she sits at her computer and reads the shit that I churn out.  How awesome.

So, hi Lee-Ann!  Here’s a shout out to you babe, thanks for making my Sunday evening

But mostly, this is a general thank you to all my readers, for making this blogging thing so much fun for me, even when the writing is not.

A catch up :D

I’m in Durban at the moment.  Well, Scottburgh if you really want to get technical.  It’s funny how my brother Brandon and I always tend to move at the same time.  His girlfriend and him decided that life wasn’t coshure together and so they’ve gone their seperate ways.  This provides great excitement for him as he is now able to live the life of a young 20 something batchelor in his own young man’s dream pad.  It overlooks the ocean, has a kick ass wooden deck and he’s got all the equipment and tools to make other boys jealous.

All my furniture and kitchen utensils have been moved into his place and we spent the evening last night drinking beer and eating pizza while we unpacked to the beats of UK top 40 and then watched movies.  He’s sad but he’s so brave and determined to make his home awesome, and it will be.  Pity he’s having to shower in his old empty flat as his new place doesn’t have water until Monday morning.  This morning I woke up to him swearing and shouting cos the toilet wouldn’t flush (no water) and the sewage has an odorous problem which he has to live with until a plumber can come out tomorrow.  On the plus side, he has been taught (by me, I’m so clever) how to make omlette’s in the microwave.

I’ll be going to Cape Town this weekend I think.  It’s the blog awards ceremony which I really want to be a part of, and I have a couple of things to attend to for NerdMag with my awesome partner, then back to Jozi from there.  I feel like I should be investing in Kulula Airlines what with all the travelling I’ve been doing of late.

We had 27Dinner in Durban on Friday night.  What a jol.  I had no idea what I was going to be speaking about right up until I stood in front of 30 people and opened my mouth.  It was really good to meet some of the attendee’s, Justin was MC for the evening and it suited him so well.  Marc Forrest was the quiet force behind us organising the shindig and Cath sat quietly until she couldn’t anymore and promptly stood up and said “I wanna speak too, goddamnit!”.  We can only keep her quiet for so long at these things, eventually she can’t contain herself and her dynamic personality has to come out   Mike Stopforth was a lot quieter than I imagined and I must thank him for coming through despite having had to turn down an invitation to view the live cricket game from a box with the opportunity to mingle with some impressive CEO’s in Jo’burg.

Oh, I totally climbed into the wrong car last night and started bitching to some poor man about how sucky the spar is in Scottburgh.  I only realised this when I looked up to stunned silence and his alarmed eyes telling me that I was fully in the wrong car with the wrong person.  My bad, Steven, thanks for not calling the cops on me!

Veet. Not for sissies.

I’m republishing an oldie, because I’m veeting my legs right now and I think of this post every time.

I have the unfortunate luck of resembling a close likeliness to a bavarian slash german slash italian captain of hairiness. I was first in line for ass, boobs and hair. It hasn’t always been like this, one day I woke up pregnant (I know, weird) and all my hormones had undergone a sex change without asking me. Out of the blue, hair just popped up everywhere! So I started waxing, and thus started the beginning of a beautiful relationship with my beauty therapist, Lysa. Lisa with a ‘y’. The coolest chic from uk to live in sa. i love her to bits. But she decided to go on holiday and then when she came back she went and got all engaged. Now she lives far away. How rude.

One day I decided to take it upon myself to do a self wax, with those strippy things. Motherfucker! You could call it painful. I thus switched to veet. Perfect solution; no pain, no heat, no strips. Just smear it on and wait. When the time bell rings, go take it off. Easy peasy. Ha! Easy schmeasy! I only got it right after the fourth try. Eventually it occurred to me to remove the bloody stuff before I felt a fire-like burning sensation right into every one of my skin cells.
I’ve been watching TV lately, caught up on all my soapies (love Isidingo!) but more importantly, I’ve been watching adverts (foreigner translation: commercials) and have been checking out the latest veet invention, In-Shower Hair Removal Cream, is what they call it. One step up from normal Veet cream. Woo hoo. I love trying new things! Of course today when I was in the shop, I had to buy it. But never did I think it would make so little sense!
For example:
1.  Follow these directions for use: DO NOT SWALLOW. (Er… okaaaaay?!)

2.  Before showering, apply cream evenly onto the skin using the soft, coloured side of the sponge.

3.  Once applied, wait one minute before entering shower. (Simple enough… obviously to soak into the hair follicles and all that)

4.  Make sure the cream stays on for an additional two minutes without exceeding 6 minutes of total application times whilst in the shower, ensuring your creamed area does not get wet. (What. the. fuck?! How am I expected to stand in the shower and NOT get wet? More importantly, why stand in the shower at all? One step further, why, for the sweet love of jelly beans, say ‘it takes two minutes’ when already I have wasted atleast five climbing into the shower trying not to get wet?)

5.  The cream will gradually be washed away from the water (aaah, so it does allow for wetness eventually, then) but to ensure complete hair removal, use the white side of the sponge to scrub gently. (Now maybe I’m completely nuts, or the veeting factory fucked up big time, but there are only two sides of this sponge, and neither one of them is bloody white!)

I have been left with no choice but to believe that they called it In-Shower Hair removal because there is some mysterious hair removal ingredient in the tiles of ones shower unbeknown to the rest of us, that assists hair removal better than, lets say, the lounge for example.

Mental note: call Lisa with a ‘y’ first thing, and get a referral. I’m going back to bloody waxing.

Footnote: No hair follicles or skin cells were damaged in the writing of this post. They were all too frigging fused by that time!

14 posts from the last year. It’s been a good year :)

Some of the following posts done in the last year that made me laugh when I wrote them.  What with the up and coming awards I thought I’d rehash through some of them and list them here.  Because I’m manipulative like that:

1. My ultimate favourite:  The car hijacking story.
2. Millicent the Grape.  A story on hemorrhoids.
3. A vibrating toothbrush issue.
4. The day my mother removed my eyebrow.  And other hair follicle horrors in the salon of doom.
5. Twitter Twucking.  Taking cyber to the next level.
6. Howling back at dogs.  Yes, for real.
7. My idea of what a real man should be like.
8. Falsely getting engaged and telling the family.  By mistake.
9. Hahahaaaa! Getting turned down for sex.
10. My country bumpkin mother comes to the city for a weekend visit.  Lawd help me.
11. How to not date.  Seriously.
12. An online conversation that has me giggling to this day.
13. Yoga.  It’s a motherbitch.
14. A really bad day.  And quitting smoking.

And I’m stopping now.  Cos I’d go on forever.

Are you going to help me get famous? You should. Oh please help me!

You know, there are fewer things in this life I loathe more than really bad punctuation.  Even though I’m a writer and a blogger (“no, really? omfg!) I make spelling mistakes and typos on my blog all the time, I’m lazy on my blog – I know that, but there are some things that are totally unforgiveable… Such as exclaiming with a million exclamation marks.

I mean really, look at this, it couldn’t sum up how I feel more (usually):

Okay.  So yes, it’s dumb.  There’s no need, ever, for more than one.  Except for only other time this is ever allowed.  Read further, dear reader.

Soooooo, that little widget/badge thingie that used to be over –>there?  It’s gone for a reason:

I MADE TOP TEN FINALISTS FOR BEST HUMOROUSESTEST SA BLOG AWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There I was, laying in a warm bath of my own filth and soap infused bubbles, fiddling on twitter when I got a notification from one of my followers that I had been nominated as a finalist.  I’d just stated that I was about to check the list to see which of my favourites were on it but was enjoying the jazzy music and bubbles too much to get out of the bath.  However, when I read that tweet you can imagine me dropping my blackberry almost in the water in my effort to propel this body out of the bath faster than a nun all over her rosary. Only to realise I forgot a towel. Fast forward two minutes, I’m running up and down the farm house corridors, one room after another (full of bubbles, totally kaal gat) in search of my laptop to see for myself.

Fucking Wooo! I really shouldn’t be this stoked about something so unimportant, but dude.  Do you know how long I’ve been blogging for?  Everytime these awards come around I’ve not entered or gone MIA.  So to know that out of all of South Africa’s funny blogs, mine was nominated as one of the ten funniest?  That’s just far too much attention for my little big ego to ignore, yo. Also, the prizes?  They’re awesome.

Anyway, you can help me bring this title home.  How?  By voting for me of course!  Go here.  Scroll to the third category, click on the li’l circle next to shebee.co.za and then scroll down to where you enter your email.  Lastly, don’t forget to confirm the link that will be sent to your inbox or the vote you just made (with high intelligence, wit and good nature) will be null and void.  NULL and VOID, motherfudgers.

Other people you can vote for are the ones I chose in my ballot, you know – if you want, snot serious if you don’t agree:

South African Blog of the Year:
mushypeasontoast.blogspot.com

Best Entertainment Blog:
bangersandnash.com

Best Overseas South African Blog:
southafricanseamonkey.blogspot.com

Best Original Writing on a South African Blog:
6000.co.za

Best Blog about Politics:
classicmalema.co.za

Best Photographic Blog:
jeanetteverster.com

Best New Blog:
geekology.co.za

Best Science and Technology Blog:
imod.co.za

Best Music Blog:
musicalmover.wordpress.com

Best South African Podcast:
thezashow.com

Best Group Blog:
moralfibre.co.za

Most Controversial Blog:
hayibo.com

Best Personal Blog:
expensivemistakescheapthrills.co.za

If I win this year, I swear to god I will take a picture of me blogging with joker make up on.  And donate clothes* to some or other charity or whatever.

* Must be clothes, I haz no money** to give.

** While you’re at it, offer me a job dudes.  Where I can write and do social media shiz from home.

A looooong brain fart. Cos I feel like it.

If you’ve been anywhere near twitter or one of my IM accounts, you would have heard the rumours of me moving to Johannesburg.  Yes, it’s true.  No, I don’t know why I’m doing it – it just feels right in my gut.  So many things happen here in the land of concrete, smog & stone.  And in the last few weeks of me being here, more things have happened for me personally and for my magazine than in all of the time I spent in Durban.

I gave notice on my flat at the beginning of the month already, I had been here less than a week but I think subconsciously I had already decided that a change was imminent and that I wasn’t going back there.  I’ll miss Seh and Kords so much, we really had such a good understanding going on.  The friendship will continue though. I’ll miss Simbatoffee, the cat who peed on my bed all the time, but Seh loves him enough for all of us in order for me to not feel bad about leaving yet another pet behind.  Most of all, I’ll miss being so close to my family.  Cam and Arfur would come around weekly, and Jazz and Cinderella were only a phone call away if ever I wanted to get out and do something different.  My friends Cath & Justin & Jubs & Shar were all in and around Durban, so I’ll miss the nearer vicinity more than them, purely because we all communicate through technology more than anything else anyway.

Sure, my family doesn’t approve.  Sure, my friends are upset with me.  Sure, it’s caused a massive fucking bone of huge contention with basically everyone who doesn’t live in Jozi, but I just know that I have to do this for me, now.  My mom.  Sigh.  She’s not a happy chappy.  She worries I’m going off on a tangent again, doing my own thing.  Making a mistake.  Giving up my family to chase another pipe dream.  But honestly, I’m 25 this year, there’s only so long I can sit around and hope my dreams fall magically into my lap.  It’s time I start living them, or at least trying to chase them long enough until something gives and I get my own way.

Durban was my biggest step towards total adulthood and independence.  It was a time in my life where I made good, life long friends and for the first time in my life I was totally responsible for my actions in every way, I didn’t have my mom just ten km’s up the road should I need money for milk and bread or just someone to put my head down on a lap and cry until my problems were taken care of.  A lot of that had to do with Cath.  With her as a friend and flatmate, she eased me into the transition of being a young(ish) mommy’s girl to an independant woman.  I remember clearly the first thing she said to me after we agreed on moving in together:  “this room, Sheen, the room you’re moving into, is the very same room I started my adult life.  I hope it will be the same for you.  I hope you will grow in the same personal way I did, in this room”.  And it was.  It was my first taste of city living (I had moved up from the small town suburban life, if you remember), it was my first personal achievement in the way I made a success of my job, the way I made a name for myself in the marine industry, the way I grew in confidence, independence & self control.  The way I relied on myself with my friends support.  The way I learnt to have a melt down without running back home to put my tail between my legs every time something went wrong.  And oh, they so went wrong sometimes.

But more importantly, things went right.  In gaining all this personal growth, I learnt to trust my own instinct.  Instinct on people, intuitions, impulse & actions.  And so far, one year down the line, I feel like I’ve come out on the other end a better, stronger person.  And I didn’t resort to my cave very seriously like I used to in the past.  But learning from the past, has made me realise it’s time to start thinking of the future.

Here in Jhb, I have the opportunity to live a quiet writers life.  I have enough income to let me live but more importantly, enough time in the day to be dedicated to my writing.  I need to really knuckle down and get some work into NerdMag.  Things are going insanely well for this little mag of mine and I am so immensely proud of the work my business partner, Shawn, and I have put into it, along with the brilliant brain feeds and articles of the contributing writers, suggestions from readers & input from external businesses.  I feel that we’ve tapped into a market that is not only ripe for the picking, but waiting for someone to kick its ass to the wall and I plan on instigating all of that.

I think it’s time to say, dear readers of mine, that finally The SheBee is growing up.  I even have frown lines to prove it.  But laugh lines too, which is so much more important.

So, yes.  I’m moving to Jozi.  And I think I’ll be okay.

Webafrica FTL!

As some of you know, I’ve been up in Jhb helping out a good friend of mine getting her business site up and running.  Webafrica hosts this site and despite calling numerous times to their horrid call centre, emailing them only to receive the same reply, I am still waiting on the details I need in order to load the domain onto wordpress.org

I’m at a loss as to what I should do.  Do you have any contacts / suggestions for me?  I need to get this done now, my friend is growing impatient and I have had a bit of a sense of humour failure about it.

Webafrica hasn’t missed this one by a ball hair, its more like a russian frikking armpit!

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The end of the long weekend and it was time for me to go back to the farm. As I packed my bags and sipped the last of my tea, Carrot’s best friend waited in the doorway to carry my luggage to the car. I held the door open as he chucked the bag into the car and started playing with the radio volume while he faffed about outside.

At the robots I noticed Theo looking back with a frown on his face, one ear cocked to the side as if trying to listen to something. Turning towards him, I waited to see what he was after. Raising one eyebrow, he turned down the radio and looked at me, and then to my luggage. It was buzzing.

You know when you start blushing uncontrollably, even though you’re not guilty? Yeah, I did that. I knew exactly what he was thinking. “I think you should, um, check your bag. The batteries might run flat”, he sniggered.

No matter how much I “oh-my-god’ed” and “it’s-not-what-you-think-it-is’ed” he roared with laughter to the point where he had to pull over and hold his ribs. After thirty seconds of being laughed at, I climbed over the front seat to unzip my bloody bag, determined to find out what it was (knowing I did not have anything suspect at all!) and pulled out a buzzing purple culprit of plastic. It was my new vibrating toothbrush.

A fucking toothbrush! Honestly!

Sometimes a good spewing of words is in order. For me.

Sometimes death brings people together that should’ve been together long before tragedy strikes.  Long lost friendships are rekindled, family feuds are ended, new acquintances made.  Spending the last few days at Carrots house, sleeping in his old bedroom, in his parents home, has taught me that life is too short to hold grudges, too insecure to not act out on feelings and emotions and too unstable to rely on other people making plans that you should follow.

Carrot specified as a joke, only one week before he died, that he wanted to be cremated and that the wake should happen at his favourite pub.  He even told his dad what song he wanted to play – Life is a highway.  And so we listened, danced, drank shooters that were created in December by him and last night, his best friend and I slept under the stars.

His parents are so brave, so unbelievably strong and so absolutely determined to make it through this.  I wish that I had been this absolute when my child died, it would have saved me years of being comfortably numb and I might just have gotten a few more things done on my bucket list for life. I’ve made a promise to Carrot’s mom.  It has been something she has nagged me about for years, something that worried and disturbed her.  And something I was adamant I would do in my own time.  She asked me to finally do something with Kiera’s ashes.  Since the day that little packet of dust arrived at my moms house, I put them in my moms cupboard and closed off my ears every time someone suggested we do something with them.  I didn’t want to know.  Five years on, the more time I let pass, the harder it became to even pretend to try and do anything about it.

But I’ve stopped all the procrastination.  I will do something.  There’s a tree I was given by a family friend when Kiera died.  My stepdad planted it in the place I used to sit with Kiera at our family home, near the pool.  It’s grown and flowered in five years, and I think that’ll be where the ashes should go.  I’ll do it when I go back to pack up my Durban home at month end.  On the same day Carrot’s ashes will be dealt with, so will Kiera’s.  Finally.  It’s a relief to know that I now have a deadline, that they won’t be sitting in my moms cupboard anymore.  That finally, after all these years, I’ll take the last step to closure on my daughters death.  And knowing that it’ll share the same occasion with one of my oldest and most special of friends, seems almost symbollic and preordained, like I’ve been waiting for something this big.  I dunno.  Maybe I’m making too much of a big a deal.  But it means something to me, and I think that’s what counts.

So, yeah.  Carrot.  Theo.  Renee & Piet.  Four Afrikaans members of my non-blood family.  It’s been a soul wrenching weekend, but in a good way. I feel almost cleansed and ready for the next chapter of whatever comes about in this life of mine.

Peace!