Kachasu

Ever since I first started thinking about sex I had some fairly unusual things I liked in my head. Let’s think Story of O. But not quite as hardcore. Why is it that of all the zillions of men i have had sex with not one of them has ever wanted to tie me up and spank me?

If you read romance novels, that is what you sort of expect – strong, but very firm.

Now, I guess I am one of those typical career woman. In charge at work, but boy could I do with some mild S&M in the sack.

Yes, all you little Oprah-wannabees, I have in fact said this to various lovers over the years, but not a single one has followed through with any enthusiasm.

What does a girl have to do to get a good spanking?

I think the problem is all these new age metro-sexual (half fruit) men that want to be gentle and in touch with their feminine side. BOLLOCKS! Roger me hard in the sack. But be kind elsewhere.

I run a company that is owned by another company – although I own some shares. But we are separate. Yesterday this total fuck-pig-troll from the other business called me into a boardroom and screamed at me. We are talking spit-flying aggression like I have never experienced in my life.

He has nothing to do with me in any sort of reporting structure and gave me a total revving. I actually thought he was going to hit me. Now, I have been around long enough not to tolerate anything from anyone. I do not dissolve into tears or feel like an emotional wreck. What I feel is total outrage.

It came totally out of the blue. Maybe he was drunk or something. I don’t know. All I know is that I have sent him the bitchiest email I have sent in a long time. Who the hell does he think he is to scream at me? Or anyone for that matter. The office is not a place to have tantrums and behave like a total cunt. God knows I get angry, but one discusses things without volume. Anyway, for posterity, here is the email I sent the snivelling little wart:

Dear (name of turd deleted)

I found your behaviour yesterday outrageous and deeply offensive. You have no right to shout at me, or anybody else, in the way you did. The way you interacted with me is called verbal abuse and is completely intolerable in the workplace. Regardless of the gross lack of manners or class you displayed, I would like to point out the following:

‘¢ You are in no way whatsoever involved in xx. Your position within xxx is entirely disconnected you have absolutely no authority or gravitas within xx. This is regardless of your own sense of your importance.
‘¢ You do not have the authority or right to instruct me to do anything at all.
‘¢ Regardless of how difficult or unreasonable you think I am being, you will not shout, scream or threaten me again.
‘¢ You will not tell me that I do not know how to run xx. Thank you very much, but I have been doing this for over five years and have a perfectly good grip of what is appropriate and what is ethical, or legal for that matter.

Finally, you owe me an apology. A public one, given that the volume of your voice was heard by both mine and xx’s employees. If I were you I would be deeply ashamed and humiliated by your own behaviour. The appropriate and adult way in which to communicate a difference of opinion is to talk, not scream. To discuss and not threaten.

It was an appalling display of weakness and straightforward bullying tactics. Unfortunately, you picked entirely the wrong person to try this with.

I am quite comfortable with taking this further in a formal way should an appropriate apology not be forthcoming.

I have this nasty little red bump on my arm that won’t go away. I googled and it does in fact look like early skin cancer. I am too young for this! But pale skin, red hair and blue eyes don’t make for a good life of fun in the sun I guess.

I read it can have roots and spread and some forms are lethal. So I think I have all of the above.

Already wondering who to leave my children to.

Dermatologist tomorrow. It’s quite scary. I am cranky as hell.

I don’t even feel like smoking. If something like my skin, which I have not actually and deliberately abused, can rebel like this what are my lungs going to do?

Aaargh!

Over the years I have hired several people for my company. Black people seldom work out. Not because they are incompetent or unskilled, but because a very strange thing happens in about 75% of the cases…

They get what I have come to think of as “kicked puppy syndrome.” We are a small, fast-paced company with some very large personalities. Some folk fit in and keep up, others just get quieter and quieter. More and more defferent, become resentful and just generally don’t cope. Then work suffers and we end up getting to a parting of the ways.

A friend explained to me that it is the “dark side” of ubuntu. Where people see that everyone must be equal, but equal on the bottom. That people don’t want to shine because then they stand out and that is not OK.

Has anyone else experienced this? How do I stop it from happening? In my company we really reward individualism and initiative and I am starting to feel a bit bleak about my next round of three hires, which for BEE purposes need to be of colour.

When we hire, people seem to be vocal, bright and motivated and then it just dissipates until it doesn’t exist anymore. I have to be honest and say that I have not had this problem with white people. It also doesn’t seem to matter much what level I hire at. None of them are total first-jobbers and everyone earns more than R10k a month (that is the absolute minimum).

Could my managers be doing something wrong? How do I get this right? We have HAD HR consultants talk us through management and we do everything we are supposed to in an even manner.

Is it a deeper racial self-esteem issue after years of oppression?

I had a fabulous black Zimbabwean woman who tolerated no shit and really held her own… I lost her to a massive corporate. But South Africans have not really worked. Maybe it’s not colour, but nationality?

Christmas is a Christian holiday. No ifs ands or buts about it. Yet something has shifted and it has become about gifts and santa. Not for me. Not this year. This year I am going to Mass and that is all. My children will be in Paris with their dad so I don’t need to get sucked into all the Christmas bullshit. My partner and I are totally simunye about this and last Christmas was too appalling with over-catering, badly behaved family and just general commercial frenzy. We are heading off to the desert for a couple of weeks and then hiding out at home (literally) on Christmas day itself.
I had to go to Sandton City last week. It was intolerable. Thousands of people hustling through sparkly shops hunting for things to spend their hard earned money on. I bailed out. Told the friend I was with I couldn’t cope, so I went to Walnut Grove and smoked over a few cappuccinos, while he sweated up a storm dealing with the frenzy.
My children are singing ‘White Christmas’ at school. Hardly appropriate for Africa! What happened to Hark the Herald Angels, Away in a Manger etc etc. Oh, and there is also some diabolical crap American song that goes: ‘I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus-’
*vomit*
I don’t know how I will feel next year, but this time I am so pleased that none of it is necessary! I am going to buy my useless family little tubs of jam in the Karoo and tie them with string. So sick of everything being about the cost and quantity.
Hopefully the kids get to go to a service at Notre Dame and spend some time thinking about what the day means. Really means. Even if people are not Christian, let’s not lose sight of what the holiday is. It has been buried under Coca-Cola marketing (the way we envision Santa was developed by Coke way back biggest marketing coup ever) and tinsel. There really should be a balance between shopping our asses off and appreciating what it means.
We really do live in a time when we have kept Christmas, but lost Christ.

So, I think I figured out what I want to say to my marriage-phobic long-time partner. Feedback please. I will do this in person – but this is the gist of it:

I have done a lot of work figuring out whether or not my desire to get married is based on some defect or insecurity of mine. It is not. This is a core part of what I want from my life. I want to share my life with you, but within a marriage that makes the commitment clear and provides a feeling of safety and security. If you do not want to marry me, as in me the individual, then you need to tell me so we can go our separate ways. If you are afraid of marriage in itself, but are committed to me then you need to work on that and, in the same way I have, see if it’s an intrinsic part of how you see the world or if it’s a defect or a fear that can be dealt with. If it’s intrinsic then we have to agree that we want different things from life and should end this. If not, then let’s talk about what the fears are and see if we can sort through them.

I don’t think I will give a timeline on this. No deadlines. How reasonable is this?

So I posted a comment the other day, saying that just ‘cos I don’t get laid enough it is not a reason to go out and shag someone else. Yet, last night, my brain said otherwise. No, I didn’t do it, but I started to think about a guy I work with and how clean and easy it could be to have some sort of torrid sex with someone else. I don’t know why this is such an issue, this lack of sex. Yet, it is.
I have been through all the “It’s something wrong with me” crap and worked through it. I then thought it was something wrong with him. Is he cheating? Is he actually gay? Has he just gone off me? I feel quite good about myself at the mo. I am beautiful, sexy and desirable. I know this cos I get hit on quite a lot. There has never been a shortage of people interested in sleeping with me but I do believe in fidelity. Then I start thinking about an affair.
My man and I are not married. He won’t marry me because he doesn’t believe in it, having had a bad marriage before. We have been together about two years. So last night my head was telling me that the value judgment around infidelity just does not apply because I am not getting the sex I want and we are not married. Why bother trying to be faithful? I have asked him about sex and why we only end up fucking like twice a month… he just professes tiredness or a plethora of other stuff. He ain’t cheating. I know that. It’s been like this all along. When we first started seeing eachother we shagged about three times a week, which quickly dwindled to two and then less and less. He has a low sex-drive – buwahahah – I thought mine was bad. We are both quite cerebral so talking and cuddling is generally fine. But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes I get so damn resentful about using my little blue vibrator. Then I don’t nag him, because I am the only one that sees something wrong in our relationship.
Generally I am happy, it’s just when I don’t get laid for ten days that I start to get cranky about the whole thing.
Isn’t it normally men who complain about not getting enough sex? I have a friend who stayed in a nine-year relationship with a guy and she was only getting physical every six months or so. She cheated, often. Said it made it easier for her to be in the relationship and that she really loved the guy.
Anyway, I have no real answer to my problem. I have moral and religious issues with infidelity but there are times when the old, selfish, asshole, vodka-soaked me sticks its head up and just wants to act out.

I am not a cat person, but of all the animals that one could have in one’s home, they are the least offensive. Generally speaking. So why is it that my home is some sort of cat mecca?

The people who had my house before had twelve cats. Yes, twelve. We had two. Then new man and I moved into the house and there were three. Then, just for shits and giggles, I got another kitten. All good. Cat fur sodding everywhere (which is enraging in the mornings when all my black suit stuff looks like dead mohair) but that is OK.

Three days ago another cat arrived. Yes. Arrived. Apparently it had been camping in terror under the shed for a few days and staggered out when hungry enough to be sociable. FIVE CATS. And let me tell you, it has just moved in! Quite happy to cruise about, eat the food and thug my existing cats whenever the mood takes him. Plus he can’t jump. Who ever heard of a cat that cannot fucking jump? So he gets out somehow and then comes and yeowls under our window to be FETCHED AND BROUGHT INSIDE! At 4am. Today I made 40 posters of this cat and want to get it out of my home. It’s cute. But not that cute.

Besides, there are about eight neighbourhood cats that seem to think my house is the local soup-kitchen…

This off www.iol.co.za

A Botswana newspaper columnist who has backed Jacob Zuma to become president so he could “distribute white women” among his supporters has outraged some people who have branded the column as “sexist”, “racist” and “hate speech”.

The offending column under the heading “President Zuma will sort out White People” was published in the Sunday Standard in Gaborone.

Loose Canon said Zuma as president would address the wrongs of the past.

He berated white people for complaining about their loss of privilege, affirmative action and crime and said “they should count themselves lucky they were not shot on the day of liberation. Perhaps it’s not too late to hang a few whites… just to remind them who is in charge”.

He dismissed the corruption charges against Zuma as the result of “some jealous blacks and their white friends”.

“The people love Jacob Zuma… but, as part of sorting out ungrateful white people, I want him to embark on a redistribution exercise. I want him to distribute white women among the long-suffering black chaps.

“Zuma can have one or two white women himself and then distribute the rest ‘to his loyal supporters’ – including Loose Canon himself,” he wrote.

Despite trying to contact the editor of the Sunday Standard, Outsa Mokone, for comment, no reply had been received at the time of going to press.

Tito found himself on the stairs. His head hurt as though a hundred weasels were racing around in that small space smashing hammers against his skull. His mouth tasted like month old yoghurt and even greater vintage cigarettes. He fumbled for the dead spots in his memory. What had he done? Was that blood on his shirt? What had he said? Who had seen him like this? Who had he called? What messages had he sent? What time was it? Was he bruised? Pounding fear rose in his chest. The last thing he could remember was standing at the hotel bar with Abel, discussing soccer. Stumbling to the window, he checked that his Toyota was there and not too badly damaged this time. He rampaged through his small home hunting for a hidden beer. Hair of the dog. But for Tito it always lead to missing days blurred them all together. Despite this, today he went through the usual routine. Opening a beer, downing half, vomiting and gulping the rest. He leaned against the tiles, waiting for the alcohol to settle, sweating and fighting more nausea.
With half a beer in him, he headed out to the bottle store, pausing to swear loudly at newspaper littering his driveway, cast aside by someone and carried by the wind. A headline caught his eye: Man sought for murder pub brawl ends in death.
Tito blinked in the bright light. A wave of dull pain nestling in for the journey.
With vodka in hand, he headed home. He bent to collect the newspaper, casting bleary eyes over the story again. Had it been him? Would the police come knocking on his door? Tito read carefully, hands shaking so violently he had to put the paper down on the counter to keep it in focus. It was his local pub, but police could find no witness. Relief. Fear. Holes in his memory. Blood on his clothes. What had he done? He dropped his head on the dirty newspaper, nausea rising up amidst the dizziness and pain.
‘God help me.’
He needed a drink. Raising his forehead off the paper, his eyes fell on a small advert. He felt through his jacket for his phone. Without thought, he dialed.
‘Alcoholics Anonymous, hello.’
Ends