It’s just a dress. Right?

19 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, Parties, Ponderings, cape town, fashion, 15 Comments

So those of you who have what the Spur folks call ‘a taste for life’ will also no doubt be in possession of a couple of tickets to party-of-the-year-so-far, The Vibe, at St Yves this eve. I’m pretty excited, I won’t lie. I think it’s going to be good.

Not without dilemmas, of course. Dilemmas like ‘is the dress The Stylist talked me into wearing a little tooooo tight’. Those of you on twitter last night will have witnessed the struggle. ‘Am I a prude? Or am I not secure enough to ‘wear the dress, not have the dress wear me’? ‘

I ended up crowd-sourcing the debate on twitter, and most guys said ‘go for it’ and ‘why not’ and ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it’. Which made me decide, ‘what the hell, am only young once, why not’. The girls were also supportive but some had a few sharp words – predictably – and let’s face it, it’s the opinion of the ladies is what I’m most worried about. Why? Because ladies love to hate each other. Any excuse really.

All that aside (because you can’t please everyone) there is a little voice in my head, probably left over from my days at an upstanding scholarly institution in the ‘burbs that says ‘tight dress = slut’, whether you do or don’t have the body to pull it off, whether you are or aren’t a good person, who leads a meaningful and rich life, who reads literary sound books and can run 8kms no sweat and cook a great spaghetti and has a way with animals. And that annoys me. I don’t want to make the decision based on a little voice in my head that exist because of my Waspish school days. I want to believe that I am liberated woman who can do as she pleases, be unafraid to express herself, to embrace her body and her sexuality and her personality – hear me ROAR! Or maybe just mew in a cutesy way? (Is safer. Will probably get less flack. Wouldn’t want to get flack)

Am I alone in this? Do you ever have this ‘dear-god-please-don’t-let-people-think-I’m-a-brainless-slut-because-what-I’m-wearing-shows-off-my-body dilemma’? Still haven’t decided whether or not to wear the dress. Should I? Why / why not? Is it too slutty? Or should I not give a shiz because life’s too short and I might as well ‘live on the edge’. Or sit on the edge. Of my seat. So as not to show my panties. Hmm? Here’s the dress:

In other news… off Sunglass Hut to pick out some new shades for The Vibe. Can’t wait!

Finally – a tampon ad that says it like it is

18 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, girl stuff, tv, 1 Comments

There’s nothing quite like your average tampon ad to make you holler ‘do you have any idea what I’m going through?!’ when it comes to periods, period cramps and all the other regular, persistent inconveniences associated with that-time-of-the-month.

I, for one, get the distinct impression that men are responsible for managing most feminine hygeine accounts, judging by the repetitive use of tight white clothing and girls running on a beach, breasts bouncing all slow-mo. It’s like the thinking goes ‘Let’s show hot girls and their hot bodies, to make girls feel better about their periods BUT MOSTLY to make guys feel less awkward and more turned on while watching those ads with their girlfriends’. Am I right ladies? Please enjoy:

Roses are yellow with red tips…

17 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, dating, 0 Comments

Violets are blue

I don’t know who sent these roses…

Was it you?

Endearmints send basket of love

16 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, kindness of strangers, 3 Comments

Guys, this is one of those stories that will make you all misty-eyed and warm inside. A few days ago, I tweeted about how I have a problem, namely that I cannot control myself around endearmints, and today, this gets delivered to me! Unbelievable! Clearly someone at Cadbury (who makes Endearmints) is on their game! But now I have an even BIGGER problem…

Have NO idea how am going to stop once I start. Big BIG problem.

The Run Diaries: Jonno’s Playlist

16 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, running, the run diaries, 0 Comments

Jonno is a fellow running addict who hails from Joburg! He tells me he’s quite enjoying the Run Diaries and has thus very awesomely submitted his own playlist. Jonno is a graphic designer, and he also has a blog, and you should totally follow him on twitter. Thank you Jono! xx

“Back in winter 2007 something possessed me to join the gym. I’d been overweight, sedentary and lazy as far as I could remember, and I guess I’d had enough of that. ‘Unfit slob’ just wasn’t cool anymore. A particularly slow month on the work front also meant I had the time to work exercise into my routine.

It was tough at first, but after six months of building up from 2 minutes’ running/4 minutes’ walking to being able to cope with a slow jog for 20 minutes, I ventured off the treadmill onto the road, and promptly injured myself. It was runners’ knee (that meant I was a runner, yay!) Turns out those cheap 5-year-old takkies weren’t good for a flat-footed fatty like me…

Six physio sessions and a pair of real running shoes later, I was back on the road, and I haven’t looked back. Running enjoys a privileged spot amongst the top priorities in my life. Between deadlines, family commitments and everything else that fills up my day, that time out on the road is my time, and I guard it jealously. When I travel, the trip is incomplete without initiating the destination with a run along its streets. Weeks revolve around runs, and months are measured in kilometres.

It’s been 2 years, 18kg and 2000km since I ‘really’ started running, but I would never have gotten this far without my trusty iPod. The right track at the right moment can turn a decent workout into a truly memorable run. Here’s a sample of some of my favourite running tracks.” – Jonno

All hot 'n sweaty after a race

Jonno’s Playlist:

Spoon – Finer Feelings
Feeder – Buck Rogers
Delorean – Deli
Ola Podrida – Donkey
Counting Crows – Cowboys
The National – Mr. November
What Made Milwaukee Famous – The Right Place
MGMT – Time To Pretend
The New Pornographers – The Bleeding Heart Show
Nada Surf – Imaginary Friends
Karminsky Experience Inc. – Belly Disco
Stars – Ageless Beauty
Arcade Fire – Rebellion (Lies)
Liquid Tension Experiment – Acid Rain
Rainbow Arabia – Omar K
Foo Fighters – DOA
>> Love to run? Got a playlist that gets you going? Then please feel free to share it with us! Send a mail to editor@capetowngirl.com as we LOVE getting new tracks to run to! xx

Shopping for shades on a sunny saturday

15 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, cape town, fashion, lifestyle, sponsors, 1 Comments

Mecca of style goodness

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a sunglasses collection to rival Jacob Zuma’s babymama collection. I have innumerable pairs, and I love them all like they’re my one and only, and the pairs I have don’t stop me from always looking to expand my family. So on Saturday I headed over to BOTH Sunglass Hut stores at the Waterfront (they have 2 stores – the ultimate collection) to pick out the perfect pair of late summer-early autumn shades. It took a while, but the staff are so clued up on the subtleties on jaw shape and face-framing that we’d narrowed it down to a shortlist after a good 30 minutes of deliberation:

There were the Pradas: chunky but slick. Love.

There were the D&G square-frames - adore.

Then there were the D&G Jackie O's, similar to a pair I have at the moment

And then there were the D&G sparkles

I was definitely in a D&G state of mind, but those Pradas are calling… maybe they’ll be my ‘early winter’ shades. Anyway my first choice ended up being the ones I went for:

Sunset in new shades: D&G square frames

The sunset from perspective of new shades

Thanks soooo much to the guys at Sunglass Hut for helping me choose! Could NEVER have done it on my own! What about y’all reading this? You got yourself some late-summer early-autumn shades yet? What’s your vibe? If not, you can always WIN some designer shades by doing the following:

1. Become a fan of the Sunglass Hut page on facebook

2. Upload a pic of yourself in your favourite sunnies

Simple as pie. Whatcha waiting for?

On going blonde. Possibly.

11 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, Celebrity, Ponderings, cape town, hair, 15 Comments

I’ve been blonde once in my life. I was fresh out of high school and was finally ‘free’ – meaning I could change the colour of my hair without ‘getting grounded for being a slut’. So I did what any self-respecting brunette would have done: I died my hair blonde.

Being young and headstrong, I didn’t ask for much advice on the matter. People said to ‘go have it done properly at a hair dresser’ – but why would I listen to them? It was my hair. And I was going to be blonde. That’s all that mattered.

So I got me a box of Garnier Nutrisse, spent 30 minutes marvelling at the fruity ammonia aroma, and the remainder of the day gingerly combing what was left of my hair – once lusciously shiny and dark, now a scraggly, fried crow’s nest. It was blonde – very blonde – but for the most part it looked like this:

I lived with it for 2 weeks before my mother, sick of me waking up and crying for 2 hours in front of the mirror every morning, dragged me to the hairdresser to have it all re-pigmented. And that sated the desire to go blonde for almost 6 years. But now, like a nervous tick that’s lain dormant for years, the desire to be blonde has flared up once more, intent on driving me crazy through indecision, inducing the odd ill-timed twitch.

Now that I am older, I realise that there are more options on going blonde. I wouldn’t go for that bleached out toffee vibe this time round. This time, I’d go for more of a Gisele:

Maybe a ScarJo:

But importantly, I am ready to listen to the advice about getting it done at a hairdresser.

And now for the most important question of all: Who does the best blonde in Cape Town? Hand? Scar? Love? Mooi? Tell tell tell!

Man of the Week: Alexander Skarsgaard

11 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, nom of the week, 1 Comments

Control yourself. It’s hard, I know.

Just try and keep it together here.

Take deep breaths. Now read this interview with him over at the LA Times. Keep breathing.

Should I get a tattoo? Or a hysterectomy?

10 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, Ponderings, lifestyle, 7 Comments

I have 2 ongoing internal debates. The first is ’should I go blonde’ and the second is ’should I get a tattoo’. Today’s post is about the latter. Now, a beautiful tattoo can be inspiring, but the problem with tattoos is that they slot you into a certain box, whether you like it or not. Which means that while you may be a pure-hearted, loving, intelligent, generous and kind person, if you have stars tattooed across your cheeks and weird-ass flame shiz in place of your eyebrows, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that most people will think you’re a freaking idiot.

Personally, I’m not into face tattoos. The tattoo I’m thinking about getting is a small universal symbol on the back of my neck, or a well-thought out, beautifully illustrated design on my right hand (because I am right-handed and somehow having a symbol of integrity on the arm I write with will make everything I write possess integrity… ja, see tattoo logic is flawed in that it tends to sound like airie faeirie mumbo jumbo… which it is…). But every time I experience ‘the calling’ and I line up an appointment at Metal Machine, I see someone with a disaster of a tattoo and a shudder of relief makes its way through my body that I don’t have a tattoo and I cancel my appointment.

A small part of me wonders whether I won’t do a 180 when I’m 30 and decide to get an MBA and ‘get a real job’, and my armpit shark tattoo will then jeopardise my ‘place on the board’ by being a little ‘too witty for business’. Look – the sudden lust for an MBA is unlikely, but probably more likely than the lust for children, which, let’s face it, will do more damage to my career in the long term (via children being needy and burping milk up onto my Marion and Lindie work wardrobe and *seriously* cutting into my makeup time in the morning). So tattoos trump kids, at least.

But the main reason I’m hesitant to start doodling on my skin is that, from what I can tell, tattoos have a similar effect on people as the effect having children has on people. By this I mean, apart from exceptions to the rule, childen / tattoos generally suck, and those who have either feel the need to convince others that having the tattoo / kid does not, in fact, suck. Look, now and again you luck out on a baby who sleeps 12 hours and doesn’t cry, but most kids are sickly, needy and pukey. The same goes for tattoos. Not everyone has training in basic artistic principles, so more often than not a tattoo is badly placed, average or completely lacking in concept and continually seeking approval. People who have tattoos and show them do so because they WANT you to comment on how awesome it is. They also spend a lot of time convincing themselves that the gay unicorns they got as a joke when they were 18 are a ‘timeless piece of classical body art’, instead of a warning flag for ‘emotionally unstable and unlikely to ever make management’. No doubt I’ll get flack for this but similarly, people who ‘choose kids’ have no option thereafter but to convince themselves – and everyone around them – that breeding really is the meaning of life, and that ‘a life without children is not a life at all’. I beg to differ.

Dang. Wrote this post hoping to feel better about getting a tattoo, but now I feel less like getting a tattoo than I ever did, and am convinced that children are a disaster akin to having permanent flames gouged into your face with a buzzing needle. Maybe y’all have some valid points that’ll help me make a decision?

devastating news. georgia has left us.

10 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG, beasties, 5 Comments

My relationship with my orchid has never been an easy one. From the start, I was plagued by doubts as to whether I was giving her all I could, whether she was really as happy as she appeared to be. She was hot and cold, always changing her mind, never quite sure of how she felt. I was constantly showering so she could have her precious humidity, and rearranging my life (by not using my walk-in closet as a closet so that she could have it as a conservatoire). I gave her a view. I spritzed her roots. I loved her with all my heart, really, I did, but it wasn’t enough. RIP Georgia. You’ll always be my first orchid love.