My misadventures as a single creative writer in the Mother City
Kids, in the winter of 2021, the truly awful, unexpected and unfair happened: we lost your vibrant, beautiful, feisty, larger-than-life Aunt Yolisa. She was only 41, far too young to be shuffling off of this mortal coil. While you have certainly heard the incredible story of How I Met Your Aunt Yoli over and over […]
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Kids, in the Autumn of 2021, I was REALLY f***ing tired of people asking me if there was a special man in my life… I mean, there were PLENTY of special men in my life – my godsons, my fur babies by proxy, my nephews and your godfathers Leon and Tendai. But how the actual […]
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Kids, in the Autumn of 2021, I discovered that I was relatively happy. This was a novel concept to me because you know about my battles with the black dog. Yet, somehow I was really content and in a good place. I put this down to a couple of changes I’d made in my life: […]
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“Wait … you REALLY got your dress stuck in an escalator and nearly flashed the security guard at the bottom of it? Oh, this is hilarious … stop it, you’re making my tummy ache!” That, Kids, was my Uber driver’s reaction to me laying my soul bare about the latest mortifying thing to happen to […]
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Kids, far from being sad about being single in the month of Love, I actually felt super adored and happy with my life. See, instead of fixating on everything that was missing from my life, I chose to celebrate the incredible things and people I do have. With the recent ending of my short stint […]
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Kids, in general, online dating was a fuck show but in 2021, when faced with a Bumble chatter who steadfastly refused to believe that the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic was real, who thought that South Africa’s adjusted Level 3 lockdown was stupid and who didn’t a fuck about my safety but was desperate for a hook-up, […]
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Kids, the Year of WTF, 2020, was finally, FINALLY coming to a f***ing end and Gods, was I glad to see it go! 2020 had started out with your Nan being hospitalized and having a second stent implanted; me being diagnosed with having high blood pressure and taking chronic medication; me stuck in the toxic […]
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Kids, it was once again the most wonderful time of the year – when nosy and rude relatives, friends and strangers were getting all up in my business about being single and I had to resist the urge to strangle them with wire, dismember them in my Kill Room and shove their black bag stuffed […]
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7 September 2020, sometime in the middle of the godforsaken night… “Oh God, I am never going to be able to leave this bed and walk again. I’ve been put on unpaid sick leave, my boss hates me and I am never going to walk again. I’ll never be able to finally resign and say […]
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Kids, a year after Jet seemingly broke me with his rejection and I plunged into the deepest depression I’d ever known up to that point, I was finally over it. And him. Sure, it had taken me longer than expected – between his overbearing stalking and constant need to force his way into my personal […]
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There I was, lying spread-eagled, legs in the air, searching for my underwear, panting hard and screaming the Good Lord’s name… I know what you’re thinking but get your minds out of the goddamn (pun totally intended) gutter! I’d recently torn my left ankle’s tendons and had realised, midway through trying to pull my pants […]
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Kids, in life, only three things are certain: death, taxes and change… Problem was, I HATED change. Even for a water sign and as someone whose day job required a certain level of flexibility, I hated it. Five months in lock down and a despairing sense that everyone’s lives were still moving along except mine, […]
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“Come, my love. Sit down and have this cup of tea I’ve made for you before we go to bed”, said Jason Momoa, my super hot husband and father of the two gorgeous children we’d spent the day playing with… And then I woke up to the biting cold of a winter’s morning in the […]
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Kids, in 2020, before and during the national lock down, I had people coming at me, trying to undermine me, sabotaging me and making me question myself and my abilities. Where previously, I had no doubt I could rock socials for a major attraction, do a kick ass PR campaign in my sleep and write […]
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Kids, in June 2020, the President of South Africa announced a further relaxing of the lock down restrictions which meant we could have sit-down meals at restaurants, go to cinemas, casinos and theatres and go back to work. I had some feelings about this: It’s true that being at home for three months ( but […]
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Kids, in the Autumn of 2020 and in the midst of the South African lock down, I was learning the age- old art of letting things go. You could call me the Queen Elsa of Emotionland: I’d learnt that when people choose to walk out of your life and leave you, let them. Pre- coronavirus […]
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Kids, by the beginning of May 2020 and six weeks of being safe indoors while COVID19 ravished the world, I was exhausted. I was tired AF of all of the business Zoom calls, the family and friends’ WhatsApp video calls, the cesspool of garbage that was my Tinder inbox, the constant bombarding of social media […]
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Kids, apart from my self-inflicted online dating time out, the #coronavirus had put a serious dampener on meeting your Dad. Like any sometimes good girl raised on fairytales, I turned to my favourite for some inspiration: Since I’d exhausted my supply of rom coms, I was turning to social media for some romantic inspiration. The […]
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Kids, in March 2020, the world was in the grips of an unprecedented crisis: the COVID-19 virus, or CoronaVirus as it was known, was sweeping the globe at a rapid and frightening rate, claiming lives and forcing countries into lock down. As South Africa settled in for its own initial 21 day lock down, naturally […]
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Kiddos, you’ve heard me talk about my black clouds days – entire months where I could barely get out of bed in the morning and felt dead inside like October 2019; periods where I struggled with being different; ages where the bad dating was getting me down. 2020, far from being the Year of Yes […]
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Kids, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in February 2020, I was standing in line with your Aunt Sam, waiting to pay for our parking ticket and wishing out loud that a handsome billionaire would find me, marry me and drag me off to a deserted island where we would have and raise you. See, 2020 […]
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Kids, in the Year 2020 of the Old Gods and New, I made a promise to myself to live a fearless, unapologetic Year of Yes. 2019 had seen me shed many tears over people and things unworthy of my awesome self but I was determined to live my best life, ahead of having you. That […]
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Kids, in December 2019, I was out in the streets of Cape Town and online, dating up a storm. Granted, I’d lowered my guard a bit, in an attempt to get over my depression and have the best summer EVER before you guys happened. Which leads me to my next big Bumble failure. Having decided […]
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Kids, it was Friday the 13th and I was about to get unexpectedly lucky… Far from meeting my untimely death with this dude: … I’d wandered down the back staircase of my apartment building because thanks to the ever reliable Eskom, load shedding had hit and our gates were not working. As I wandered down, […]
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Kids, shortly after my 34th birthday, which had been an extravaganza of love and celebrations with all of my favourite people ( besides and before you!), I was about to embark on my very first cruise ship vacation. See, life had been pretty shitty, mostly because Jet was still being an entitled asshole whose fucktard […]
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Kids, since my life had turned into the worst horror movie of all time in October 2019, you can well imagine that I wasn’t up for celebrating my favourite holiday, Halloween. But … three weeks post-heartbreak and with the news that Zombie Walk had been postponed, I knew that I could not let 31 October […]
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Kids, in the Spring of 2019, your Spirit Mom Leonie and I got our ultimate geek on at Comic Con Africa in Johannesburg. On our first day at the Con, we brought A Song of Ice and Fire to life as our Game of Thrones counterparts, the Night King and the Mother of Dragons: First […]
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Kids, in October 2019, my life fell apart… Jet, after falsely accusing me of discussing him with co-workers and yelling at me from the very staircase where I’d fallen in love with him , rejected me twice as just a “dear friend” in a series of Whatsapp messages. After a nearly a year of flirting, […]
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Kids, I didn’t choose the cosplay life, it chose me. By now, you know the family lore: Your geeky grandpa met your creative Nan and when they found out they were expecting me, they worked together on creating a kickass Superbaby suit that I, your auntie Sam and countless future generations of bambinos would wear. […]
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Kids, in the winter of 2019, I was confronted with the skin-crawling, gag-inducing specimen of men: the creepy old guy. There I was,shaking what your Nan gave me at a friend’s birthday house party to my ultimate favourite jam… …when I hear this old guy, and I am talking walking with a walking stick old, […]
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August 2019: Sweet Child of Mine… … And no, that is NOT an invitation for you to follow your spirit sister‘s dreams of becoming a skilled performer who dances for rich,handsome men on poles to this song: As we approached National Women’s Day in 2019, I started thinking about just how much I love you […]
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Kids, in the winter of 2019, your Nan was facing a potential huge health crisis and while I knew I could and would support her as I had through two heart attacks, a stroke and bell’s palsy, I also wanted to take the time to appreciate her. She’s a tough one, your Nan. She survived […]
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Kids, in the winter of 2019, your Spirit Mom Leo and I took your god-brother and god-sister Kris and Heidi on a magical night out to watch Disney on Ice at the GrandWest Casino’s Grand Arena. Despite initially protesting that the show was for children, your moody teenage god siblings ended up singing along to […]
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Kids, in June 2019, the married jackass co-worker was at it again – being an allround, inappropriate doos and I was sick of it! I’d come back from an offsite meeting and was frantically typing away at my desk when Mr Asshole makes some wisecrack about stripping the boards in the shop. “No, Fazielah, not […]
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Kids, by June 2019, the flirtation with Jet was at an impasse. We’d moved beyond the shy greetings and gentle teasing at the office with plenty of interaction at our recent company staff party. We’d been seen together so often and there were videos of the night’s events where he was caught on camera staring […]
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Kids, as you know, in early 2019, I’d sprained my ankle yet again, thus setting back my fitness journey once more. After one of those nasty AF Discovery Wellness days in May, I realised that if I had any hope in hell of giving you guys a healthy mom, it was time to get back […]
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Kids, in 2019, at the age of nearly 33 and a half, I was finally discovering the art of just being my f***ing self and it was beautiful. From living my best Game of Thrones cosplaying life at FanCon Cape Town: …to indulging my inner child at adult colouring-in Meet-Ups: It had taken me more […]
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Kids, in the Autumn of 2019 I had promised your Spirit Mom Leo that I would get my beautiful ass off of Tinder and focus on IRL (in real life) dating. But… What I didn’t tell her was that I was still on Bumble. I know: I knew she was going to kick my ass […]
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Kids, the night was dark and full of unexpected pleasures as your Spirit Mom Leonie and I made our way to M-Net’s final Game of Thrones premiere, held at Nu Metro Canal Walk on Monday 15 April 2019. While Leo frightened the hell out of Capetonian streetwalkers and petrol garage attendants, dressed incredibly as the […]
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Kids, as you well know, your godparents and I were SUPER Game of Thrones fans, and as the premiere of the final season EVER dawned, Leo, Tendai and I were up for just about ANYTHING to celebrate. Hence, entering an OMG Game of Thrones pub quiz at the Jack Black’s Taproom in Diep River, Cape […]
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Kids, in 2019, after years of inappropriate messages from men on dating apps and a rollercoaster of horrific dates, I thought I’d heard and seen it all. Of course, because this is my life, and the Universe likes to make sure I know exactly how wrong I can be, in the space of two months […]
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Kids, for as long as I can remember, random strangers would walk up to me or sit down next to me and confess their deepest, darkest secrets or their unexpected joy. In 2019, in the space of a week, three people I didn’t know from a bar of soap , confided in me and it […]
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Kids, 2019 was my Year of Yes – I was saying yes to new adventures, new places, new people and new experiences. I’d been wanting to try the Ceres Railway train to the Elgin Market and when your Uncle Moenier said he was keen to do it too, we booked tickets for the experience of […]
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Kids, Valentine’s Day tends to bring out the downright nasty in Tinder daters. As the great Dothraki would say: In 2019, things were no different. David and I had swiped right on each other, prompting what I assumed would be a mutually respectful exchange. I was wrong. SO wrong. My grandfather passed notes to my […]
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Kids, I was feeling Jet hard… and although I tried to believe Jennifer Paige when she said it was just a little : … it didn’t help that he was obviously feeling the same way. I mean the guy was calling me his girlfriend to coworkers; eagerly greeting me morning, noon and night; playing the […]
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It was a cold November night and I was wandering through Times Square, having just sobbed my eyes out at a spectacular performance of the hit Broadway show Dear Evan Hansen… I stopped, twirled around in a circle and took in my surroundings. Still feeling emotional after my sobfest and raw in a way I […]
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Kids, in January 2019, I was about 13 months away from having you and I realised that while 2018 had been a year of learning and growing dating-wise, I had no time to f*** around anymore and I had to get serious about finding your Dad. I knew he wasn’t going to just drop out […]
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Kids, you remember the jackass coworker who had the bloody nerve to yell at me about when I was going to get married, back in the winter of 2018? Well, in December 2018, Mr Asshole was at it again… “Fazielah”, he said as he tapped my shoulder and got way too far up in my […]
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Kids, in the summer of 2018, I was taking a bit of a break from Tinder while I saw where things would go with Jet. In the interest of online dating research, though, I turned to my friends for their hilarious #TinderFail stories. Faye had been chatting to *Greg*, a 39-year-old lonely boy on and […]
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Kids, as we have previously established, your mama has no game with the opposite sex. In 2018, I am sad to say, things had not changed. For all my protests about not shitting where you eat, I found myself with a workplace crush. It had all started innocently enough… Jet would borrow a pen from […]
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