Anatomy

It's not anatomy that fascinates me. Rather it's the art that's developed from early anatomical drawings and models. Macabre stories like that of the 23 year old baby also beguile me.

I hold my reproduction of the 1st edition of Gray's Anatomy in high regard and have recently fallen in love with Andreas Vesalius prints* that I have need to own.

There is talk that the 2010 SIX tattoo convention will have anatomical hearts up for auction. This year's convention had skulls but dire financial circumstances prevented me from making a bid. Next year a heart will be mine.

The Wellcome Collection in London is exhibiting anatomical wax models featuring the model in the picture above. Distance prevents me from viewing the exhibition so I shall be an online voyeur.

I deem a curiosity cabinet* to be a necessity and shall make work to acquire one.


*Wishlist has been updated.

Swakopmund photos

Swakopmund is my second favourite international city (Barcelona being the first). Although Swakopmund is less a city and more a quiet seaside town. I'm glad they forgot to bomb it.*

Curios market. They take you for all you've got. (Picture has been cropped and reoutched.)

Tower ceiling in bookshop. (Unretouched.)

Desert chameleon. (Unretouched.)

Mussel carpet on the beach. (Slighty retouched.)

Creepy dentist room diorama in the museum. (Unretouched hence the fuzziness.)

*Morrissey reference for those who don't know.

Addicted to the needle (I love...tattoos)

For those who haven't read it, I'd like to draw your attention to a guest blog post by Anastasya, a good friend of mine, on her brother's blog, An Unquiet Day.

I love the last paragraph. It describes down to a T how I feel about tattoos and I could not have said it better myself.

People often tell me to slow down. They point out that tattoos are permanent... but face it – nothing is. Life is a fleeting, beautiful experience, and we make our surroundings as pleasant as possible while we're here. I decorate my body in the same way one decorates any dwellings. I put down meaningful symbolism, trying to capture as much of my journey as possible. This vessel isn't sacred. It is dust. What is important to me is the fleeting thoughts, feelings and ideas dwelling inside it, which I attempt to represent on the outside in small colourful icons.

I went to see Manuela at Wildfire again yesterday. To touch up my last piece and to discuss my next piece. I scheduled the next session for later in the year. It's a bigger piece and I will need to save some money for it.

I don't get any particular pleasure from the actual tattooing process. I don't have a needle fetish. Tattooing can be uncomfortable, painful some times, a tattoo is ugly when the scabbing starts and you want to scratch off a layer of skin when it starts healing.

But I love that buzzing sound. Knowing that soon I'll have another beautiful decoration on my body.

The weekend that was featuring cooking deluxe, expensive hobbies and the healing properties of potato

My mother visited this weekend. I was grateful because I have been neglecting the tasks I hate most: washing dishes and ironing. My mother really seems to enjoy these chores and I returned the favour (hopefully) by cooking her delicious meals consisting of foods she's never eaten, and taking her shopping (it turned out the shopping was all too much for her. And not because I was spending vast amounts of money).

Friday evening dinner was ostrich neck with Kalahari truffles in a white wine and cream sauce, served with ol' dependable mash. Ostrich is my favourite meat followed by crocodile. My mother was weary of the truffles but was soon won over by the earthy goodness of the meal. Lessons learned: (1) Ostrich neck is best slow cooked. (2) I cannot share my kitchen with a feline and my mother.

I got paid sometime Saturday and it was time to stock up on groceries. My cupboards have been bare for far too long. I returned home with a boot full of groceries. Lunch was a rustic pizza with caramelised onions, butternut and camembert. My camembert craving has been satisfied. Well, not really. I still have to deep fry the second wheel and serve it with St Dalfour's delicious fruit preserve. Dessert was truffles, of the chocolate variety this time.

After lunch it was time for more shopping. Off to Makro, Stodels and Canal Walk. I returned home with a boot full of plants, cooking pots, and a variety of storage jars and vases. By now 90% of my salary has already been spent.

I have never fooled myself into thinking that I do not have expensive tastes. My passive hobbies of reading and watching movies have set me back a fair bit in the monetary department. The costs of tattoos have doubled since my first tat 5/6 years ago.

I can now add terrariums to my list of expensive hobbies. Two trips to Stodels has cost me close R600. I will not mention the cost of the jars and vases but I will proudly show off the first of my finished terrariums.


The terrarium second from the left is my favourite. It stars a Rabbit's Foot Fern, black grass, and some ground cover of which I've forgotten the name. One more terrarium to go before I take a hiatus due to bankruptcy.

The rest of Saturday was spent watching a pork belly roasting slowly in the oven and designing one of my next tattoos: Alice in Wonderland. I had to fork out R49.95 for a sketching pad. How ridiculous. However, I'm very pleased that I have not lost all my ability to sketch. The sketches below were drawn freehand, copying from the original drawings (excluding Alice) in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.




I decided to have raisin bread and chocolate for breakfast on Sunday. While rooting in my mother's overnight back for chocolate, I discovered a potato. I enquired why my mother had stolen one of my potatoes. Of course, she didn't steal it but had brought it with her from home. Of course. I was puzzled. Apparently, sleeping with a potato in your bed prevents arthritis. Apparently, the entire older generation of my family swears by it. I'm thinking of getting my mother certified. I've recommended my cousins do the same to their parents.

By Sunday I had had it with cooking and had the usual Sunday lunch, nap on the couch, and tea at my cousin's. And of course there was heckling of the family about their strange bedfellows, the potatoes.

Introducing LotD/SotD

Lyrics of the Day/Song of the Day. Not much more to it. Do not expect a daily post. As with everything else in my life this will happen when the mood strikes. Some days, the mood strikes twice.

I've been listening to some Sunset Rubdown tracks for a few years now. Random ones downloaded off Pitchfork or music blogs. I've listened to them not knowing anything about the band. Today I found out that the band began as a solo project of Wolf Parade, a band I took quite a liking to a few years ago but due to my own laziness did not follow beyond their first album.

A need for new car music prompted listening to the random tracks downloaded recently.

Enter Sunset Rubdown's Idiot Heart:

Stay away from open windows, and put the telephone down. Can you run as fast as this house will fall when the alarm bell sounds? No, I was never much of a dancer, but I know enough to know you've got to move your idiot body around, and that you can't settle down until the idiot in your blood settles down. So move around... If I found you in this city called Paradise, I'd say, "I love you, but I hate this city, and I'm no prize." You want to walk around like you own the joint, the way that Icarus thought he might own the sky. I say, "You can't settle down until the Icarus in your blood, in your blood, drowns... And if I was a horse, I would throw up the reins if I was you."

But look at you go (into the fire-star). Look at you go (you are a meteor). Look at you go...

And you know your heart, and you know your heart... but it's an idiot heart. And you know your heart, and you know your heart... but you can't settle down. No, you can't settle down. So just move around...

I hope that you died in a decent pair of shoes, you've had a lot of long walking to do, where you're going to...

This song has inspired me to buy their newest album. The nicely titled Dragonslayer.

Ps. I do like my idiot so I'll keep moving around.

The weekend that was

The weekend got infinitely better (after a rocky start on Friday evening and Saturday morning) after I finished a long island ice tea in a cafe on long street. It was before noon when I started drinking it but it's ok because it was after noon when I finished it.

It was my non-sober weekend. An uncomfortable period of soberness followed but was made bearable by Manuella agreeing to design my next 2 tattoos and a stop in Tokai to buy booze.

A trip to Simonstown, a bottle of Chenin Blanc, a glass of red wine, some recreation, and the best chicken made by a vegetarian later, it was time to head off to The Assembly for Zebra and Giraffe and The Wedding DJs.

Zebra and Giraffe were impressive. Carlin has a voice on him with a vocal range that I'm sure requires an elastic band in an uncomfortable place for the hire octaves. The bands stage presense is worthy of panty-throwing. The Knife is still my favourite track and the one I enjoyed the most but perhaps only because I'm more familiar with it. There were more tracks I deemed worthy to check out and I will show support by purchasing the debut album, Collection Memories.

The Wedding DJs rocked my world. I danced and danced and danced (my ass off). My feet hate me. I loved my single-serving dancing buddies (since all my friends abandoned me shortly after the live performance, I had to make single-serving friends. Dance with them. Toast them. Hug them. Don't even know their names.). There was much throwing of hands into the air, singing along, and I do believe I "grinded" at some point.

Without evening/early mornings like this, life would be very dull indeed.

The rest of Sunday was spent holding my head, getting Adam to prepare food while Vanessa applied copious amount of aspirin.

Introducing the "I love..." series

There are a few things that I am not ashamed to publicly admit that I love. Every week (mood dependent), I will post an entry about something I love.

This week's entry is about my adorable kitty, Noname (pronounce: Noh-Nah-Mi). Noname is no longer a kitten (I don't think he ever was!) but I still call him my kitten.


Noname was a stray living in the parking lot of my old flat block. There were quite a few strays (at least 3 of them Noname fathered). But unlike the other strays, Noname didn't shy away from humans. He would meow a response when called. And then actually approach you. So, naturally, I started feeding him. First, with expensive cold meats since that is what I had after returning from a picnic. Then later with microwaved frozen hake (man, did that reek!).

Noname is prone to following people. At first he needed a little encouragement. But I managed to get him into the lift and into my flat. He ate, he drank water and then I discovered (as did half the neighbourhood) that he is not really an inside cat. Feeling horrible about his distress about being inside I let him out again. He remained a stray.

At some point between The Netherlands and here, I decided that at the very least I needed to get him to a vet and put up for adoption. This is when i decided to call him Noname. I couldn't really think of a name for him and he wasn't going to keep him at this stage. It was a while before I could make it to the vet so I deflead him and bought some cheap catfood. At the Animal Anti-Cruelty League I was told that adoption was unlikely because of his tendency to run away and because he's already over the age of 4. He would most likely be put down. I adopted him. There was no way I could possibly let such a beautiful beast be put down. I wasn't allowed to keep pets. But I risked it and Noname was kept indoors. I was slowly being driven insane by his meowing and destruction of my blinds. This went on for over 6 months until I moved to a new place. A pet friendly townhouse complex.


Noname was almost immediately at home. I felt such joy at being able to let him out. And the best part is, he comes back. Time and time again. It's probably just for the food.

I've grown incredibly attached to Noname and cannot consider life without him right now.

His tendency to follow me has no turned into a need to be walked. He's also unique in that he comes when called. He loves ribbons, snakes and grasshoppers. He attacks the neighbours' dogs but he's not stupid and will not take on dogs 4 times his size. He can only handle dogs twice his size. He insists on always being in the same room as me (it drives me nuts). He doesn't think there is anything wrong with sleeping on my breadboard. That's, of course, when he's not taking up all the space on the couch. He's prone to destroying rugs but stopped climbing up my curtains after I threw him out of house the one time he did. His tail is broken and he has issues with having his tummy rubbed.

Noname's new friend, ahem, enemy is Salem who thinks that it's perfectly ok to walk around in Noname's house and eat Noname's food. This morning was spent trying to get Salem to understand that this is not ok. So, Salem climbed into my car. After 3 out of 4 doors were open I managed to grab Salem and returned him to his own house. Noname was to return inside as I cannot risk him attacking the neighbours' animals while I'm not there. Noname was not having any of it.

I hope there are no casaulties.

Introduction of The Wishlist

I don't ask for much. But apparently I ask for the near impossible. For example, and in no particular order, I wish for:

-World peace
-A 4 day work week
-My own personal sushi chef
-A hangover cure that works

I acquiesce. This might be a bit much. After all, genies only ever grant 3 wishes. If push comes to shove I will, without second thought, choose a 4 day work week over world peace. That is, of course, if the two are mutually exclusive.

I always have lists. List of things I need to do. Lists of things I want to do. Lists of things I need (usually in the form of shopping lists) and lists of things I want. I've decided to make some items on the list of things I want public (hint: it's somewhere to the right of this text) just in case anyone at anytime feels making my wish come true (hint: I'm quite partial to Cape to Cairo by rail at the moment). And to share of course. Sharing is caring. Yes, sharing my want shows how much I care about you.

Some items on the lists will remain unchanged for weeks. I foresee "A kitty" and "Twin Peaks" being there for a very long time. It all depends on how badly I want a particular thing at a particular time. Sometimes the list will be very short. For example, on a Friday the list might consist "For this day to end" because that is the only thing in the whole wide world that I want to happen very very badly. I'm sure you get my drift.

Some of the current wishes have been "granted" if only partially. I have vases. I have plants. I need more. The spa treatment has been booked for Women's Day (9 Aug). The rest are works in progress.

Especially the 4 day work week.

The weekend that was. And the first of much randomness

I have nothing to say. No, that's not true. But what I have to say, or what I can say is not very interesting. So, I'll start with writing about the weekend.

It was uneventful and I caught up on much needed my sleep. One cannot have fun all the time, right? And there should be time set aside to cuddle with the kitty and catch up on some TV. So that is what I did. My frenzy to see that next season of Lost was subdued when I realised that season 5 is not altogether great. But I'm determined to see Lost through to the end. We have walked a long path together and Lost owes me an explanation. However crappy that explanation might end up being.

Between sleep session there was also time for a visit to the nursery and a little gardening. Which was great! Over R200 worth of plants, soil and pebbles later, I had to cut myself off. I will be back in 2 weeks though as they had no moss in stock. Also, I now have 3 incomplete terrariums (soon there will be a 4th) that are begging for more plants. I have no pictures yet due to incompleteness and a lack of good photographic light this weekend.

This is what my entrance hall looked like shortly after starting the first terrarium.

Making a mess. You're doing it right.

Sunday I went to family so they could feed me. It's also been a long time since I've seen them (2-3 weeks?) and I missed them. There was the usual: chicken curry, sugar-free fizzy cooldrinks, rambunctious kids, sleeping on the couches, tea and cake (no death, sorry) and bad taste.

At some point after tea my aunt explained that one day soon she buy a wall unit to house her television and various decorative ornaments. Wide-eyed I kept my mouth shut until her children almost yelled at her that wall units for your television are in no way and form fashionable anymore. My aunt wouldn't hear of it and insisted that stores would not be selling it anymore if it wasn't fashionable.

So, I ask the question: why are stores still stocking horribly outdated, kitsch items (the non-ironic ones)? Because people still buy them? But why? This truly boggles my mind.

Eaglevlei photos

These photos were taken at Eaglevlei in Stellenbosch. I went with a couchsurfer who requested to stay with me for 1 night. 3 nights later she's still staying with me and the weekend we go wine tasting in Stellenbosch. By the time we got to Eaglevlei we were well tipsy. Continuing tasting at Eaglevlei got my couchsurfer to the "drunken rolling around on grass" stage. Me, I decided to snap everything in sight. Not all the pictures were horrible, surprisingly. The ones below quite nicely convey the drunken bliss I felt. None of these have been retouched.

New Projects

I adore terrariums. I want to surround myself with them. But I have never been able to keep a plant alive. I even killed a cactus. Well, technically U my rat ate it but that's a story for another day. As is the black lily that fell of the balcony. Nevermind that it was already dead when it fell, nay, was pushed off the balcony.

Realising that I've successfully kept a cat alive for more than a year and half, I'm now venturing unto slightly more scarier plains. Yes, I realise it's suppose to be the other way around. Keep a plant alive, you can keep an animal alive...

So this weekend will see the start of my second new project. My first was knitting. I knitted a lovely, extra length scarf that I now wear on a regular basis. At some point I will get round to knitting the matching fingerless gloves. Hopefully before the end of winter. If this at all is giving you the idea that I'm someone who starts something but doesn't finish it, you have yet to see me with a bottle of wine.

So, this will involve a visit to Woolworths where I saw the perfect first container for a terrarium and a visit to a nursery. An after the weekend I will update you regarding the terrarium and occasionally I will post about a new one. As I do intend to surround myself with them.

In addition I intend to post about utterly cute things my cat does that is only utterly cute to me and no one else, random belligerence and a good dose of whining, cool things I've seen or want to do and so forth. Until then.

How to Make a Terrarium: http://www.stormthecastle.com/terrarium/
Terrariums.com: http://www.terrariums.com/