Wanderlust

won-der-luhst

–noun
a strong, innate desire to rove or travel about.

Origin:
1850–55; <G, equiv. to wander(n) to wander + Lust desire>

I want to go. Anywhere. I don't care. And far. I want to pack my bags and spend hours roaming around an airport. I want swollen ankles from sitting down for 10 hours at 10 000 feet and sore shoulders from carrying a backpack. I want to feel frustration at trying to figure out a new train schedule. I want to cry again because I cannot fit all my clothes and trinkety souvenirs into my bag. I want to impulsively leave half my clothes on a hotel floor.

But I also want to see new things. Wonderful things. Old things that I've never seen before.

I've got it bad. Taking off 5 months to stay at home and recover from yet another airport disaster is enough. I ready to take it all on again.

My feet are itchy.

Now I just need a plane ticket. To a far away place.*



*Wishlist updated

Bad day

I had a different blog post related to couchsurfing planned for today and my day was looking up as I fondly recalled the great couchsurfing experiences I've had to date.

Until I opened an email alerting me to a new post on the South African Couchsurfing group. It was a post about safety.

I'm sure everyone has had bad couchsurfing experiences. My worse so far has been the guy with really strong body odour. It's less than nothing compared this woman's experience:

Chinese tourist 'raped' after being offered free bed for the night from man on 'couchsurfing' website

This is such sad news. Utterly heart breaking and I'm crying as I write this. Why must there always be people who ruin great things for others?

I have been extremely optimistic about the world as of late. I'm trying to tell myself that I should do everything in my power to keep it so. But I'm not sure I have the power to keep my spirits up.

EDIT: The meds have worn off and I'm less emotional and vulnerable than I was this morning. This could've happened anywhere, anytime, with anyone. Couchsurfer or not. The woman could have stayed with someone she knew well, or someone a friend she trusts recommended and she still could have been raped. I guess sometimes I just want the world to be too perfect even though I know it is not and can never be. Try explaining that. Reading about this took away the perfectness that I thought was couchsurfing but I should have known better, shouldn't I? Or I did but conveniently ignored it. I'll admit that it was less about a woman being violated than my 'perfect' world being shattered. But not by much.

I guess the attitude around this will be: stupid woman staying with a stranger. That is completely unfair. This is an isolated incident and will hopefully stay that way. I'm not going to let one reprehensible act ruin what has been up to now, and can continue being, a great experience for me. I hope the other good couchsurfers out there feel the same.

Something to blog about

Is it sad that one of your thoughts when the front of your car gets ripped off and you're then arrested for drunk driving*, is, "Well, at least I have something to blog about now".

After an epic Friday night, after passing out on my bed still wearing all my clothes and jewellery, I woke up still drunk and agreed that a spontaneous trip to wine country is a fantastic idea. It seemed the best way to avoid the coming hangover.

Gorgeous wine farms and wine, golf carts and one Reuben's lunch later* I found my car missing its front which was later loaded into the back.

Couchsurfer Lana with a headlight

I later got pulled over for driving with a damaged car. But it didn't help that the car smelled like a microbrewery because of spilled beer. So I was arrested and spent the next 3 or so hours at the police station, with 30 minutes or so in a dark, dank cell.** I was "nice" and they were overcrowded so I was released early. I didn't receive any horrible treatment besides being denied a lawyer and my own medical doctor*** but the condition of the cells were unbelievably horrible.****

*I didn't rip of the front of the car while driving drunk. In fact, the car was parked and I was buying chocolate when the front got ripped off. The driver who ripped off the front was kind enough to go and report it and get a case number. I've spoken to him and he assures me that all damage will be paid for.

**I'm not being melodramatic. None of the lights in the women's cells were working and it was damp due to the weather turning foul in the evening.

***To be discussed with my lawyer on Thursday.

****I might have to wrote a serious post, not in keeping with the lighthearted nature of this blog, about the horrendous conditions of jails and prisons.

Drapes of Knit

My education continues.

According to the latest House & Leisure, knitted home decor is all the rage. Now, I cannot stand knitted covers for cushion or ottomans or the like but I must say that a knitted throw is all in all cute. And I'm quite taken by, wait for it, knitted drapes.

So much so that I spent considerable time working out the logistics of knitting drapes. After realising that it would take me at least 6 months and 2 metre long knitting needles to complete but one drape, I gave up on the idea of knitting my own. What I need is a knitting machine. Anyone have one lying around somewhere?

Now I'm not talking about cutesy drapes like here. In fact any knitted drapes with any kind of pattern is frankly repugnant. I'm thinking more along the lines of big garter stitch, raw silk cum hessian effect. It would create a lovely bohemian look.


First home decor, now street art. Take a look at these anything-but-grannies decorating the streets of London:

There you have it: graffiti knitting. The creative 'anarchists' of Knit the City have blogs with titles like Whodunnknit and The Purple Purler.

Perhaps it is time to take my knitting talent to the next level. Right after I finish those drapes.

Paranormal romance and the weekend that was (in reverse)

The weekend that was was quite uneventful. Sunday I was forced out of bed by my mother insisting I come to the train station to see her off before she embarks on her trip to the north. I decided not to return to bed after the fare-thee-wells, and set off to Canal Walk to watch Harry Potter.

While browsing the bookstore before the start of the movie I was surprised to discover that not only does paranormal romance now officially have its own genre, there are also 8 shelves dedicated to it. The top shelf, of course, housing Stephanie Meyers' Twilight series. Why my surprise? Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, mutants and humans have been falling in and out of love with each other for aeons. But never did they receive a genre of their own. Nevermind 8 bookshelves. I blame Stephanie Meyers for this and I don't particularly care that the genre was in existence before Meyers wrote Twilight.

I enjoyed Harry Potter although large parts of the movie bored me and I just wanted them to get a move on to where spells are cast and people die. I reckon this is due to the fact that I've read the book and even then was not really all that interested in the love life of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. I thoroughly enjoyed the scene where Harry has taken the Felix Felicis potion and recommend seeing the movie just for that scene.

Saturday I spent most of the day in bed, sleeping. I finally awakened sometime after 7pm and made my most delicious lasagna yet. But I have still to figure out how to not to run out of white sauce. The obvious solution would be to just make more white sauce, right? I'm waiting for this to sink in.

Friday night was the Mad Hatter's Christmas Tea Party at The Old Biscuit Mill. I was somewhat under a wrong impression, thinking that this would be the night version of the popular Neighbourgoods Market. Nonetheless, the event was utterly disappointing. I am now convinced that I missed my calling as an event planner after spending very little mental effort planning a Mad Hatter's Party and coming up with ideas infinitely better than the organisers of the event. This is because the organisers did not think beyond "Get people to wear hats/ties". The event was described as such:

Not your run of the mill Christmas in July

and

Come and join us for a fun-filled shopping experience. Exciting prizes for best dressed Hat or Tie or Both, Kids entertainment, wine farms – wine sales, Cape culinary experience, loads of entertainment for the whole family. An event not to be missed.

My first though is "Why combine Christmas in July and a Mad Hatter's tea party?" There is no logical connection and it's just asking to be overloaded in terms of catering for both themes. The shops were open. There was nothing fun-filled about it. I'm sure there were prizes although any mention of this at the event was scarce to be found. A few wine farms had their wares on offer. And on offer they were in the most inappropriate place, the entrance hall that was not big enough to keep the wine tasters out of the way of those wishing to just pass through.

The Cape culinary experience was mysteriously absent. Perhaps I arrived too late and all the food had been eaten. Besides for some tasty cookies there was not a crumb to be found. Or a drop, for that matter, that wasn't a meagre tasting from the wine farms. Yes, the on-site restaurant's bar was open but this was so poorly run that I turned around dry-throated after waiting 15 minutes. Kids' entertainment was in the form a most sorry, skinny arsed Santa Claus, not a 'ho' to be heard.

There was no atmosphere, no decoration, and no music. This tea party was definitely one that should have been skipped and after about an hour we went to find cocktails and food at the local watering hole which had infinitely more atmosphere, booze, food and entertainment than the Mad Hatter's affair.

Proliferation of bad taste

So I seem to have found the answer to my question about bad taste raised here in the oddest place.

I found it in Robert Rankin's The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. You've probably guessed from the title of the book that Rankin is not a philosopher of any sort. But he does have a way of pointing out the obvious.

I quote:

Why it is that bad taste always triumphs over good is one those things that scholars love to debate, when they don't have anything better to do, such as getting a life and getting a girlfriend.
Is there actually such a thing as 'good taste'? they debate. Or 'Is it all merely subjective?'
Well, of course there is such a thing as good taste! Some things actually are better than other things, and people are capable of making the distinction.
But...
Bad taste will always ultimately triumph over good taste , because bad taste has more financial backing. There is far more profit to be made from selling cheap and nasty products, at a big mark-up, than selling quality items at a small mark-up. And you can always produce far more cheap and nasty items far nore quickly than you can produce quality items. Far more.

So, there we have it.