New ness is revealed.

So, you got up Early just to hear what's happen with Slave to the Ordinary right? Right.

I needed to change, honest I did. This blog has all been based upon the quote in the upper right hand corner. Being daring, impractical, being anything that inspired those around me. And I did.

I succeeded.

Now, I have another journey to embark on. The journey of not being a pain in the ass but soaking up every little bit I can of this life.

Am I still a slave to the ordinary day? No.

No longer is this blog accurate. It's like finding an old diary and trying to reapply those thoughts to your current outlook. It just cannot be the same.

I have uploaded all these posts onto WordPress- all your comments too. I really do hope that you will find me over there and continue with me as I embark on this new journey.

Ok, enough jibber jabber. (ten points if you NAME THAT QUOTE!)

The new and exciting journey I am embarking on is:



It might be a few days before everything is up and running. But I have posted a few pages with new crap on them and all. So take a moment and change your reader.

Oh I haven't told you where I am posting? Bad bad me. You're gonna have to wait until tomorrow.

Just kidding. You can change your blog reel to:

http://touchingjoy.wordpress.com


What do you think? Will you be following me over there?

I have a secret

I've heard that everyone has a weird neurotic trait. For some, its an alterego. For others it is a tick or learning disability.

I have several imagined neurotic traits. Several neurotic dislikes that I have accepted as a personality trait.

I've got to be the biggest freakshow occupying the planet.

But, the most embarrassing and frusterating and not imagined trait I have... is my secret.

I stutter. *cringe*

I work hard to not let it take over my whole speech all the time. Hubs thinks it cute. My family thinks it slightly annoying. But when I am excited or nervous my words sound like they are in a blender.

It's do frustrating to not be able to communicate like a normal human being. Or to be angry and have my words tumble out sounding nothing like I meant them too.

So it's share time. What is your secret or not so secret trait?

Blog Crush Monday

I am hereby admitting to my one terminal downfall. I fall in love easy. And there are just so many writers that make my heart ooze joy.

So even though frequently my posts have been lamer than lame, and more noob than N00b, I am going to point you in the fabulous directions of some of my favourite Blog Crushes. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Megan at Somewhat Voluble. She probably thinks I am stalking her now. Poor thing. But She is also one of those crazy girls who got married before 21 and her blog is utterly heartwarming.

ScoMan at A Name in your Recollection He recently joined Twitter, and we've become great friends. He posts once a week now a days, and even though I protest daily, he will contiue to do so. Sad Day.

Ron at Ronzworld has taken the blog world by storm. He is witty and fresh and inspiring.

Brandy at It's like I'm...mmmagic Its like reading my alterego at times. Utterly fabulous!

Kerri at Your Wishcake. Another ridiculously heartwarming blogger. *sigh* She's like the nice girl in all of us.

So there you have it. My newest blog crushes. I seriously have a reader of a gazzillion blogs and love them all. *double sigh*


Have a fabulous Monday dear ones! :)

Kids say funny crap

Last night was my father's birthday. My 8 year old sister leans over to hubs and says...

"I know stuff. Jacob Zuma is a very bad man. And Barrack Obama kills babies."

I could have died! How funny is that?!

Bad case of the Mondays

Some days I like to think that I am going to have a good day. I like to think this way, it keeps me motivated. Good day good day…

Until I get out of bed…

Maybe it’s a little post-wedding blues. Maybe it’s the changing of seasons. Or maybe just maybe it’s intuition being a bitch. I can feel when my days are going to be crappy. It’s my gift and my curse. The days when Hubs moved the soap so far away that I can’t reach it from the bath or when he used the last of the loo paper without replacing the roll, I just know deep in my gut that I should go straight back to bed.

But I don’t. I trudge on. Trudging means hope. Hope that tomorrow will be smoother. Hope that in a few weeks I will catch a breath. Hope that in the end things will get better. I will be okay.

That’s what I choose to believe anyway.

Maybe if I believe in unicorns strong enough too they might just collect me to take me on a magical ride…

*sigh* ...Magical ride...




Although, in actual fact, I hate horses. And that picture completely freaks me the heck out. So nevermind. I'll deal very happily with the misplaced soap and lack of loo paper thank you very much!

And the madness continues...

Today is the second to last day of my open book opportunity! Surely you are in fact, burning with desire. To ask me a question anyway!

Today's segment is from Ron. His blog is seriously one of my favourites. He writes very passionately and sends me from tears to giggles with each post. The photos he takes are moving and spirited. If you don't go and at least check him out, you will regret it. So go. Right now if you have to.

11. Please elaborate on the title of your blog.

I figured I would get this question. I figure this mostly because I like to think I have physic capabilities. In any case, the title of my blog originates from a quote from Cecil Beaton. He said, "Be daring, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace and the slaves to the ordinary."

This blog is a statement of my inherent need for the ordinary. It is conversations that I have in my daily life. I post random thoughts I have. This blog is a statement towards my own slavery to the ordinary. However, whilst posting about the ordinary and common-place I personally chase purpose, vision and vibrancy. I feel as though this blog is a testament towards the beauty and the joy in daily life.

12. If you could invite three people for dinner, dead or alive, who would they be?

Bertha would chose 3 musicialicious men to enjoy. They of course would be: Johnny, Gordon and Paul for Chinese in order to discuss the impending doom of globalisation.

I would choose to meet with Leonardo De Vinci and Steven King. Gordon can come along too... Then the three of us can discuss art, love, and melding the two.

13. Ever see America's Funniest Home Video's when they show shots of the groom falling over during the vows because he's wasted before the wedding? If that happened to you (god forbid), what would you say to him?

"You are an idiot. Take a friggin' aspirin when you wake up. Alone" That would probably be followed up by an evil laugh resembling "mwahahaha."

14. Iced Tea, sweet or unsweetened?

I like Liptons Peach Ice Tea Light. Technically sweetened, but with rat poison.

15. What's the weirdest thing you've eaten? (Sorry, last question about food).

I am a terribly picky eater. The most exotic I've eaten was a wildebeest. It looked like steak and steak is yummy. Wilde ain't steak. I've also had Kudu, Ostrich and Human. Well the last part is sorta a lie and sorta not.

16. What are you afraid of?

Insects, the dark and Schalk Burger.

I'm afraid.
You should be too.

17. How many times does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll lollipop?

The number of licks it takes to get to the centre of a tootsie pop is directly proportional to the inverse of the degree of the temperature of the atmosphere multiples by the density of your individual whistle calculated by the air wind speed of an Africa Swallow carrying a coconut.

18. Michael Jackson- Better looking before or after plastic?

Tough.



or



Must admit I'm kinda into the barbie face there. and look at those full lips contrasting with the pointy nose with the wide eyes... Yum.

19. Ever been kicked out of some place?

Consistently kicked out of the Library... Also been asked to leave a restaurant... And when I say restaurant I mean something else.


20. Why must you hate on my beloved country of Canada?

Because I am a hater. And still have never seen a Canadian moose.

Bertha is a stalker.

Facebook has enabled many different things. I am able to see when my friends hook-up/break-up/argue/cut their hair/stir their coffee and all the other GLORIOUS aspects of facebook-dom.

Its amazing the people who invite you. I wasn't really popular in high school because I preferred to keep a small group of good friends and a lot of acquaintances. These lovely folks that I hardly knew in high school ALL have invited me on Facebook. The cheer leading girls who drove me insane in gym class are living it up in France and the nerdy boys who sniffed snot all throughout English class are astonishingly good-looking and well rounded individuals.

Let me just say that I, Elizabeth, am anti-stalker. When I lived at the coast I had my fair share of 'stalkers'. I do suppose they were just love-sick puppies hoping for my number, but seriously following me to the beach/work/home/school is creepy. And a tad stalker-ish. Stalking is uncool.

Bertha, however, does not have the same ethical boundries that I have.

I know all this information about all these randoms because Bertha facebook stalks them. They invite me as friends, she checks out the photos and information they post and heck, I know more about them now than I have EVER known about them.

Bertha is creepy.

Then there are those blog comments she posts. Yes, Scoman, she does this to you excessively. She has the most outrageous way of sounding like a weirdo.

For this I apologise.

On behalf of Bertha.

She is a creep.

What I *LOVE* about Christmas

Today is a glorious day! I have completed the Christmas shopping. Hoor-freaking-ay!

I must admit I am not a fan of Christmas shopping and every year I end up thinking to myself that I have GOT to start earlier. I am a very bad Santa's helper. OOh, I enjoy gift giving. I enjoy finding fabulous finds for my loved ones based on my personal financial strain. Love that.

I am a big fan of shopping in general. It's grand and fabulous, especially when you have cash to spend. Halle-freaking-lujah.

But what can't stand, and encounter every freaking time I went out Christmas shopping, is the dreaded, the horrible, the irritating 'stop-directly-in-front-of-you-to-chat-to-some-distance-
acquaintance-about-the-weather-and-block-not-just-the-
aisle-but-the-entire-corridor-making-it-impossible-to-
get-by-until-they-finish-the-dumb-conversation' Person. The 'SDIFOYTCTSDAATWABNJTABTECMIITGBUTFTDC' Person is usually the affluent Bimbo parading around in high heels with gazillions of parcels being juggled by their significant other. The SO of the SDIFOYTCTSDAATWABNJTABTECMIITGBUTFTDC stands there shifting their weight awkwardly behind the SDIFOYTCTSDAATWABNJTABTECMIITGBUTFTDC and stares awkwardly at you, the extremely irritated unable to walk shopper.

This strange traffic jam enables the second dreaded person to irritate the Unable to Walk Shopper. The dreaded Neck Breather comes up behind the Unable to Walk Shopper and breaths from their nose upon your irritated neck. This allows you to feel two steaming streams of toxic nose breath colliding into your neck hairs. The stench is horrendous, the claustrophobia is growing and you.are.angry.

And you can't do anything about it. Until the weather-talkers realise they actually don't want to talk to each other and continue on their merry ways. Until the Nose breathing Neck tickler holds his breath, you are stuck.

*sigh* Christmas Joy. Christmas Cheer. Yeah, I love Christmas.

Modern Sexism?

Last year I was jobless and desperate. I was so desperate I was ready to go into....


Retail.


I figured I knew music better than average folk, and so when I walked by the local music shop and noticed it was hiring I walked in to ask for an application.

Do you know what I was told?

No.

I asked why. (apparently pending humiliation does not act as a strong deterrent.)

We don't hire girls.

I asked why again. (I have no shame)

The hours are long.

Sir, I currently work 12 hour night shifts. I can work. (No I do not know WHY I remained there.)

The shifts are dangerous.

I am hardly someone people mess with. *insert angry eyes*

We have a policy to only hire men.

So me and my curvalilciousness marched right outta there.

I vowed to never ever buy anything from there ever again. No matter how great of a deal it was.

But I failed.

The Fi took me on a date on Saturday and before the movie we ravaged this shop like never before. The sale... was astonishing. R10 per CD. That's $1. Per.CD. *sigh* and they weren't terrible CDs. We scored. And I gloated. In front of the the very man who told me last year I couldn't work there. I have no problem helping him lose money. Surely after this sale, the products that don't sell will be put back on the rack for R180. That's R170 you lose dumb Afrikaans chauvinist. Suck on that!

With great thanks to the Fi, I realised my own hypocrisy. I worked as a cocktail waitress previous to this conversation. I was hired on the spot as most waitresses are and I happened to be one of the longest working female waitresses there. For good reason. But I digress.

I overheard one of my managers turn down a girl because she wasn't pretty enough. What kind of discrimination is that? It's crap and I knew it. At that moment I should have quit. I should have waltzed right outta there. But I didn't.

So as I complain that I was born the wrong gender, I myself removed the rights of the other girl by staying there. By enabling those men to pick and choose and even getting an ego trip out, I became no better than the company who refused to hire women.

So while the man sucks on my wicked deal, I gotta suck on my own inadequacies.

*sigh*

Even I contribute to the discrimination in society.

Introducing the Alter-ego

I have an alter-ego. She lives there inside that part of my brain that I don’t really like to look at very much. Bertha is her name and she... scares me.

(I am thrilled to learn that I am not the only one with a split personality. Hillbilly's confession here.)

When things get uncomfortable for the normal me, Bertha comes out in her annoying squeaky voice. If Bertha ever decided to rampage my body I would be one bad ass mother trucker. She’s fat and doesn’t bath and probably lives in her pickup truck on the side of the highway in my skull. And there she'll live, like a parasite...leeching...

And that’s nasty.

I have to admit; most people who see Bertha on a regular basis know her antics well. Those who don’t... well they don’t. And when I try and blame my alter ego.... well, they don’t take too kindly to it. Shifting blame? I am not. I am just telling you about my mental instability.

You see, the brilliant are mental cases. That makes me brilliant. And beautiful. Because Bertha tells me so.

And if no one else will compliment me then Bertha will do it. As much as I hate her treatment of those around me, like that poor girl who used to live in the flat above mine, ehm. Bertha sure is damn nice to me. Its hoes before... everyone else. So maybe I’ll extend her rent a little longer for free. Just tell me I’m pretty again ok? And tell that girl she’s a slutty whore for me too.