Hard Times Cafe, Melville

Friday, March 28, 2003

Service: * * *
Food: * * * *
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * *

So why am I ogling Amanda, the manageress, wondering what she'll look like naked, when I've got a beautiful girlfriend in Somerset West, just waiting for me to fly down for another visit?

Well... easy answer... I don't HAVE a beautiful girlfriend in Somerset West anymore.

See, after I flew home on Sunday night, nursing my injured shoulder, I thought a lot about some of Heidi's closed body language over the course of our long weekend together. I thought long and hard about how we argued on Friday night after her friends left. I wondered why we were feeling increasingly estranged.

And of course, the answer came on Monday evening in the form of an email. Heidi was basically saying that we're incompatible. And she's probably right. Aside from sharing almost identical senses of humour, and both being great explorers of each other, and being interested in what the universe has to offer, we're really quite different.

So after an initial spurt of hurt anger on my part for being dumped via email, I made some peace with the situation. Thanks for a lovely few months, Heidi. It was beautiful loving you, and I think fondly of you. We've liberated things in each other, and we'll both be moving onto better life-opportunities. I wish you all the best.

Right. Back to ogling Amanda.

She smiles at me halfway through my meal. I'm eating the legendary Danish Feta, Avo, and Chicken Shwarma, the item that was taken off the menu about four years ago, but which regulars still ask for and get. Amanda waits for me to swallow before asking, "Everything all right?" That's so considerate. Most managers wait till you've taken a new bite before asking.

"Delicious," I say, and smile back at her. I wince a little bit, cos the smiling-muscles are loosely connected to the torn muscle in my back. I've been to two superb sessions of physiotherapy, and I'm on the mend. But my shoulder's still a tad tender. A bit like my chicken in the schwarma.

And I'm also still a tad tender about Heidi. A bit like the mashed avo in the schwarma.

Tallahassee Spur, Somerset West

Thursday, March 20, 2003

Service: * * *
Food: * * *
Ambience: * * 1/2
Babe Count: * * *

I'm sitting with Heidi. Two and a half months have crept by without any physical contact between the two of us. We've run up hundreds of rands worth of phone bills, and now we're together again. Sigh. She's a babe. And I would walk 500 miles...

Actually... I ran 500 metres for her. At the Joburg International Airport. Damon gave me a lift to the airport yesterday, and it took 90 minutes to beat through the traffic, and I had exactly four minutes to make my Kulula.com flight. And I didn't know the aiport had changed. If you've ever flown Kulula, you'll know that once their boarding gates have closed -- thirty minutes before the flight -- they DO NOT OPEN THEM!

So Damon hits the ejector seat in his new Renault Megane, and my backpack and I hit the tarmac, and I run with the thing over my shoulder. Get to where Kulula's boarding gate used to be, and find a sign pointing me South. Hundreds of metres south. So I start running. And put my backpack on in mid-run. And rip my shoulder.

But it's all in the name of love, and I'm desperate to see Heidi, so I run more. And find the lifts are broken. So run up the three flights of rolling stairways. And get to the boarding gate 40 seconds late. And there's nothing that can be done, save to put me on the British Airways standby list.

Now it's around this point that I should have paused to consider what the universe was telling me. I think it might have been saying, "Uh, Roy... should you REALLY be going to Somerset West right now?" But I wasn't listening. I was trying to get my breath back, and ignoring the pain in my shoulder, and phoning Heidi to tell her I'd be late, and phoning Damon to tell him I missed the flight, and sweating.

And I got my flight.

And seeing Heidi at the Cape Town airport was a real highlight of my year. She's beautiful to me, and she was beaming. Both of us nervous as all hell. After all, this is the second time we're physically together over the course of a five or six month relationship.

So now we're sitting in the Tallahassee Spur in Somerset West, and the affable manager with no eyebrows, Barries, is agreeing to give me the kiddies burger instead of the adult burger. I love burgers, but they're normally way too big for me. Heidi goes for the normal sized burger with the mushroom sauce. I ask for pepper sauce.

And Heidi and I are settling down to being comfortable-ish with each other again. Last night was excellent, and I was able to easily forget my shoulder pain under Heidi's ministrations. But right now it's hurting. And there's no sign as yet that Heidi is shortly going to break up with me because we're incompatible.

Fournos, Rosebank

Saturday, March 15, 2003

Service: * * *1/2
Food: * * * 1/2
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * * *

Damon Berry and I have my laptop plugged into the cashier's electrical outlet and we've just been bust bigtime by the woman behind the counter. She's laughing at us, and has her hand over her mouth. We smile back.

Bust doing what?

Perving, of course. It all started when the woman in the blue skirt and white blouse walked past about ten minutes ago. I knew something was up when Damon gave himself whiplash. "Roy!" he said, and I jerked my head around to look. We've got this system going to cover the perv action. If one of us sees some quality babeage, we'll point, as if we're highlighting something interesting in the middle distance. This means that the real object of our affections doesn't necessarily know that we're looking at her.

At this point, the blue skirt disappeared from sight, and Damon and I went back to work. We're doing a budget for our first commercial together. We co-wrote it, I'm producing, and he's directing. I can't name the client at the moment, since it's all hush-hush till their new campaign breaks. What I can say is that when I presented the idea to them, they loved it hugely, and have liberated a neat little portion of their budget for us.

So our heads are together over my computer screen as we try in vain to remove R35 000 more from the budget. We've got to come in at a certain figure, or else the client won't be able to afford it. And we're WELL above that figure, and we just aren't cracking the money-shaving exercise. Damon's just finished his spinach tramezzini, and I've stuck to a slice of hand-made ganache cos I'm still recovering from the damned SABC pie I ate some time ago. So Damon pushes his plate aside, and...

Zhlammo! Damon's in whiplash territory again. And yes... it's the blue skirt. And her butt is about one metre from our table. And she's standing at the cashier, waiting to pay. Both of us are staring. This is wetdream territory. Cos her tiny black thong panties are licking over the rim of the slinky blue skirt. And as anyone knows, the merest hint of panties showing is enough to cause sub-belt thrombotics.

And as the dark-haired butt-beaut pays and starts walking out, the cashier happens to look down and sees Damon and me gawping. So okay. Arrest us. We're grotesque specimens of sexist filmmakers who would run casting couches in an instant if we were famous.

Talking of which... I'm flying to Cape Town on Wednesday, and Heidi and I plan to spend a LOT of time on the casting couch together. Might even shoot a screen test of the two of us to counter these long days and nights spent alone in different cities!

(Some developments on the job front, but I can't say anything about those until I've got offers in writing, and those offers meet my exacting specifications for what a job should entail. You will be kept informed.)

In the meantime, it's three sleeps till Wednesday night.

My Flat, Cresta

Monday, March 10, 2003

Service: *
Food: *
Ambience: *
Babe Count: *

The service here is terrible at the moment, and that's because I'm basically limping around in a musty red sarong, my throat all raspy and sore, clutching my stomach. I've been eating stale Pro Vita biscuits with no toppings. Why?

Because of a Cornish Pasty I ate twice on Thursday. Bought it at the SABC S1 canteen. They keep a stack of pies in a sort of unwarming drawer behind the counter. You choose one, they slap it into the microwave oven for forty seconds, and you pray that it's killed the botulism or bubonic plague or whatever has started taking hold in the innards. This particular Thursday, I was so hungry I ignored my tastebuds.

As a consequence, just as I was coming up the stairs of my flat on Thursday night to drop off my laundry and head straight off to a sneak preview of Charlie Kaufman's new movie, ADAPTATION, the sweating and fever started. And a long intimate relationship with my toilet bowl ensued. With me getting to enjoy the pie several times over. Hmm. That texture.

At around 3:30am I saw the very last bit of black gunk leave me on its journey down to the sewerage farm for recycling into the Johannesburg water. I wanted to phone them to ask them to take the SABC off that circuit, cos I'm sure it's dangerous, what with all the food poisoning coming back into the water supply.

But hey. Friday morning I woke up, went to the chemist to buy some anti-vomiting stuff, did my audio mix session on the promos I made for SABC 3 TALK, and then came home again, to sleep for around 19 hours.

Saturday, did the doctor thing. Got antibiotics. Took them. And promptly found myself revisiting them too. To the tune of several litres and several hours crouching over the toilet bowl.

Which is why I'm at home today instead of at work.

Which is great really. Gives me some time to work out how to earn myself a living down in Somerset West. But I wish I could eat something more substantial than a dry biscuit. And the service sucks! Wish Heidi could be here holding a wet facecloth to my dripping brow. Hmm. On second thoughts, I'd rather spare her the details.