Growing up sometimes presents itself as a kind of strange multiverse. A world in which the comfort of experience confines you to particular spots in the world around you.

You take a certain route to work. You buy your pepper-steak pies from one shop, your morning coke at a single garage, you drink your sundowners at the Scud.

On Fridays you hit the booze in the usual place with the usual people, go to the same Liquid Lounge and listen to the same DJ playing the same tunes you’ve been hearing for 20 years.

Saturdays find you gocharing that lekker sausage, outside the customary butchery or bottle-store, with people you’re used to, drinking the usual poison at the usual pace.

See, it’s interesting to consider just how much we are creatures of habit. It gets more intriguing when something shakes your routine so violently, encroaches on your schedule so abruptly that you question your entire existence and the cocoon you have built around yourselves.

You start to wonder whether, in carving out your comfort zones and peer groups, you have limited your scope of experiences, and by swimming in your channel, you’re missing the obvious under-currents of a life you will never know.

Yesterday, for exampuru, I discovered that there is an entire sub-culture in Harare, where women meet on Sundays and play hockey. The catalyst for this new and intriguing find was my sister, who was invited to play for some club.

Forsaking my regular Naked Sunday, I went along with my lover in tow and next thing you know, my little Field (hockey) Mouse is in a league game, scores a goal, dubbed new fish and is a part of the team.

Where she got the energy to suddenly run around 35 minutes each way, carrying a fucking log no less, on a Sunday afternoon I have no goddamn clue!

Time to dust off those social soccer boots, my fellow sedentary boozers.

Cos  if the missus can do it, goddamn it so can I.

We are pouring our lonely souls down the black pit of social networking fakery.

It’s no longer “So are we going steady?”. It’s … “Are we Facebook official?”

We have stopped phoning each other. We no longer text. Fucking hell, we hardly ever talk.

We meet up, and because of Facebook, we already know what’s happened in the week. We know how work was, we know all the opinions on the latest news and recent sporting events and old-school singles and this weekend’s discos.

What happened to us?  Did we trade in conversation, insight and understanding for random, irregular snippets of each others’ lives?

Are we such a cynical, disconnected society that we can substitute the occasional “News Feed” scan for the age-old, tried-and-true reaching out and touching somebody?

I don’t think so. I reckon if we disconnect from over-connection, we can re-establish the bonds that made us friends instead of drinking buddies, mates instead of people-who-hang-out, lovers instead of people “In a relationship”.

You try it. Close down your Facebook, and call one of those “friends’.

And try not to talk about Facebook.

How ya doin? When I walked into the Scud & Nanny, you were sitting with a dude. What happened? Oh, I remember, he went to the loo and arrowed for the door.

Shame, was that before or after he paid for the ribs you were wolfing at the bar? I’m guessing before, cos you started jonesing for my other mate real bad.

Gotta tell you though, you were out of line, poking me in the back with your finger, pushing up on me and demanding to know where he’d gone to. Listen bitch, I don’t have a GPS tracker on the guy. He’s probably moved somewhere he doesn’t have to fend off the advances of an ugly, no-English, bad-breath beeyatch.

You don’t quit though, cos you started stroking my OTHER mate’s face right there. Aren’t you the shameless desperado? Learn to take a hint, right? If I turn my back on ya, I don’t want you at my table.

So next time, whore, take your nasty, shiny-weave, granny-drawers-with-white-pants-wearing ass back to Tipperary’s where you belong.

I just wanna have a quiet drink without being accosted by Miss Baltimore Crabs.

Disgustedly

Guy you poked in the back with your dirty fake nail.

“To hear many religious people talk, one would think God created the torso, head, legs and arms, but the devil slapped on the genitals.”  – Don Schrader

I love porn. There, I said it. But not for the reasons you may think.

I think explicit imagery is important as a contrast to the majority of mainstream representation of women’s sexuality.

The prevailing message women receive is that sexual aggression is unfeminine, that a woman’s primary sexual role is as regulator of male desire — to say yes or no, but not to pursue desires of their own.

Girls are still taught that sexy is the same as “pretty,” that it means dressing a certain way and then waiting to be approached. Fuck films show women being sexually aggressive and powerful in a way that sometimes isn’t pretty, but is definitely sexy.

Because we live in a country that actively censors ideas no matter how popular, we are unable to better cultivate our own individual belief systems.

This is because one of the ways we learn what we believe in, and become mature opinionated adults, is by encountering language and imagery that we disagree with or have strong reactions to – the best ideas come out of confronting the unfamiliar.

Human desires evolve out of our varied, complex experiences in the world. Sex is so basic to our humanity, and sexuality is an arena (like dreams) that connects us to the parts of ourselves we don’t always fully understand or have words for.

This is what makes sexuality fascinating and endlessly variable and certainly worth exploring (extensively). But with any exploration, be it of one’s self or environment, there has to be moderation, common sense and respect for others.

I wouldn’t bring a copy of Playboy to supper at my mother’s house, not because Playboy is obscene, but because it would be out of context. But sitting on my coffee table? The context fits, because the choice is mine.

Bottom line is, if you don’t like porn or Playboy, fine. Don’t try and impose your moral aversion to pornography on the entire world – just try not to watch it.

Leave that to me.

Winners often suffer from the delusion that they’ll be winners forever. They imagine that victory is their birthright, that they’ll effortlessly succeed at everything they try.

Eventually, though, reality catches up with them. Child stars grow up to be angry alcoholics. Captains of industry lose their fortunes. Rock stars overdose. Handsome dudes go bald and get dumped by their wives. Starlets age badly. Comedians lose their senses of humor. Footballers get bad knees.

So why do we ascribe so much power to those who happen to be winning at this very moment? That’s just what losers do, I guess.

I was a winner too, lucky in love, working amongst friends, a gentleman of leisure.

Now I’m just a sad, single guy with an awkward paunch, a freezing bed and half a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label.

Thus fell Lord Perth, and the earth did shake with that thunder.