relapse

on saturday i went back to high school, unintentionally.

well, it was close enough anyway. not my high school but a similarly early 1900's style one across the railroad tracks. the afrikaans boys school version.

for the infamous rugby game, where the english boys school tries to convince themselves that they are going to win, every year. and every year, except for a few exceptions, they lose.

not that anyone is really there to watch the game anyway, apart from those still in uniform and those that actually care. for most of the crowds gathered around the try-line or congregating under the few trees on the field's sideline, today is an annual social event.

where everyone, regardless of where they fitted in on the perceived school social hierarchy, feigns interest in each others lives. and drinks. all day.

like a true high school event most of the afternoon was spent trying to actually get our drinks past security.

who took their jobs very seriously. they even went as far as opening and emptying bottles of cider that a short guy called adrian had neatly scaled through the gaps in the metal fence, and were previously camouflaged in the grass.

until he asked for my help. he thought me sitting next to him would make the bottle-through-gate exchange less noticeable. i guess he didn't consider the pants i was wearing.

purple synthetic. flower print.

something i didn't think was that conspicuous before, i mean, they're comfortable.

"so you are the girl wearing the purple pajama pants" a friend said later, after i found him laughing at the other side of the field.

and this was only the first of the comments. some people were complementary, some laughed, out loud, openly. some also may have also have mentioned the words "free spirit", but i think by that stage i had been drinking hansa out of a vuvuzela, so i wasn't really paying that much attention.

to anything really.

it may have something to do with finishing a bottle of rose between three people behind the crowds, on the incline overlooking the field. or the several beers/ciders we drank while contemplating how to get the rest of our beers/ciders inside without anyone noticing.

security may have been tight, at normal points of entry. but the surrounding train track construction definitely opened a few more, especially for noticeably oversized bags of clinking glass.

this was the first year i remember anyone checking anyone's bags, for anything. more often that not i have watched this game at the rival school. a school, that on careful consideration, is about 10 times the size, and full of exotic pine tree forests and places to hide.

the afrikaans school might win the rugby every year, but they definitely lost out on land size. in a big way.

and even though security tried, the field was littered with bottles when the final whistle was blown, and most of the crowd moved on to their linguistically assigned alumni bar, for cold beer and drink specials.

an interesting venue, and probably the only bar in the world where having breasts doesn't help you get served. they did sell quartz over the counter though, which was great.

south american style drinking, all over again.

except this time i was talking to primary school friends, and at least a handful of people i've known from the age of 3. people i made out with in high school, and the ones my friends made out with too. people who still remember that your main ambition in life at the age of 15 was to be a drummer in a punk band.

embarrassing.

although, if i had fulfilled that dream i would at least have something to say when that question arises.

"so what are you up to now?"

i wish i could say i was studying, or that when i say i'm a writer that i could actually list the publications i "write" for.

but, instead, i bring in words like "recession", and vague answers like "i just haven't found what i'm looking for yet" to cushion the fact that to most people, "lady of leisure" really implies that i'm a lazy, clown-pants-pajama-wearing slob.

but i'm not, i promise.

i know that even though my phone died, i missed several calls, and lost my friends in the darkness of a dogbox rooftop electro party later, that i am responsible. that even though i may have tried try to sit on a band box behind the stage which looked like it had a cover, but didn't, that i have direction.

i know that even though i spent the whole of yesterday in agony, blaming steers and their oily fries, and missing out on the well stocked spread of a sunday family lunch, i have learnt that my alcohol tolerance extends to about roughly two beers.

i know that i have managed to deal with lack of sleep like an adult, even though i had to excuse myself from the lunch table, to go sleep, again.

in the same yellow-painted room as the one i was reluctant to leave every morning to catch the bus outside. the same room where wire moon-motif chimes still hang silently, a remnant of an early teen obsession with paintings of anthropomorphic solar bodies, feng shui and tie-dyed clothes with painted fairies and cats.

just because i'm in the same room, staring at the same curtains with the weirdly sperm shaped embroidery, and doing some of the same things, repeatedly, doesn't mean i'm still the same person.

it doesn't mean i'm relapsing into old high school habits of underachievement, i'm sure of it.

well, pretty sure.