Peanut Butter Dreaming on Such an Autumn Day

I had just started to settle into a routine where I was actually managing to work full-time and still do other stuff like go to gym and buy groceries and hang out with people. And I was getting paid! Not as much as a normal salary, but much more than I had any right to expect from my one day a week of paid work. I dreamt of a new duvet! Good peanut butter! Not crying over the water bill each month! Everything was going well.

But it turns out that was a little optimistic, because the Fundraising Place - the only people actually paying me - just cut my hours to... well, none. Until they need me again at some point in the vague future.

This is what I did not do when they told me, because unfortunately, the fact that they were my main source of income is my problem, not theirs.

Not that you can even get vegan ice cream here any more. NOW I FEEL WORSE.

So instead I acted like this was all totally fine, asked them to call me in for a few hours here and there if I could do anything, and walked home. Thus.

(I love you, tumblr.)

Which did give me the opportunity to do my obligatory privilege check. I'm glad to be in a position where I can afford to lose my main source of income and have it make me only sad, rather than, you know, homeless. But I think I'm still allowed to be a little sad.

Nevertheless, here are some things that are not sad!

This guy has the best letters after his name.

This is executive tea.

This is Jo'burg in autumn.

I have finally conceded that Jo'burg does have an autumn. Although we do mostly just call it "winter" the minute it's clearly no longer summer.

We went to another classy book launch and Ro pulled faces with Rachel Zadok.

This buffet isn't actually "all that cheap".

Someone planted a free vegetable garden!

It's a baby marrow! By which I mean a marrow the size of a baby. I'm really tempted to draw a face on it, but then I know I'll never be able to eat it.

Also also also, ROLLER DERBY. You guys, I have never been so excited about sport (except maybe baseball).

We're watching SPORT.

We went to a roller derby bout a few weeks back, largely because Dasia had invited me and I figured I should probably like, go out and stuff. But it turned out to be the most exciting and badass thing I've ever watched. At more than one point I was on my feet, shouting, which made me realise that this must be how people feel about rugby.

I don't know why they feel that way about rugby, but everyone should feel that way about derby.

One day, I will be this cool. (I probably won't.)

It was confusing at first, but once Ro and I mapped it onto a sport we could understand, it all made a lot more sense. It did mean that we kept forgetting all the real names for all the positions, but the plus side of that was winding Das up by referring to the players by their quidditch equivalents ("Is our seeker in the lead?").

And much like in the last World Series, the team I was told I supported went on and WON, and as I am very competitive and buy into team loyalty very quickly, this was the most exciting thing that had ever happened ever, and I screamed myself hoarse.

GO STARSHIP TROOPERS. (Photos stolen from the C-Max Roller Derby League FB page)

I love the badass sexy-but-not-for-you aesthetic of derby. And I love that you can do sport on brooms (sorry, Das) roller skates. And I totally want to join in and then maybe I can be that cool too, but I'm not sure I love the idea quite enough to drive to Modderfontein twice a week for practice (it is as far away as it sounds).

So really, things are ok. I have executive tea to drink, and the winters here are sunny, and I have a giant marrow to eat. Although maybe not that last one, because the longer I keep it, the more emotionally attached to it I get. And one day, maybe someone will pay me an actual salary, or at the very least I'll marry money, and I will have all the peanut butter I want and the water bill won't make me so sad.

I leave you with this question which someone honest-to-goodness asked in a group about theoretical linguistics. Was he perhaps thinking of hypothetical linguistics?

It doesn't. It's linguistics.