girl.blog.etc

2008-05-17T16:20:00.003+10:00

I wanted to call my new blog ApplePants. This is because of my obsession with underpants that have pictures of apples on them. I would've decorated it with pictures of apples and pants and possibly apple pants, and it would've been sweet. Until I googled the phrase and found this entry on Urban Dictionary.

Apple Pants; When a female is on her period and the flow is heavy enough to soak through the front of her pants, skirt or underwear and look a bit like a red, shiny apple.

I apologise for the mental imagery here, but are you freaking kidding me? So now, quite understandly, I can no longer use ApplePants. Unless I want people to think I am blogging about menstruation. Apple Pants: a blog about laydeez with a Heavy Flow.

Cheesed off much. Every time I visit that page I give it a thumbs DOWN.

I think I have come up with something else though, and my initial searches have shown that it has nothing to do with surfing the crimson wave. This makes me happy.

2008-05-14T19:21:00.002+10:00

Mystery of Life: Why am I never at home sick on the days when Oprah has a makeover special on TV? Hmm? Only B-grade US celebrity interviews for me. Life is so unfair.

Blog Resurrection Update: I don't want to stay at g.b.e. It is old and musty and there's that whole year-long gap thing which makes me look really slack. I have spent the whole of today trying to come up with a new blog title*, and I am totally stumped. The one suggestion that I have been given is "My Blog" which is currently in the lead.

Or maybe I should go with girl.blog.stuff or Diary of a Rapidly Ageing Hag. This is tough. Way tough.

*In between Days of Our Lives, reading, snoozing, and snacking.

2008-05-12T16:59:00.003+10:00

I bought a computer.

So I should probably start blogging again, since it was fun and good for me and all that biz. And I'm sure there's hundreds (possibly millions) of people who would appreciate my mad drawing skillz.

Except!

I'm not sure if I can remember how to write. My brain feels all fat and puffy, like it's been snacking on cheeseburgers while my body has been slaving away at the office. And there is every possibility that I will post something half-arsed, become distracted by something shiny, and give up.

Anyway. I'll mull this over for a bit. Hello to anyone who reads this. I hope that you are tip top and dandy.

2007-05-09T17:43:00.000+10:00

Well hidey ho.

I wrote a while back that there were changes afoot, and changes there have been. On April 25th I packed my things and left John.

I have never cried so uncontrollably in my life.

John knows of this blog, and I know that some of you have met him now, so please excuse me for sparing you the details. I don't want to disrespect him in any way. We were both slowly self-destructing and this was beginning to manifest itself both mentally and physically, and suddenly the relationship was broken beyond any chance of repair.

I think that it will be best if my life is kept to myself for a little while, as we both adjust to this change. It was not a mutual decision, you see. You see?

I am now officially off the air. Thank you for reading my shite. I have appreciated every page load and every comment and every e-mail. Even the ones from angry people and bad spellers. You people make me feel all funny in my tummy.

Keep in touch, k? Sniff.

2007-04-23T12:26:00.000+10:00

[Moving right along! Travel shit, Part Three. Part One be here, Part Two be here. Yes!]

I don't know about you, but I love little faces in my bread.

We headed out of Arequipa and went crazyhigh, all the way to the Colca Canyon, which is known for its superhighness and condors. Also, there's heaps and heaps of vicuñas, which are these little wild llama things.

A poncho made out of their wool costs something like $3000 US. Mad! Gotta get me a herd of those bastards.

Here be the canyon. Twas lovely.

Here be a sneaky condor. Condors are real arseholes, because as soon as you travel for hours over one of the bumpiest dirt tracks ever to get up there just so you can have a squiz at the bastards, then they are all guaranteed to go and hide. We spent frigging ages standing there waiting for one to show its face, and in the whole time I think we saw a grand total of two, who came around the corner, saw all of the whiteymcwhite tourists, and pissed off quicksmart. Pricks!

Though I did get a few seconds of awesome video footage which David Attenborough would be jealous of, and as soon as I sort the video, I will show you. Mkay?

We spent a notworthmentioning night in a place called Chivay, and my best mate paid someone five soles to touch a wild, flat-eared, crazyangryspitting llama, and it was very entertaining for everyone involved, except for perhaps the llama.

On to Cuzco! It is the best place we went to in the whole of Peru, and it is also the most touristy, and I can't help but think that I enjoyed it so much because of the spoilt white girl amenities and the number of pubs. There's also drugs galore, and we went into a pub and the girl next to us ordered a beer and was charged about six times what it was costing us, and we realised that she had actually bought herself a nice cocaine snack to go with her tasty beverage. Yum!

The main square.

That really famous twelve-sided stone. Nuts! How much time did these people have on their hands?

Cuzco became our base for the next three days, and we entertained ourselves with various day trips, excessive vomiting and general squirting, and taking full advantage of the many, many pubs. It was also where I drank such an incredibly large amount that I spent the night dancing by myself like a bit of a whore and made an absolute tit of myself in general. But hey, I think I can safely say that I'm not going to be bumping into any of those people any time soon, and needn't be embarrassed. Hooray!

After living the high life, they shipped us off to the Inca trail for some TORTURE. Read about it here. If those Incas were so God damn smart I don't know why they didn't build an elevator up to Machu Picchu. Some pics!

The first site we saw.

Oh! So pretty! It almost took my mind off the pain. Almost.

That's not me. The easy way to tell this is by noticing that that person is wearing a rain poncho, and I was not actually that clever.

The stupid effing nipple mountain! That was our target for getting over the highest point of the trek, and it took us three days to get there. Oh, how I hate that nipple.

Ahhh. Close up is here.

Coming in Part Four: I'll finally finish this bloody thing. Hoorah!

2007-04-17T20:43:00.000+10:00

Bleurgh. Right now I have about as much motivation as a fatty in a cake shop who's thinking about starting that diet. I feel like making myself a tent using a bedsheet and the back of the couch and tucking myself in, nice and snug.

I don't mention everything on this here blog, would you believe. Yes, shock, horror, gasp, etc. In fact, there's a fair few subjects I consider Off-Limits. In-depth worky things, for example, because I am ever-fearful of the omniscient Google. Also, I don't post pictures of my naked wobbly bits, and I think that we are all better off for this exclusion. I generally try and stay away from the realm of Too Much Info*.

(*Excluding stories involving bowel movements, farting and/or vomiting, because I need something to post about.)

What I am gradually alluding to here is the subject of Relationships. Yes, Relationships. Can I get a collective 'SPEW'? Come on, all together now. I stopped blogging about the in-depth John stuff back when he discovered my blog, even though he said he wouldn't read it, and I believe him.

And I'm not about to start the heart-pouring right now, but I will just say that changes are afoot, and that I do quite fancy chucking a sickie tomorrow and curling up in front of some trash TV while I shove my face full of sweet things like jam and cakes and lard pies.

So, hey, the conclusion being: Relationships can eat my shit, and sugar is great.

Why can't life be all sunshine and lollipops? Eh? EH?!

2007-04-14T09:22:00.000+10:00

I have been stopping and starting, deleting and retyping, for the past week. I haven't had the time to finish a blog post, and I think it might be partially to do with working for a million hours and then falling asleep by 9:30, only to be staggering to work in the pre-dawn darkness the next morning, over and over again. I was planning to go to the Supanova Expo today, to go and talk anime with the other anime nerds, but now my plans have been blown away.

I have been talked into applying for a job.

That is, I have been talked into applying for my OWN job.

Eh?

You see, instead of a manager pulling you aside and saying "hey, would you like a payrise?" which is what happens in everyone's wildest dreams, the way these wacky government people work it is they will tell you that there is a higher-paying position available and open to anyone who wants to apply. And if you get it, you actually do exactly the same job, but at a higher rate of pay.

So, essentially, I am applying for my own job, but if I don't get it, I'll still have my job. Unless I do such a poor job in my interview (another panel interview, bleurgh) that they decide that not only am I not worthy of more money, I should be booted from the department altogether.

Knowing my ability to make a complete tit out of myself at the most important and pivotal moments of my life, it is quite likely.

So I'll be working on my application today, and hey, if the Bullshit Hat decides to fit well, maybe I'll whizz through it and can still go and talk about nerdy things with the other kids tomorrow. The zitty teenage boys never seem to quite accept me, though. It's so hard to fit in.

2007-04-09T10:05:00.000+10:00

[Boring travel rubbish, Part Two. Part One be here. Aiiii!]

First of all:

Ooh!

And, ahh! Check out all of those sea lion babies. Sea lions are busybusy.

So, after all of those stomach-churning activities, we checked into a hotel which was lovely, and completely deserted except for a couple of German men in shorts. The hotel had a couple of llamas, it's own cock-fighting ring, and the most mango-laden trees I have EVER seen.

Check that shit! South Americans sure know how to do their fruit.

I went to bed while everyone else drank and made merry. But all of that sleep hit the spot, and I was tip-top the next day. Hurrah! Speaking of the next day, we checked out a gold mine where the person presenting started SQUIRTING MERCURY around the place, and HEY, that's mercury right there, could you please not squirt it at me, kthx.

Also on this next day, we checked out how the local folk made pottery, and the guy showed us how they made it shiny using the oil from their skin. This involved the rubbing of his nose on some pottery. Whacky! We all then went and bought some of this pottery, and there's now a pot thing hanging on our wall which has been glazed with a man's nose. Are you jealous?

Open graves!

Man, I don't know about you, but I have seen enough skeletons to last me a lifetime.

We stayed the night in Puerto Inca, which is basically a pretty cove which was purchased by a German man who turned it into a resort for gringos and rich Peruvians. There's lots of ruins around the place if one fancies a walk, and about a million open graves. These ones aren't in the least bit protected by any inconvenient barriers, so hey, feel free to grab a handful of bones and wave them around, send them home, whatever floats your boat.

We had a Sangria Party, which basically consisted of getting a lot of campfire smoke in our eyes, getting burnt when we tried to toast marshmallows, and playing cards until the wee hours. It was followed by a trip to the discoteka, where we were the only people there (this is a bit of a theme - the joys of visiting in the off-season) and they actually went and got the DJ out of bed so he could play us a Queen megamix, while two of us danced and watched the whacky light effects (strobe, anyone?), the tour guide danced while he watched his own reflection in the mirror, and about 20 locals stood off to the side and discreetly watched us.

We slept off our hangovers the next day on the journey to Arequipa. Well, we tried to, but those crazy Peruvians have built the windiest, twistiest, most stomach-churning roads you have ever seen, and the driver was doing lots of overtaking on blind corners. There was little snippets of sleep, mixed in with nausea, and a bit of fearing for my life, etc.

Arequipa had:

Most excellent coffee.
Three cuba libres for 10 sol. Translation: three reallysuperstrong rum & cokes for $4.
Lovely architecture, see above, etc. etc.
A zillion churches, and a convent.

This is a nun's toilet.

Those crazy nuns also keep making outfits for Mary and Jesus, which is a lovely gesture, though I'm not sure when they're expecting them to drop by to try on their new threads.

Arequipa was also where we met up with another chunk of our tour group, because the tour company had decided that our tour would join up with another group half-way through, and then lose some people a bit further on, very confusing, pain in the arse, etc. We settled into our musty hotel with doors that sometimes refused to open and tried to prepare ourselves for some major altitude.

Coming in Part Three: Everything that I said would be in Part Two. Ha!

This is a tin of Peruvian tuna. Would you like some?

2007-04-04T17:26:00.000+10:00

News from the warfront:

The government have quite foolishly offered to extend my contract by another six months, which means that they will be dealing with my crap until December. Yes, they really are THAT desperate.
I recently signed up for the Borders mailing list, figuring that I spend so much bloody money in there that I may as well try and get a discount or two, but I have now found myself more out of pocket than ever. You see, every time Borders sends me a new voucher, I have to use it. So I am buying a book every week (at least), whereas I would normally buy a book just on a whim, or if it was something I specifically wanted. I think that this could perhaps be part of the Borders Grand Plan to lure people who can't pass up Good Value.
Why is the radio continually playing 'Suddenly I See' by KT Tunstall? I know for sure that this song is about two years old, because I distinctly remember playing it on my guitar and trying to emulate the huskiness with my whiney voice back in 2005. This is very peculiar indeed.
Who's going to the Supanova Expo? I am! Hooray for being a 23-year old female with the interests of a teenage boy!
I am not the girliest of girls, and I never wear make-up never ever never, but I am constantly wearing stuff on my lips. It is normally bog-standard chapstick, but when I was in Priceline the other day I saw that they were selling off a 'lip-plumping' gloss. So I bought it. Wouldn't you? Oh, you know you would. I put it on and waited a while, and then my lips started to sting a hell of a lot. It felt like I was having an allergic reaction. And apparently I had done a shit job of staying within the perimeter of my lips, despite the gloss's stern warnings, because all of the skin surrounding my mouth went all red and irritated and I looked like that kid at school who always had windburn. But the most important thing to note here is that there was NO lip-plumping to speak of. My lips were non-plumped. I think my body was just reminding me how absolutely shite I am at this Girl Stuff.

My latest Pedestrian Pet Hate is the people who swing their arms when they're walking, like they're marching. It is particularly inconvenient when their arm is flailing so wildly that they punch you in the crotch. Do you agree?

2007-03-28T18:01:00.000+10:00

[Guys, this is the first part of the travel post that I promised, written as though I am 12 years old and my homework was to write about my trip to Peru. I'm chopping it up into parts because pictures take up a lot of blog space, and I also ramble a whole lot of shit. Sorry if you think travel posts are a load of arse. Just pretend I didn't post it and go back to the one about the old people Getting It On.]

Getting there was a right royal pain in the arse. Brisbane to LA, LA to Miami, Miami to Lima. I thought it would never bloody end. The meals ranged from ok on the first flight, to chunks of gristle and fat in gravy on the last. Yes, American Airlines. You have excelled. From LA to Miami, we were mildly interested to discover that we were queueing for the plane behind Stifler's Mom.

Woah! Semi-famous! Um.

Lima is full of restaurants and tattoo parlours. When you walk down the main street, people will yell at you in broken English, requesting that you purchase their goods and get a tattoo. I really can't help but wonder what sort of person would get a tattoo in Lima, just because somebody yelled at them.

Peruvian: HELLO! Would you like tattoo? WOULD YOU LIKE TATTOO?
Tourist: Oh, alright then.

The policemen and policewomen wear extremely tight pants. As well as this interesting feature, Lima has this rather nice building with an assault vehicle parked outside.

It never rains there, and when you get out of the shower and take a couple of steps, you discover that your feet are black, because there's a layer of dirt on everything. Turns out that rain is most excellent for keeping the dirt at bay. Hooray for rain!

Peru is the land of half-finished buildings. It is also the land of historical ruins, and we joked that maybe they took their building inspiration from their ruins, but this is in terrible taste because they are poor and all that.

The tour commenced and we met our fellow travel buddies. They were quite ace. Our tour was led by a happy chappy who was amused by my obscene playing cards, and a melancholy-looking chap who taught us about life, the universe and everything, including the following nugget of wisdom:

"If you look at nature, females are always chasing the alpha male. It is the same with this tour guide business. Being a tour guide automatically makes you the alpha male, and it is natural that a girl would want your spunk up them."

Oh. Teach us, wise one.

Our most excellent bus took us out into the desert. There was a lot of desert. There was desert and some little house things.

There was desert and a beach.

There was desert and a valley.

Plus, we went hurtling over the sand dunes in this:

and all got our fair share of sand in our pants. Damn you, sand!

We spent the night in Pisco, which was completely forgettable because we checked in when it was getting dark, drank beer on the roof with the cats, and checked out the next morning shortly after dawn. But mainly because of the beer. It is known for:

Having cats on the roof of one of its hotels
Sharing its name with the most famous drink in Peru, the Pisco Sour (topped with eggy goodness), and
Being the place where I first started spraying my insides out of whichever orifice volunteered first

What did I do with my exceedingly queasy stomach the very next day? That's right, I took a jet boat out on the ocean to look at the Ballestas Islands, and then jumped in a light airplane and flew over the Nazca Lines. If you scooped out my stomach, stuck it in a blender, took it out and jumped on a few times, threw it up into a ceiling fan on high speed and then put it back in my body, it would've been less shaken up than it actually was by the end of that day. No dirtyhands gastro bullshit was going to spoil my holiday, damn it.

I am going to skip out on the pictures of the sea lions and the pingus, because you have all seen them before, but listening to a whole frigging colony (colony?) of sea lions collectively roaring and wailing is something to be experienced. You would not want to be inviting them around to your house for tea. They are really noisy shits. The pingus, on the other hand, were very quiet which was disappointing as I was hoping they would get their groove on and sing songs, like they do in that movie.

When your pilot, who is taking you over the Nazca Lines, decides to take his hands off the steering wheel to point at things, you get a little scared. When he accidentally bumps the steering wheel, making the plane lurch violently in the air, you shit your pants a bit. You're already shitting your pants from the gastro, so you do a bit of a pee instead. By the sixth or seventh bump of the steering wheel, you are starting to get used to it.

Here's a picture of the ground. Oh wait, there's a spacedude engraved there too. To have any chance of actually seeing the lines the pictures need to be a whole lot bigger than the Friendly Blogger Folk allow, so I've put a couple elsewhere. The one they call the hummingbird is here, and the one with the name I can't remember is here. That second one is next to a road so you can sort of get the scale of the bastards. That's if you manage to spot them. Trust me, it's tougher when you're trying not to hurl.

Coming in Part Two: Spiteful condors, watching people order a beer with a side order of cocaine, and getting up close and personal with our llama friends. Ooh, baby.

2007-03-26T17:39:00.000+10:00

Yesterday, John and I went to the movies and saw Hot Fuzz. It was very, very funny and John and I spent the whole time laughing at jokes that nobody else seemed to laugh at ("If you want to be a big cop in a small town, go to the model village."). But, aside from this, we witnessed something extremely disturbing in the theatre.

You see, we walked in while the lights were still on and started contemplating where to sit. There were only two other people in there at that time, an elderly couple sitting down the front. We soon became aware that they were wildly PASHING.

So, hey, a couple in their 60's playing tongue hockey isn't something you see every day. I have no problem with it in theory, but I averted my eyes and quickly scoffed my choc-top, lest I lose my appetite and cry, for the choc-top was most excellent.

The pashing stopped, and we all waited for the movie with eager anticipation. Then, Elderly Lady stood up and slid onto Elderly Gent's lap. She started running her fingers through her hair and WRITHING. There were MOANS being emitted as he Felt. Her. Up. She slid off his lap and they both lay down on the seats. There was movement.

My gag reflex started pulsating wildly, threatening to spray choc-top and coke all over the surrounding seats. I am sure that older folk must occasionally, you know, coughshagcough, but it was not something I really wanted to witness at this stage in my life. Perhaps when I am in my 60's myself and am feeling a bit kinky, then sure, I might watch, but 23 and full of choc-top?

No! NO NO NO! Nooooooooooooo!

Several other movie-goers filed in and took their seats. Most looked suspiciously at the frisky grandparents, who sat up and seemingly started paying attention to the advertisements that were flashing on the screen, now that the lights had been dimmed.

So it was dark, and they had stopped, and there were other people there, and that was the end of it.

Or so I thought.

After one ad finished, there was a moment of silence, which was just long enough for us all to hear a loud moan, followed by an "OH MY GODDDDDD" of pleasure. Pleasure!

And then it stopped. And I paid attention to the movie (by the power of Greyskull!). And inwardly sang happyhappy songs because I work in an office, and not as a cleaner at a cinema.

2007-03-24T06:49:00.000+10:00

Today, I managed to stay in bed until 5:15am. Oh my God!

After the last post, I ventured out into the wilds of Brisbane. I managed to do pretty much everything on my list and made some necessary purchases, including:

Smut! And Mr. Darcy!

Jeans! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to take a suitable picture of your new jeans, without coming across as a ho who wants to flash her crotch and arse on the internet? You should try it sometime. It is pretty much imposs. Check my wrinkly kneepit action! Ooh, kinky.

And I had my hair done!

And now I feel almost human again. Almost.

Annoying travel post to come, once I've made it through all of the pics and footage. Trying to find a section of video where I am not making the most stupidly annoying comments ever is near impossible, because it turns out that I am a total knob. Who knew! (Don't answer that.) If any videos show up on here with loud music playing over the original audio, you know why.

2007-03-22T05:56:00.000+10:00

Do you have an insomnia movie?

Mine is Bridget Jones's Diary. Yeah, shut up. Tonight it is my jetlag/insomnia/sleeping pills movie. I should not have slept all day yesterday. This has not helped the Body Clock. But the Mark Darcy action. This helps. Yes, it does.

So. Hi there. I'm back in Brisbane after four (FOUR. FRICKING FOUR.) consecutive flights yesterday, because apparently La Paz is a bloody hard place to get out of. I had a most excellent plan to force sleep upon myself for the final, long-haul flight from LA to Brisbane, which worked wonders before I was jolted awake by my repeated farting, and bolted to the toilet. I then dozed in between my toilet visits, which occurred regularly, i.e. every HALF AN HOUR.

I think it was just my body being a spiteful shit (so to speak), because I cannot work out what I could've eaten to have caused this misery, having only eaten a cheeseburger at LAX (I don't even like Macca's that much, but the craving was unbelievable) and airline food on the many flights.

Right now, I am feeling extremely alert for 5am. I am also feeling:

Satisfied after gorging myself on Subway.
Puzzled every time I use the toilet, because the water seems too low and I don't have to shove the used paper in the bin.
Apologies for all of the toilet talk. I'll stop now.
An overwhelming desire to be a girl. After a month of having to skip showers (because they didn't exist, didn't work, or I couldn't handle freezing cold water when it was 5 degrees), having extremely shit hair, and dressing in dirty, bummish clothing that gives me a figure like that of Mr. Blobby, I want nothing more than to put on something pretty out of my own wardrobe, wash my hair with shampoo and conditioner that weren't chosen purely for their space-saving properties, and tart myself up in general.
I guarantee that I will be the most overdressed person when I go out to dinner on Friday evening.
Regret. At not buying the most expensive shoes in Bolivia (at the exorbitant sum of around $50) and becoming the owner of the tartiest, stiletto FM boots that the world has ever seen. But I think I am quite right in thinking that I will never, ever wear them. Unless I fulfil my long-held desire to become a good girl prostitute with a perm, i.e. Julia Roberts.
Woah! People update a LOT in a month. I am glad I have four days off before I have to go back to work, because I am now on full-time blog-reading duty between now and then. Hooray!

I have a stack of bills to pay, a necessary visit to the transport department, a souvenier pack to send to Ireland, a Very Necessary haircut planned, a kitchen to re-stock, a feisty shit of a cockatiel to pick up, a new pair of jeans to buy now that my current favourites are continually falling down, hundreds of photos and hours of video footage to go through, a phone call to make to work telling them that I'm back, many hours to spend gorging myself on food that won't make me vomit, jetlag to get over, a few tears to shed over the realisation that cocktails won't cost $1 any more, and some shitty humidity to get used to.

And then I'll be back on this blogging bandwagon fo' sho', yo.

2007-03-16T06:19:00.000+10:00

Some interesting things that you may or may not know about the Inca Trail:

The trail is about 45km long.
The altitude varies quite a bit throughout the hike, and the highest pass is 4200m above sea level.
The weather can vary drastically, and in a day you may be faced with burning hot sun, and freezing cold winds, rain and hail. And sometimes a combo of the options. Hooray!
The rain means that the hundreds of steps you have to descend will be bloody slippery, and can/will result in you falling on your arse in the mud. Maybe more than once.
If you suffer from vertigo, you are, as we say at home, completely rooted.

Some steps I should've probably taken before attempting the Inca Trail:

Perhaps purchased some sort of rainproof clothing, or proper hiking shoes.
Maybe taken some sort of medication with me for when The Shits hit with a vengeance on Day Two.
Taken at least some emergency clothing, so that I wasn't dressed in the same mud-soaked pants for four fricking days.
Packed a Whacky Stick for when the hiking peeps got bitchy.
Exercised at some point over the past TWO YEARS.

But, I did it. Dressed in muddy jeans and a singlet, without a walking stick (the only person in my group, I might add. Oh, I am tough.), with the shits and stomach cramping, with permanently aching muscles and a bruised arse, with a freakin' umbrella, for Christ's sake, I did it.

Yes, it was totally worth it, but I am NEVER doing that shit again in my life.

Damn.

(Off to Bolivia tomorrow and I'll be home within the week and whinging about work in no time. Muchos thankskies for comments, peeps, even if I am terribly shite at replying to them right now. Catch you on the flip side. Literally. Get ready for shitty photos and wobbly video footage. Oh yes!)

2007-03-02T08:27:00.000+10:00

There is the almighty embarrassment associated with being the whitest girl in the whole of Queensland, and then the God-awful, could somebody please shoot me, sticking out like a sore thumb-esque feeling of being the Whitest Girl in Peru. My legs are so glowingly pasty that I literally stop traffic. My tour guide has commented on it, the other tour members have commented on it, and a complete stranger said to me, after I refused to buy his miscellaneous item for sale, "You are very white! You should go to the beach."

Yes. Thank you.

As well as this, there is the travel sickness. And you don't know whether it's from the tasty lomo saltado you ate last night, or an aversion to the water (even if it is all bottled), or maybe you just don't like the air around here, but all of a sudden you can't toss up between crapping and spewing, and just pray that both don't happen at the same time. I believe it was Baldrick who said something along the lines of, "My stomach feels all squirty."

This is Peru! It is way cool. Mucho bueno and all that.

So hey, I'm not dead, though I'm sick and hot and will probably get altitude sickness tonight after being transported to 2.5kms above sea-level, and I'm hungover in general, but yes. Not dead.

Interesting things discovered include: pretty much nobody speaks English, so I am pretty well screwed, but picking up the important words mucho fast; there's not many (any) llamas around here (so far); and pretty much everyone here is super lovely, except for that punk who made the comment about my blindingly white thighs. Interesting things discovered during my chats with my experienced tour guides include: Danish girls are, and I quote, the "dirtiest bitches in the world"; there barely seems to be enough gay boys in each Peruvian town we visit to keep our main tour guide's sexual appetite fulfilled; and tour guides play really shitty tricks on people (which will surely be covered in more detail at a later time).

But now I am pissing off. It is dinner time and I have to try and digest a meal and hope desperately that it doesn't rapidly spray out of the nearest orifice.

Oh yes. You wanted that much information, didn't you.

Hope all blogfolk are well, am completely ecstatic about having an entire month's worth of blog entries to catch up on once I get home, and I'm bringing home a llama and a colourful poncho for everyone who wants one. Ciao! Or however the hell you spell it.

2007-02-20T11:21:00.000+10:00

Yes. That banner truly is the extent of my creativity. Come on. I only have a laptop touch pad and Microsoft Paint, people.

Since I am flying off to the other side of the world on Friday, I thought a South America theme would be appropriate in my absence, especially since I predict that I will be completely rubbish at updating this here blog thingo while I am gone. Thanks to the internet for the images, and to Vapidly Vibrant for pointing me to one of the most useful and excellent Spanish phrases of all time.

I am home today, after leaving work because I feel like shit, and I have not had a day where I have sat at home, bludged and stuffed my face with chocolate in at least forever. I figured that this would be a good opportunity to upgrade to Stupid Arsing Titting Blogger Beta or whatever it's called, rather than trying to apply tags when I'm using an odd foreign keyboard with backpacker sludge on the keys.

So I suppose I better make mention of the travel details now, because it's been planned for a year, and I actually am super duper excited about it, but there's only so many times I can say I'M REALLY EXCITED! before the Blog Gods smite me.

If you are in any way interested, the itinerary is here. I think it is grand. The flight leaves at about midday on Friday and we have TWO freaking stopovers. Three God damn aeroplanes to get there. Here's hoping that the flights are ok, that the food doesn't taste too much like flavourless mush, and that the pilot isn't shitfaced. Fingers crossed!

I am going, John is going, my best mate is going, her fiance is going. We will be arriving back in Brissie on March 21st. We are flying with American Airlines and I am planning on making myself look as unlike a terrorist as I possibly can, and I will also try and avoid lighting my farts in the aeroplane toilet. But I can make no promises.

This whole thing is very fricking expensive, and for my next holiday I am going to the cheapest place imaginable. Suggestions have included: sitting in the bus shelter down the road, and camping in the park around the corner. I may even just sit on the couch and read a book about somebody else taking a holiday.

Spent. I should probably be packing, or something.

2007-02-15T19:07:00.000+10:00

Valentine's Day. Everyone knows that V-Day was invented by A Wily Florist with a surplus of roses on a particularly cunning day, but I will take any excuse to go out to dinner and guzzle booze. John and I found ourselves on one of those dinner boats, and though my desire to see passengers lurch about and fall over on unsteady waters went unabated, we had a super lovely time.

The pros and cons of our boaty dinner:

Pros:

The lovely and delightful boatiness of it all. Swab the decks, me hearties! Ahoy, mateys! Arrrr! Etc.
The pretty view was scrolling past us constantly, so we didn't have time to get bored of it.
The dinner was mucho excellent. Though everyone was looking at us like we were odd every time we swapped plates half-way through the meal, which we did with every course. But, come on. You don't get to choose your meal, one person has the beef and one has the salmon, of COURSE you're going to swap half-way. Right? RIGHT??
The cocktails! They refused to make me a pina colada, even though they had all the ingredients (the FIENDS), but I happily gorged on other brightly-coloured liquid concoctions with ridiculous names until I was on the verge of exploding and decorating Boaty McBoat in rainbow colours.
Not waking up hungover and/or tired this morning, despite the booze, the late night, and the shitty night's sleep. Hurrah!
I MET CAPTAIN STUBING. Except he wasn't actually Captain Stubing. He was just wearing his clothes. He wasn't amused by my rendition of The Love Boat theme song.

Cons:

It was Valentine's Day themed, and therefore everyone was Getting It On. It was practically like an orgy. And while an orgy on a boat would be a new and exciting experience, I do not particularly want to join in when several of the participants are verging on A HUNDRED YEARS OLD. Live and let live, and all that, and I am not averse to Looking The Other Way, but inadvertently seeing Oldies pretty much licking eachothers faces is VERY DISTURBING.
The Corniest. Music. EVER. John Paul Young's 'Love is in the Air' was drifting past our ears as we boarded the vessel (ha!), and was soon followed by Backstreet Boys 'All I Have To Give' (don't be embarrassed because you know all the words. I know the fricking harmonies.), and 'Heaven' (thankfully the Bryan Adams version, rather than the DJ Bloody Sammy version).
We were always constantly aware that we couldn't get off if we decided we hated it. We could jump overboard, but I wouldn't rate our chances of survival in the Brisbane ~~Slurry~~ River too highly. Fortunately, we did not hate it. Yay!
Brisbane River is not long enough, so consequently we would go along for a while, then turn around and go back the other way, then turn around and go back the other way, then turn around... etc. Which was a little disorientating after the second cocktail.

Whether this is a pro or a con, I do not know, but one of the crew was a girl wearing a dress which featured her breasts so prominently, I swear she was 90% breast. All of the Very Devoted chaps were rendered incapable of paying any attention to their ladyfriends, due to the presence of The Almighty Breasts.

Oh, check my laptop drawing skillz!

Also, all of the girls received a rose, so the lesbian couples each had a rose, while the gay boy couples had NO roses. Is this unfair? You have a penis, and YOU have a penis, no rose for you! I do not know.

2007-02-12T19:07:00.000+10:00

95% Thursday, 5% today, 100% bollocks.

I have not been asked to "upgrade" to Beta Stupid-Label-Rubbish Blogger! Nobody gives a rat's, I am sure, but after I first read about Chesty's involuntary change, and then Adam's, I was awaiting the enforced Labelling with much trepidation. But it has not occurred! Ooh. Confused. I shall try my hardest to defy the Blogger Beta Bullshit. I shall!
I am not sure if you are aware, but Reg the cockatiel cannot talk. He can mumble, like me after a big night On The Lash, but he cannot copy human speech at all. We threaten him quite often by telling him we are going to take him back to the pet shop and demand a refund because he is defective. But John and I were thinking about this, y'see, and wondered what he would say if he could. And we came up with this Very Disturbing List of phrases that are directed at Reg most often:

"Shut your millet hole, gitbird!"
"You are SUCH an A-hole."
"Stick that in your beak and smoke it."
"You agree with me, don't you Reg."
"Don't you dare shit on me!"
"Ew! He just shat on me."

And when he starts his Alarm Squawk in response to a crow:

"I am going to get a crow and put it IN YOUR CAGE."
"Protect your eggs!"
"Alarm, alarm! Polizei, polizei!"

But we love him really.
I made The Announcement. And I very nearly shat my pants. But given that I'd just told my work that in two weeks I would be departing the country and wouldn't be back for a month, they took it very well indeed. This is because I lied so abominably about my reason for going that I am 100% certain that I have just reserved myself a place in Hell, alongside Hitler and the man who invented underpants with a seam running up the middle.
I have just had my first day back at work after a most excellent Long Weekend. It is my first time experiencing the joys of government flex-time. And I really bloody needed it, would you believe, after the RSI-inducing Hard Work I've been doing. No! I'm not even kidding!
In a hurry one lunchtime, I rushed up to Coles to buy some shower gel, because the one I had previously bought turned out to be extremely strong-smelling, so I ponged of sweet artificial vanilla smell very muchly. In fact John, in a moment of immaturity rivalled only by my own, wrote this on the bottle to demonstrate:

So I went to Coles and picked up a different one, had a sniff, and all seemed ok. Brought it home, pulled it out of the bag and realised that instead of shower gel, I had purchased 375mL of Body Lotion. Body Lotion! I am not a Body Lotion Girl. I have never even used it before. It is a well-known fact that I am rubbish at being a girl. And after squirting this gooey crap on myself, I realised that Body Lotioning Up is a very time-consuming process.

When I get up in the morning, I have precisely one hour to get up, drag my sorry arse into the shower, wash, dry myself, get dressed, eat my breakfast, drink a glass of orange juice, feed Reg, listen to Reg squawk, hurl obscenities when the morning radio DJ's do yet another phone-in, tame my shitty hair, grab my lunch, lock up the house, and get the bus. That's right. No time for Body Lotion Action. Therefore, if you would like a free, hardly-used bottle of Body Lotion, which apparently smells like cucumbers and green tea, then it is all yours. $6.50 for me, free for you. VALUE!

Oh. The rewards of reading my drivel. Plentiful, yes? Um.

2007-02-06T19:17:00.000+10:00

I ventured outdoors to brave the lunchtime crowd after discovering that the frozen lunch I'd brought from home turned out to be a kitchen experiment gone wrong, rather than the marvellous pie I'd been salivating over for most of the morning. Sushi in one hand, giant cookie in the other, and with fifteen minutes to spare I wandered into a nearby bookshop, to enquire about That Book I'd Been Meaning To Get.

American Psycho, specifically. I'm pretty sure that somebody mentioned the book in the comments of this blog, once upon a time, and seeing the movie at Blockbuster the other week had jogged my memory. But this is not altogether about the book, and more about what followed.

I did a search on the little computer terminal thingy to see if they had any copies in stock. "Yes!" said the computer screen, excitedly. Not only on the shelf, but also in the Bargain Bin.

The Bargain Bin! Oh, it's every girl's dream.

"See staff!" yelled the computer, and I complied.

Me: Hi, I'm looking for American Psycho. I just did a search and it said it's available in a Bargain Bin (!) somewhere?
BookMan: [views me with deep suspicion]
Me: Uh. Bargain Bin? On this computer terminal thing?
BookMan: Hmm. I will have a look.

BookMan tapper-tapper-taps away at his keyboard, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on me.

BookMan: And who is the author?
Me: Um, I don't know, I've closed the search down. Bret Ellis som...
BookMan: And HOW do you spell 'psycho'?
Me: Oh. P, S, Y, C, H...
BookMan: OH THERE IS A H, is there?
Me: Ye.. yes?
BookMan: Hmm.

Several moments of awkward silence pass during which time BookMan appears to make no attempt to locate the book in question.

Me: Do... uh, do you hav...
BookMan: Well if it is the book I am thinking of then IT IS BANNED!!1@!
Me: Oh. Banned?
BookMan: BANNED!
Me: Oh.
Random woman to my left: I have a copy. [leans in close and lowers her voice] It's very disturbing.
Me: I've heard that.
Random man to my right: You can buy it on ebay!
Me: Yes. Uh, thanks.
BookMan: We will NOT put it on our shelves! It is BANNED in Queensland!
Me: Yes. Got that. Well, thanks. I have to go back to work now...
BookMan: You will need to look elsewhere! We cannot stock [looks around, takes deep breath] BANNED books!
Me: Um. Goodbye. [turns to the Randoms] Bye. Bye.

Most people pay $24.95, and it turns out that I must pay with Blood! Public Shame! Etc! Jesus, I don't want it that much.

2007-02-01T19:16:00.000+10:00

John and I pottered down to join in the pub quiz around the corner for the first time ever and settled in for a couple of teensyweensy beers and a podium for displaying our IMMENSE BRAIN POWER. Cough.

Twas a Dead Posh quiz, with DVD featurette bits, a real-life chalkboard for keeping score, and miniature bottles of booze as prizes, conveniently sized for popping into ones handbag.

I figured we'd fare a better chance than our last effort a looong time ago. The main reason for this being that the last time I tried a pub quiz, I was on the other side of the planet, and everyone was English and asking English questions with English accents about English things.

Question #1: Name Australia's five largest sporting stadiums in order of seating capacity.

What? WHAT? Do you think I am some kind of sporty nerdy SportNerd?

WANTED: One person who knows lots about sports to round out our unbeatable (cough) Trivia Team.

Question #2: What is the English translation of the French term: mardi gras?

"Sad Tuesday," said John, looking smug. He learnt French for years and lived in FrenchyLand for a time, so I wrote it down without hesitation, despite thinking in the back of my mind that it was a bit odd. IT WAS WRONG.

WANTED: One person to swiftly punch John in the head.

Question #3: And now a science question! Which element is Western Australia's largest export?

And HOW is that a science question, exactly?

WANTED: At least a little bit of knowledge of the current state of the world, it seems. Shit shit shitty shit.

The rest of the night went along similarly and we finished up third last. We are utter thickos.

And also:

I went to a goverment induction-type thing today and the presenter looked like Jennifer Hawkins and if I'd stayed in there one minute longer than the three hellish hours they locked me in I would've declared my undying love for her and asked for her hand in marriage because she almost made me like The Laydeez in THAT way.

And also:

HARRY POTTER'S PASTY WIZARD BODY.

Our good mate Hazza Potter is apparently featuring in a play that sees him having sex with horses. I do not think that Hagrid would approve of this sudden exposure of Potty's winky to the world. Do you?

Oh. It's all about the shock value.

2007-01-30T18:35:00.000+10:00

I was very much reminded of Steph's latest post this afternoon when I was queueing for the bus, only to have another of the bus regulars barge in front of me and plonk her arse directly into my seat. Grr! After all the minutes we've spent together at the bus stop, looking at our watches and tutting, this is how she repays me? I sat behind her and glared at her perfect hair the whole way home. Bus karma was not being my friend, and this was made evident when out of all of the free seats, a girl walked up to the one next to me and sat herself down, straight on top of the loaf of bread I'd just purchased.

On top of THIS, the seat I'd chosen was one of those dodgy shit seats which sort of steps up, so your legs are all hunched up and around your neck and you look bloody stupid. Ooh!

My only consolation during this whole debacle was watching the wench in front of me shivering from the freezing cold jet of air-conditioning. Yes! There is a reason I sit in that fantastic seat besides it giving me enough leg room to dance the Highland Fling. Obviously I am WAY HARDCORE and she is just not cut out for that Punk Rock Seat Action.

Ha!

There's not too much going on at the moment. Well, there's quite a bit of Brain Business going on, what with the thinking and the pondering and the mulling, but nothing that can be committed to blog post yet and may never be, because let's face it, I sure do come up with an awful lot of utter shit.

I am going to South America in three weeks, and the only Spanish I have learnt is how to say "Can I have a ham sandwich, please?" I am a lazy shit. But I figure that as long as there's a lot of ham sandwiches in Peru and Bolivia, I should be ok. Yeah?

2007-01-26T18:07:00.000+10:00

LOVIN' ON:

Tops with v-backs. I tried to find an image of this for about twenty minutes before realising, hey, I could've just gotten fricking changed and taken a picture of myself in about five, and by that point I just could not be arsed doing anything, but I am sure you know what I mean, anyway. I am all, "Hey! Check out my pasty back cleavage, people!"

The Instant Messaging system at work. Oh, how I love thee! Not only can I ask questions without leaving my seat, I can deliver my terrible jokes and don't have to see people rolling their eyes in response! I have discovered the perfect method of comic delivery. How long has this IM business been around, and why have I not married it yet?

Pretending it is 1988. But rather than being five years old, I am twenty-three! Walking around in Chuck Taylors and scowling at the emo kids. Quoting John Hughes' movies and almost wetting my pants from excitement when Rage decides to play Cyndi Lauper. "It's the song from The Goonies! Good enough for me-e, ai-yi-yi-yi-yi-yiii!"

HATIN' ON:

This shitting shitty shitearse weather. Waking up every night in a pool of my own sweat. Walking to work in the early morning, fooled by the cool breeze, and turning up completely drenched because of the stupid arsing humidity. I am THIS close to moving to Iceland. Or Alaska. Or Antarctica with the pingus.

The impending announcement. Yes, I will soon have to tell my work that I am pissing off for four weeks. Oh, yes, sorry I forgot to mention this when I took the job, but I really wanted to work here and you wouldn't have hired me if I'd told you. Terribly, terribly sorry. But I've been kissing arse so monumentally that you won't mind? Surely?

The effing RSI. I seem to have developed this after a whole two months of the new job. I asked for a mouse mat, hoping for one of those anti-RSI gel things, only to be given one of those flat, scratchy bits of foamy shit. I think that action needs to be taken, before my wrist seizes up altogether and my hand becomes permanently set in a mouse-holding position. And then everyone will laugh at the girl with the mouse hand and I will sniffle.

Happy Long Weekend, and all that.

2007-01-20T23:58:00.000+10:00

Now with even MORE BPA (Bullet Point Action)! Yeah!

Don't you hate it when you buy a chocolate bar or a drink (etc.) which promises you a CHANCE TO WIN! and then you open it to discover 'For your chance to win, dial this number/post this wrapper!' I'm sorry? You offer me a chance to win and then want me to go out of my way to discover if I've won? HELL NO. You tell me right now if I've won. On this wrapper. TELL ME. I am not going to take my mangy, slimy chocolate wrapper to the post office and slide its greasy arse into an envelope, with everyone looking at me and thinking 'Can you believe she goes to the post office to send a WRAPPER?' This riles me up.
Do you live in Brisbane? Tell me, is there ANYWHERE in Brisbane that plays decent music on a Friday night? And by decent, I mean something I can dance to, something that will make me say 'I LOVE this song', something that will make me bob my head, wiggle my arse and look altogether ridiculous. Please tell me. Because if I have to listen to a remix of Alice Cooper's Poison one more time, as sung by a twenty-something stock-standard bint with an average voice, I will CRY/DIE/PIE in the SKY in my EYE.
Woah! Random. Sorry.
As a super duper quiet person, I'm often wary of coming across as snooty, because the girl who doesn't talk to anyone might seem a bit up herself, right? So I was giving this some thought and realised that I think that most people are wankers. The people who can't do their jobs properly, the people who walk too slow when I'm in a hurry, the people who push the button at the pedestrian crossing when there's already thirty people waiting, WANKERS. And generally speaking, I don't think of myself as a wanker. Therefore, I must think that I am better than them, THEREFORE I am a snooty cow. Now is this beer making things unnecessarily introspective, or do I need a punch in the face?
A million hugs, kisses and sexual favours to everyone who fed my Eighties Craving in the comments of the last post. I love you muchly. It was time to return last week's DVD's so I wrote down every single movie you suggested that I either hadn't seen before or hadn't seen in years (i.e. most of them) and was extremely chuffed at the thought of having an idea of what I wanted before I walked into Blockbuster. Then, I left the list AT HOME. Me = git. I fortunately managed to remember quite a few of them, and then was appalled to discover that Blockbuster isn't actually all that great when it comes to choice of movies, because they didn't seem to have many of them at all. Though I saw about six movies starring Keira Knightley. What is wrong with the world today?
Are you really going to punch me in the face? Come on now. Hey. We're buddies, yeah?
If you couldn't tell from my music rant earlier, I went out on the town last night. I managed to bump into not one but THREE ex-co-workers from the shitty insurance place, in three separate instances. One who had jumped ship before I did, one who arse-kissed his way to a promotion, and one who allowed me to see him cheating on his girlfriend for the second time, with a different girl. Oh!

Yes. Oh.

2007-01-14T21:43:00.000+10:00

Etc.

John and I went to a preview screening of Pan's Labyrinth at the Dendy today and it was So Much More than I could ever have imagined it to be. It was utterly superb. Even John, who is a notorious HoMM (Hater of Most Movies) thought it was brilliant. And, quite frankly, I think that it is highly unlikely that there will be any movie produced this year that can possibly be considered better, in any way. Go and see it, STAT.

(But be warned if you are squeamish. It is incredibly graphic, and the violent scenes range from a man having his face pummeled with the base of a glass bottle until it caves in in a bloody mess, to a man being stabbed in the mouth and the knife ripped out through his cheek. Oh, I've put you off now, haven't I. Seriously, go see it. Just cover your eyes during those bits. And take a sick bag for all of the baby-eating. Ha! Joke.)

If you do go and see it, then please come back to this post and agree with me when I say WHY DID SHE EAT THE GRAPES? Jesus. Give me freaking heart failure, why don't you.
As for Aureya/Epona/whoever, my suspicions most definitely matched popular opinion - I am a firm believer that the e-mail came from the girl in question, rather than her older sister. Even so:
Epona,

Nobody need be out of pocket over this - all I would ask is that the posts be taken down, and I can see that they have.

Thank you,

GBE

And let that be the end of that.
My apologies for joking about baby eating. Poor form. And I, for one, have never partaken in such activities.
Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club have populated my weekend DVD time this week, and I think I have officially exhausted Blockbuster's collection of Famous Eighties Movies. This saddens me greatly. Do you have a favourite Eighties movie? And if so, what is it, and is it available at my local Blockbuster? I need more legwarmers and big hair, damn it.

2007-01-11T19:10:00.000+10:00

There is an update!

An update on that stealing business from a week or two ago.

I received an e-mail from one 'Epona Rell', and after um-ing and ah-ing about posting it here, I figured HEY, copying and pasting is Quite Apt.

Subject: I'd like to apologise for my sister.

Dear GBE,

I recently became aware that my little sister was pretty much plagarising her blog off yours. She's only twelve, and as far as I can tell it was because she thought you were rather cool, and wanted to be like you, but didn't know how to go about it. She always tends to feel that she can't do something as well as other people can, and it makes her do rather stupid things (like plagarism).

I tender apologies from both myself and my sister, who wanted to apologise by sending you her pocket money for the next few weeks. However, since only someone insane would give out their details to someone over the internet, we've settled on this:
She will donate it to the charity of your choice. Preferably something with a likelihood of being available in NZ.

Again, apologies.
Epona Rell

Hmm.

Thoughts?

2007-01-08T19:35:00.000+10:00

On movies:

Friday night, I watched Pretty in Pink, because I felt completely exhausted and altogether shitty after work and what better way to feel better? Eighties movies, yes. One of this life's great mysteries is WHY did she choose that weiner Andrew McCarthy when she could've had Ducky? Do you pick the rich boy with the terrible choice in friends who has shoulder pads bigger than two steroid-fattened legs of ham or the quirky cute boy who can mime Otis Redding and says "I would have died for you." HMMMM?

There are two movies that I want to see, for the first time in a long time. The first being Marie Antoinette, because I want to marry Sofia Coppola, and the second being Pan's Labyrinth. Now, I saw a poster for PL when I was loitering outside of the comic book shop (oh, I can hear your sniggering), googled it as soon as I got home and Must. See. It before I EXPLODE from anticipation. It is not out yet, and will not be released until the 17th, but I very well may go and start queueing now.

On TV:

John, who has always claimed that Reality TV (with the exception of Border Patrol-type shows) is the spawn of Satan, is absolutely devastated that Kate the Pig Farmer has been kicked off Australian Princess.

Only true Australian boganism could convert him. Tis a miracle indeed.

On feet:

I bought a new pair of pluggers, after mine snapped when I gracefully tripped over in front of several people, and was prepared for the pain. A new pair of pluggers means breaking them in, and I was expecting the rawness, the blisters, and the tenderness. What I wasn't expecting was for my evidently soft, sissy feet to disintegrate into festering, pus-heavy blobs of flesh. Hey, yes, too much info, etc.

My accidentally loud quote, which may actually make me a strong contender for next year's Australian Princess token bogan: "Remind me to wash the pus out of my pluggers, ok?"

Yes, WE HAVE A WINNER!!!1!

On... various shit:

We have a video camera now! I have been struggling to think of something blog-worthy to video and can only come up with Reg's attempts at human speech, or five minutes of Gnome Cam.
The weather is shitty! As hot as if I'd been skewered and plopped into a lava fondue, then a bit cold, then rainy, then humid. STUPID QUEENSLAND.
My desk is ergonomically-shithouse! My neck hurts, I'm fearful of developing RSI, I need a massage, I'm twitching, I'm delirious, etc.
Detoxing makes me want cake! Doing ok with the healthy-eating thing, though we generally eat out on weekends and I struggled to choose the salads. You want me to pay HOW much for a bowl of lettuce? How about I just give you my bank account details, you rob me blind, and I'll munch on this bit of parsley. Yeah.

2007-01-04T19:07:00.000+10:00

Sniff.

You told me the government would be bludgy, and that I would get to have tea breaks ALL DAY. I'm pretty sure there were mentions of biscuits and cake and it's not like I can eat them while I'm doing this detox bollocks (somebody get this girl a PIE) but HEY.

When I started, I watched my co-workers having chat breaks galore, taking lunches, doing arts and crafts, etc., and I realised that these earlier claims were all true. And then I started to settle in a little more.

I sit down at my desk in the morning and glue my eyes to the screen, not taking them away until I quickly grab lunch, and then reattach them while I shovel said lunch into my mouth. Having done this for all of this week, I've found myself wondering what happened to that earlier, lazy-arsed working lifestyle?

And then I realised.

All of my co-workers are still living it.

I am a foolish girl! Stupid, I am! Somebody punch me!

So I thought about just sitting back and chilling while the e-mails rolled in, and I did it for all of twelve seconds before realising that I Just. Couldn't. Do it. Maybe it's come from my last workplace, or being a total teacher's pet in school, or some type of hereditary neurosis, but I can't chat, eat, and drink tea when there's Stuff To Do.

Names such as 'knob', 'stupid git' and 'unnecessarily diligent wench whose hair was quite excellent today' might spring to your mind at this point.

Proposed methods for fitting into the government mould:

Hiring somebody to physically wheel my chair into the kitchen and place a cup of tea in my hand, every half an hour.
Programming my computer to shut down every half hour for at least five minutes, so that there is no other alternative except chatting and drinking tea.
Some sort of electrocution device, which zaps me every time I try and open another e-mail.
Requesting that the most handsome, studly government worker could move their desk next to mine, so that rather than work, I stare at them all day and drool on my keyboard.
Blog from work (hurrah!).

I need to take action, STAT.

2007-01-01T16:07:00.000+10:00

New Years truly is a load of arse.

John and I headed over to Southbank, with the music and the fireworks and the proposed merriment, and discovered that it was so utterly riddled with tarty slappers and teenage posers that we almost drowned in the toxic combination of Britney perfume and Lynx.

We saw the kiddies fireworks at 9:00pm which I actually quite liked. Highly unusual for me as I'm generally pretty blah about fireworks, having seen them at least three billion times since birth. Curse my privileged Paris Hilton-esque upbringing. Cough. We then discovered that there was absolutely nowhere to have a beer, and what is New Years without beer?

We left, and ended up squeezed into a booth in a poorly-lit pub in the Valley, peering out of the window and counting the number of girls who don't know how to get out of a taxi gracefully.

I.e. Hello underpants (or the lack thereof).

Only one girl ran around topless. Come on, people. Where is the partying spirit?

Let's face it. New Years Eve is one of the shittiest events of the year. There's too many people. There's too many drunk teenage girls shitting me off. There's vomit in the streets. There's drunks in the streets. The Doc Martens I hadn't worn in a month shredded my feet. By the time you get through the swarm of people at the bar, midnight has already been and bloody gone.

And as it ticks over to 2007, you have to tell yourself that your life isn't passing you by, and that tomorrow is just another day, rather than the beginning of yet another year which will inevitably fly by in a flash and leave you wondering exactly what have you achieved?

Sigh.

My major achievement was discovering that my camera has its very own setting dedicated to fireworks.

Hurrah!

As you can probably guess, I don't do New Years Resolutions, but the Fitness Kick that John and I are going on tomorrow coincides pretty well. Ages ago, I spoke to a Machu Picchu veteran who told me I would need at least two months of training to Not Die on the hike, so I took him at his word and decided I would attempt to exercise properly after Christmas. This also meant that I had a perfectly good excuse to be a lazy shit up until this point.

Alas, no more!

And it is pretty fantastic timing, given that I am about to explode from all of the Christmas Cheer. We need to rid the house of all of the rubbish food by the end of today, our last day of gorging.

Half a tub of brandy custard
Six litres of coke
Thirteen small packets of chips
Two pot noodles (No! I cannot give them up!)
A box of Bulla frozen yoghurt bars
Beers, a bottle of wine, a couple of Bundy & Cokes
A shitload of butter
Leftover Christmas chocolates
A homemade Christmas pudding, large enough to feed the people of at least two third-world countries
Cocktail frankfurts

If I start eating/drinking now and don't stop until I leave for work tomorrow, I should get through it. Right?

2006-12-29T20:15:00.000+10:00

Well. Welly welly well. I am blushing outrageously after all of that jumping to my defence business. I would buy each and every one of you a sparkling gift of some description, but I am severely broke after Chrimbo and the subsequent sales, so here are a million of my thanks, and a few nervous giggles for good measure.

There seems to have been no response from the content nicker, and I suspect that it will remain that way, or that she will disappear entirely. The slightly horrible thing is that I discovered her blog when she sent me an e-mail saying that she really liked mine. She included a copy of this meme, suggesting that I do it as well, which included a couple of her images. Being a nosy sod, I scouted out the source of the pictures and hey presto. "Oh, what a nice e-mail, really complimentary HEY HOLD ON A COTTON-PICKING MINUTE." Etc.

To move right along:

Christmas was quite fab, thank you. I now own every single Blackadder DVD ever made. There were many other things, including garden frog gnomes, and top notch guitar strings, which proved to be excellent encouragement for changing the bastards for the first time in far too long. And books, glorious books! Can I ask for anything more?

John and I went shopping a couple of days afterward, because we have hired a car for our week of holidays and have to make the most of it, even if making the most of it involves repeatedly driving to shops that are within walking distance.

Besides the shops/bottle-o within walking distance, we went to IKEA. Jesus, IKEA! Thou hast taken over all of olde Logan towne! We spent a ridiculously long time navigating the Rwanda-sized carpark and commented that it had probably taken longer to find a park than it would to actually buy what we needed.

WRONG.

IKEA is a strange beast, in that you go in there thinking you need to buy two bowls to make up for the ones that have been broken and come out with a new set of wine glasses, a clothes horse, a lamp, some spice jars, storage containers, and a stuffed giraffe and snake.

And because I know how to make holidays fun, I then went to the doctor and had three needles. Two in the left arm, one in the right. Yes, that's right, I finally decided to protect myself from the various diseases that South America has to offer, since that whole overseas trip thing is only SEVEN WEEKS away. Yeeehaaaaaa.

Is your self-esteem too high? Do you think you're immensely attractive, and is it getting out of control? Visit Noosa! The Land of the Insanely Beautiful Tourists! And you too can feel like a Big Fatso Whale with a face like a sackful of spanners.

Tonight is part deux of the traditional Christmas dinner, in which the dessert portion is to be consumed, along with perhaps one million beers. Yes! Indeed.

[The above actually occurred last night, along with the composition of the rest of this post, but the son of a bitch did not publish. Curse you, Blogger.]

2006-12-26T17:50:00.000+10:00

Ok, I was going to blog all about the Christmas Cheer and the Merriness and the Good Will, blah, etc., blah, but THEN. That girl who is stealing my life HAS NOT STOPPED. She has, in fact, stolen part of the post that is two below this one, concerning my musical tastes. MY musical tastes! The word to take notice of in this case being 'MY.'

So I am going to post the link. And if you would like to take a look, gasp indignantly and go about your business, then that will be fine. If you would like to comment there and recommend she go and find her own life, that will be fine also. If you would like to comment here, or privately e-mail me, saying 'As IF anyone would copy you, you boring gasbag,' then that will be... well, not very pleasant, but I think I can bear it.

If you don't give a shit, then hey. Hey! That's ok.

Naughty!

And your Christmas, was it merry?

2006-12-21T20:11:00.000+10:00

It is a widely-held view that government workers are notorious slackers, and I can now confirm that it is 100% accurate. Two hour lunches, mammoth team 'meetings' involving arts and crafts, early finishes, THE WORKS.

(Or, quite ironically, the lack thereof.)

This is all very foreign to me, coming from the land of "You were three minutes late today, is everything ok?" I actually asked if I had to go to the arts and crafts session and was looked at in a way that suggested I was Quite Mad.

So while the e-mails were mounting, I was in charge of the icing sugar.

The government is also quite cliquey. There are Giggly Girls, there are Older People, there are Boy Gangs, and I am yet to find any Crap Joke Crackers like me. There does seem to be a number of Dishy Chaps about the place though, which is also a shock to the system after coming from a workplace full of laydeez and gay men.

I am finishing up at 1pm tomorrow, and then all hell breaks loose for the Christmas period. It seems to me like it will be ridiculously busy, but in true Christmas fashion, I suspect I will discover that I really didn't have that much to do and spend a lot of my time in front of the telly, watching DVD's and eating Happy Hippos.

What would you do if you discovered that somebody was copying your blog posts, and pasting them into their blog as their own? Would you mention it in one of your rambling posts, and hope that it would subtly tell them that you were onto them? Or publicly NAME AND SHAME?

Hey! It's MY boring life! MINE!

2006-12-17T17:53:00.000+10:00

I have recently been drawing myself out of my Queen and David Bowie reverie and attempting to reacquaint myself with Modern Day Music. And I can only conclude that in the couple of years I have avoided the radio, not much has changed, except that Nelly Furtado is no longer so much like a bird as she is like a pouty-faced tart.

I watched Video Hits, which was featuring The Top 100. 'The Top 100 WHAT?' I wondered, as Wheatus's 'Teenage Dirtbag' caused me to become temporarily deaf. The Top 100 songs that have ranked somewhere in the Top 40 over the past few years? The Top 100 randomly-selected songs that MAY have been played on the radio at some point? But no. This was, according to the website, the Top 100 Songs of ALL TIME.

Gee whiz. That Oirish bloke who won that talent show has done well for himself, hasn't he? Straight to the Top 100!

I am going to film myself wailing while I strum my guitar and belch simultaneously and I expect to see myself on next week's show. Ok?

Friday: The Christmas party was Quite Ace, and so very large that it was hosted by a (GASP) prominent radio personality. Oh yes, I go to ALL the big parties. Brushing shoulders, practically. I met a girl who was an incredible nutter, and proved this when her boyfriend handed her a handful of the plastic, sparkly stars that had been scattered on each table, by EATING THEM. She washed them down with her champagne.

How marvellous.

Saturday: A pre-Christmas Dinner of the highest order was hosted, with John playing Chef Extraordinaire and me playing Crap Joke-Cracking, Beer-Swilling Wench. A veritable MOUNTAIN of food was piled onto each plate and it was all very successful, as noone projectile vomited or exploded from Too Much Eating. Hurrah!

And now to face my second week of the new job, and perhaps actually work. Indeed!

2006-12-14T17:16:00.000+10:00

I am yet to do any work whatsoever. After being shown six different places by six different people and being told that each of them is where I would be sitting, I was ushered off to a three-day training course which so far seems to be teaching me how to eat chocolate and make a twit of myself in front of others.

I also get to do this whilst being given sandwiches and dressing like a bum.

Hurrah!

This is all good.

The Christmas party on Tuesday was a bit of a flop, as John and I were paying for our alcohol until it was subtly revealed that it was all actually FREE (it was held at a pub, we were told to go to the bar for drinks, and the staff asked us for money. So we're not that silly, are we?), and my very grown-up efforts to be a good girl who doesn't get shitfaced on a school night were completely in vain, because EVERYONE piked out by 8pm. Since when did people become so terribly sensible? For shame!

On this Christmas party subject, tomorrow night is the night of John's official work party, which will most likely be Quite Big and Possibly Posh. I must go to act the part of Girlfriend and will be badgered by people who like to talk about IT and engineering. BOR-INGGGG.

Ahem.

Champagne and whore-durrrves will be my Saviour.

Aside from this, well, there is nothing aside from this.

2006-12-11T21:26:00.000+10:00

"And see? This is your e-mail inbox. In. Box."

"Yes," I replied, wondering if I was giving off Ditzy Wench vibes.

"Now, sometimes," the trainer continued, "you might receive an invite to a meeting or an event. Look, there's one!"

The trainer opens an invitation to pre-Christmas drinks, which had been sent to everyone in the department.

"So what you do is click here, and then click Accept. Like that. See?"

"Yes," I replied, realising that I had just accepted an invitation to a piss-up with people I don't actually know.

A short while later, the man who originally interviewed me, who was also the original sender of the invite, walked past.

"Ahoy, GBE! Well done on accepting the drinks invite before you'd even been with the company for two hours! YEAHHHH! Hahaha."

Yes. Thank you. Good ol' me, coming across like a complete pisshead on my first bloody day. "It wasn't me," I said feebly, but he had already gone.

'Twas not a bad day, all in all. Induction is thoroughly shit, to be quite honest, what with the reading and Code of Conduct and the rules and regulations and all that jazz, but I am keeping my eye on the big picture, which is altogether prettier. I think I must give out vibes that destroy air conditioners, though, because this is the second (consecutive) time that I have turned up at a new job to discover that there is no cooling whatsoever, and consequently sweated like a pig in the sun.

Me = evident pisshead who is very bright red, huffing and sweaty.

Tomorrow, John and I are going to a Christmas party, hosted by the agency who sorted his visa. A party on a Tuesday night? Looks like somebody waited too long to book their venue, methinks.

These are the rules:

Each pint must be followed by a pint of water.
Pints must contain light beer, or a copious amount of mixer.
Peer pressure is to be ignored, or sneered at, in a superior "you're just jealous because YOU wish that YOU had a big glass of water, too" kind of way.
We must not remain past 10pm, lest we turn into glass slippers, or ugly step-sisters, or whatever.

And I figure I should be ok for Wednesday. Hopefully?

2006-12-08T15:02:00.000+10:00

The Good

* Today, because it is another Bludgy Day Off, I have had a lamington for breakfast. And pot noodles for lunch. I am sincerely in love with pot noodles. Somehow, I think my bodier is happier with me when I am on my normal working person diet.

* I have not mentioned the Fitness Farce bollocks for quite a while, because they had my membership on hold and they weren't taking any money off me and everything was hunky-dory but then! Then, they decided to take it off hold and start sucking at my money again, and I came up with a plan so cunning you could brush your teeth with it. All will be revealed in due course, and I cannot say too much because there have been a few suspicious google searches that make me think that they are WATCHING ME. Suffice it to say, those suckers are going DOWN. Muahahaaaaaa!

The Bad

* I cannot read books and then watch the movies based on them. I do not know why I repeatedly subject myself to such torture. The movie, Bram Stoker's Dracula, is WRONG. I would like to sit back and calmly watch the movie, but NO, that DIDN'T HAPPEN, you're MAKING IT UP. I could bear Keanu's attempt at a British accent if the movie followed the book, but no, UNBEARABLE. (Though Mr. Hopkins makes an excellent nutty Van Helsing.)

* My extremely successful shopping day was worsened somewhat when I arrived home to discover that I was missing one of my bags of shopping. Fortunately, it only contained one top, but unfortunately, it was the Best Top Ever. It was sort of teal-coloured and when I put it on, it practically screamed "Look at how competent and clever I am! Yes, I can use all sorts of big words and complete difficult tasks!" All is not lost, however, as there is a very slight chance that I left it on the bus, and that it might have been handed in. Yes, I know, FAT CHANCE and all that, but it's worth a shot.

The Distinctly Unattractive

* Last night, at my last dance class of the year, I forgot to put on proper grown-up shoes and accidentally turned up in my PLUGGERS. As if this wasn't bad enough, the instructor decided to introduce a very spinnyturny move. Aside from constantly near-stacking it, I very nearly took out three blokes with my projectile shoes, as they flew off my feet, left, right, and centre. Oh yes, ALL the boys want to dance with me. If I'm not repulsing them with my delightful garlic fragrance, I'm issuing concussions to anyone who looks at me squint, with some bonus foot odour for added pleasure.

* I have been in a cleaning frenzy today, and when it came to the bathroom I decided to brave the bog of eternal stench and scrub the toilet. Which was going along swimmingly until my vigorous scrubbing led to the toilet brush SPLASHING PONGING TOILET WATER INTO MY FACE.

Words. Cannot. Describe.

2006-12-07T09:44:00.000+10:00

I don't really know what to say about my last day at Shitty Insurance Shithole.

I think I managed to offend just about everybody when they asked "Are you sad?" and I replied "Relieved, actually. Oh! And, um, sad." I will genuinely miss a few of the people, and absolutely delight in not ever seeing a couple of them again.

I stammered and stuttered when it came to farewelling my own team, and managed to say "Thank you for being a supervisor. I hope my new job will be better," to my own leader. WELL DONE ME. Thank you for being A SUPERVISOR? I should've just had a massive piss-up with them all and then I could've drunkenly told them that I loved them. Much easier. Traditional.

I did zero work. I cleaned my desk until it was spotless. I went to an Exit Interview and told the interviewing wench the brutal truth. She wanted to know why I was leaving, so I was all 'here is a list of what's wrong with this place. Here is a list of what's right - oh wait, DOESN'T EXIST.' Not that it'll make a difference, because as long as they can keep hiring these new flocks of lambs for the slaughter, they're happy. Who gives a toss about retaining the staff who have put in some sort of effort - let's just buy some new monkeys to train.

Various other animal-related analogies here.

I said goodbye to Best Work Mate and his eyes went watery, he hugged me several times, waved and yelled, "ROCK ON!" I forgot to say, "Thank you for single-handedly keeping me sane. Thank you for being lovely. I will miss you most of all." Because I am RUBBISH. I will speak to him later.

ANYHOO! It's over, hurrah! I can stop stressing about that place, and start stressing about the new place. Making the right impression, trying not to come across as too much of an introvert, trying to avoid scaring people with my crap jokes, trying to tame my crap hair, trying not to giggle, trying to sound clever, etc. Plenty of things to stress about, yes?

And because it is a day off, I have eaten custard for breakfast and am trying to plan the bludgiest day ever. At some point I will have to venture outside to make a few purchases, because, quite frankly, I dressed like a slob at my old work. And also, it is time to bin the grandpa vests, because they have those little furry balls all over them and it is also a MILLION degrees these days. Except for today. But other days, yes. And furry ball vests do not go well with a million degrees - not even for grandpas. Least of all for grandpas, I'd say.

But!

That's all I've got, really.

2006-12-03T14:41:00.000+10:00

Over the last week, my supervisor rushed home from work due to her grandmother suddenly dying. The girl who sits opposite me was off work from the day after, due to her grandmother dying also. The supervisor who manages the team next to mine went home ill, and apparently won't be back for quite a while, as it has just been announced that he has a brain tumour.

And a very Merry Christmas indeed.

I had my one year anniversary, and they gave the six of us remaining from our original training group a Special Morning Tea. I handed in my notice on the same day. I went home ill.

I stayed off the next day, also ill. Except I wasn't so much ill as completely freaked out. Overwhelmed, or something. I returned to discover that the bitchy man is no longer sitting near me, and I am pleased that my final days there will be relatively peaceful. I also discovered that my Best Work Friend has been moved away also, though, which has upset me a little.

My co-workers dressed up and flounced about at the Christmas party on Saturday, and I spent the night with my head over a toilet bowl, emptying out some disagreeable mud cake.

I just cannot wait for my time there to be over, but there is some sort of impending dread brewing at the same time, and I'm not sure why.

Dracula is the first book to make me feel physically ill and in need of a lie down. I can only take so many open blood transfusions, you know.

2006-11-28T09:12:00.000+10:00

Do you know what type of flowers these are?

They are HELLO I WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT NOW flowers. A brand new, better-paying variety, generally given when somebody is going to leave a job where they have to talk to a large number of twats each day for a job where they will hopefully sit at a computer and drink many cups of tea.

That is, for reasons which I am yet to fathom, I have been offered a new job, which I gladly (FEROCIOUSLY) accepted, and I start on the 11th of December.

OMG LOLZZZ!!111111@1!!!!!!

2006-11-26T19:52:00.000+10:00

Living in Brisbane during The Ashes is an experience you would be glad to miss. There is a reason for this... well, a few thousand reasons actually, who collectively go by the name of The Barmy Army. Cue the mental imagery of masses of loud British men, singing incomprehensible songs at the same time as guzzling beer, grabbing girls' arses, slobbering, tripping, falling, and acting like absolute tits in general.

John is trying his best to cover up his British accent, and it amuses me no end. The most recent incident to make me giggle:

[In a pub just after lunch for a Booze Break, mid-shopping.]

John: I'll have a pint of cider. Oh, and a glass of water.

[John has been on a health kick lately and is drinking so much water that I suspect he is solely responsible for the Level Four Water Restrictions.]

Randoms at the bar: WOAH! WA-HAY! Water, 'ey?! The Pom's PISSED already! HAWHAWHAWHAW!

He looked sheepish, took his drinks and left. I mean, what sort of comeback can he give? "Actually, I don't even like cricket that much. So there."

We have been gallavanting about the city today thanks to a handy-dandy Myer sale voucher which offers massive discounts on just about everything (thanks to my best mate). And, quite typically, I could not find one thing that I wanted to buy. I managed to get a strapless bra that fits me properly, which I have been meaning to get for ages, but which is largely useless because my ridiculous tan means that I look like I have straps regardless of what I'm wearing.

John, on the other hand, strolled up to me looking very pleased with himself and informed me that he had purchased NINE Christmas presents. Punk! With my encouragement, he bought a new business shirt and HELLO. Boys in tailored business shirts who smell nice could in fact be the best boys in the world.

I hope your weekend was mucho enjoyable, lovely people.

2006-11-25T10:56:00.000+10:00

Today we are having a picnic!

It will be at Mt Coot-tha, and I have decreed that terribly posh wine and food shall be consumed. I am quite set on sipping wine, looking at the view and saying, "oh, I say! What a delightful day!" and such. Though we have no picnic rug to sit on and I will most likely end up covered in grass stains with ant bites all over my rear.
No news on the job front. I still have a faint hope, especially as the Job Wench called me on a Saturday last time, but I am being very grown-up about the whole thing and haven't chucked a tanty once. I have even applied for another position with Crap Insurance Company which would see me no longer talking to arseholes about insurance but spending my days arsing about and printing off reports and the like. Hurrah!
John cooked me breakfast this morning, and it was completely awesome until I noticed that it was served on last night's dinner plate.

"There is dried carbonara all over this plate," I said.
"Oh, I thought you wouldn't mind."

You mean it wasn't a mistake?!?!

"Um. You do realise that I am a girl, don't you?"

Boys. PFFT.

Gah. Today is No Motivation Saturday.

2006-11-20T19:04:00.000+10:00

Why I should never drink alcohol, Part 453.

God. Damn.

After two pints, I was pleasantly tipsy, but felt compelled to top myself up with approximately three hundred litres of vodka directly afterwards. Jesus. After the first two hours, the rest of the night was a blur and a half and my memory is suffering from more black spots than a teenager's face, mid-puberty, post-chocolate binge.

Things that I do remember:

Having two glowsticks down my top.
Accidentally whipping the glassie in the face with said glowsticks, because I was swinging them around like nunchucks.
My drink being smashed out of my hand on the dancefloor.
Tripping over said drink several times whilst dancing.
The drunken wanker who hurled his Coke at us, and walking around with my jeans drenched and brown.

To top this off, I apparently danced like a dirty great slut with one of my best mate's co-workers, and while I have a vague awareness of some sort of dancing incident with a member of the opposite sex, I actually have no proper recollection of the event at all. Hurrah!

Oh, wait. Sorry. To top THIS off, I was awoken the next morning by my mobile phone alarm. I started picking it up and slamming it around, frantically trying to hit the button to shut the son of a bitch up, before I was conscious enough to realise that it was actually ringing.

"Herghuh."

"Oh, hello, is this GBE?"

"Ungh."

"This is Important Lady from That Job You Really Want. Did I wake you?"

Ho. Ly. Shit.

Turned out she wanted to get my supervisor's contact details but I convinced her to hold off until she's certain she's going to give me a job. She probably felt sorry for me, because I sounded like I was about to collapse in a hungover heap and DIE. I gave the convincing argument of "How about I DON'T tell my supervisor that I'm desperate for another job when you're not even sure if you want to hire me or not? HMM?"

And then.

I won a dodgy espresso set at work.

The end.

2006-11-17T18:20:00.000+10:00

Friday arvo bullet points, hurrah!

I put myself just a little more in debt a few days ago and now have a TV! and a DVD player! and a stereo! Which is very exciting because I can now throw away my best mate's 23-year old TV that flickered constantly, could hardly ever get any reception and loudly fizzed 95% of the time. Unless she wants it back, of course. And hey! Who wouldn't.
On this marvellous new TV, I have watched the entire first and second series of Little Britain. I am continually saying "computer says no" and "I'll write the theme toon, sing the theme toon. Duh-do-do-dodo." And on the subject of my newfound love of DVD-watching, I watched the entirety of Pride and Prejudice (the Colin Firth version, is there any other?) on a day off. And then I followed every sentence with "make haste!" and continually slow-mo'd the scene where dear Colin is walking around sopping wet in his (gasp) underclothes. Oh, Mr Darcy! I say!
On a whim, I clicked a link for RSVP. Purely out of curiosity, you see. I pulled up a list of people in the general Brisbane area. I was about to close the page and go back to google to search for rude words, when I spotted somebody I went to high school with. Hello! Five minutes later, and I spotted TWO MORE people, this time former co-workers. And these are just the people willing to publicly post pictures of themselves. I cannot help but think that maybe there is something about me that causes former acquaintances to end up looking for love online. Not that there is anything wrong with it, mind you, but hey! Strange, no? Or is that not strange at all? Is everyone into this RSVP thing?

I am so out of touch.

2006-11-13T18:24:00.000+10:00

Aside from my hair being an absolute shit, I managed to look the part pretty well. I even checked my teeth for stray bits of parsley. The handshakes went ok, and when they offered me a drink I confidently accepted.

And then the interview started. Pre-interview, they gave me a sheet of paper with questions on it and I was required to write down my answers. Fair enough. What I wasn't aware of was once I made my way into the interview room and sat down in front of The Panel, I was required to present my answers.

Present! My answers! Present!

"You'll be required to manage your own time," said the Head Panel Chap, gesturing towards a clock leaning up against the wall. "We won't interrupt you."

And then they all sat back and looked at me.

Jesus Fricking Christ.

I guess I'm used to the old-fashioned 'you ask questions and I answer' scenario, because I freaked out. All of a sudden, the frantic scribbling that I'd packed into my initial half-hour meant nothing. It wasn't long enough. It wasn't elaborate enough. It was all stock-standard. Everyone had written the same thing. I was just another name to cross off the list.

To be honest, it went ok. They all smiled encouragingly as I was talking. I managed to make light of my barely-audible teenage girl voice and they all smiled again. And at the end, I kicked arse at the Question Asking bit and it all turned pretty conversational, which I liked.

As one of The Panel walked me out, she asked me how much notice I needed to give at my work, which was probably the most encouraging part of the ordeal. But she was one of those ladies who sees me and decides to immediately adopt me. You know the ones. I'm surprised she didn't lick a handkerchief and start dabbing it at my cheek.

And now I have to wait Two Arsing Weeks. Gah.

2006-11-08T08:04:00.000+10:00

So there I was, waiting for something exciting to happen. I was tapping my toes and drumming my fingers and clicking my tongue. And then, the phone rang.

Do you recall a brief mention of a marvelloussuperfantastic job that I had applied for? About a million years ago? I knew that holding my breath wasn't overly smart, because it's government and government folk need frequent tea breaks, but I had pretty much given up hope and was checking my e-mail with the expectation of finding The Rejection Letter.

But the phone rang!

"Your application has been successful, and we would like to arrange an interview time."

OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!

My face flushed and I started leaping about in front of the elevators. And I know I shouldn't be staking my life on this thing because it's only an interview, and we all know that I perform as well in interviews as a large stone with some dirt on it, but hey! Saying 'I'm pretty good' instead of 'I'm mediocre' really does work!

The interview is on Monday.

I must:

Dress up. Professional, yet feminine. Must look like I could hold my own in a Proper Business Talk yet also twirl my hair and smile coquettishly.
Shake hands firmly. This is my biggest flaw. I am always so flustered by the thought that somebody could possibly want to shake my hand that I end up with a limp and wonky arm.
Remember everyone's name. This thing takes place in front of 'The Panel.' I don't want to accidentally refer to Glenn Robbins as Rob Sitch or vice-versa.
Pretend that I know what I'm talking about. "What do I think of the current business model? Well. I think it's pretty good. Great even! Uh."
Do. Not. Crack. Crap. Jokes. This is VITAL. There is nothing worse than the uncomfortable silence that follows a particularly dodgy joke. I don't want them to put the 'Unfunny Bitch' stamp on my application and throw it in the bin.

Any tips?

2006-11-07T08:24:00.000+10:00

Somebody found my blog by searching for 'girl shagging gearknob.' "Gosh, people really are getting quite inventive these days," I thought to myself as I checked to see where I stood in the Google rankings.

What would we do if Google didn't try and work out what we were thinking? A girl SHAVING a gear knob! That's exactly what I need! Thanks, Google.

Adam has posted an interview with me on his blog. He has even left all of the rambling bits in there. Go see!

I'll stay here and wait for something exciting to happen.

2006-11-02T17:55:00.000+10:00

Today I had a customer with the first name of Chard.

Potential names for my potential children:

Legume
Cabbage
Turnip
Spinach
Potato

"Go out and play, Potato. Leave mummy with her wine."

Because, hey, it's the In Thing.

2006-10-30T19:11:00.000+10:00

On the weekend, I decided to take John over to Kangaroo Point to see the bearded dragons. At this time of year, approximately three million of them come out of hiding and start running around excitedly and sitting on rocks and things. It's all very interesting and Australian and exciting, especially to English John, who points and says things like, 'ooh-er guvner, apples 'n' pears, 'ows yer father,' etc.

So we went to a prime viewing spot, and the lizards all crowded together and posed for me:

"Wow," I said. "What a great shot. There must be at least one, two, three, four, HOLY SHIT HOLY SHITTY SHITTING SHIT THERE'S A REALLY BIG SNAKE."

"Ooh-er," said John.

I considered grabbing it and having a bit of a wrestle, in tribute to Steve Irwin, but in the end decided to leave it alone. We did drop into the nearest info centre and informed the Nature People that it was there, given the many curious children frolicking in the area, plus the houses and all that, but apparently humungous snakes that could fit me in their belly (with room to spare) are Just Fine. In fact, the Nature Wench gave me the helpful advice of, "Don't touch it if you're scared of it."

Oh, thank YOU! I was just about to pick it up and give it a BIG PASH.

Then we had beer.

We did not buy a car. We came to the conlusion that car yards are full of royal arseholes who would quite happily pull out a shotgun and shoot you point blank in the face if it meant that they got another sale. Private! Private is the way to go.

So, yes, didn't manage to get a car, but did manage to get this:

That is my shoulder, which has been burnt crispier than a KFC chicken strip. I am terribly sorry for spending all of fifteen minutes in the sun, Mr. UV. Actually, Mr. UV can piss off and die. Even the fricking part in my hair is bright pink, and it hurts to brush my hair.

And here I was, privately congratulating myself on finally getting rid of all my old tan lines and settling in to my healthy, pasty, vampire-esque, blindingly-white skin. Now I look like I'm wearing a singlet when I'm not wearing anything at all.

Yes. Well.

2006-10-25T20:59:00.000+10:00

1, 2, 3.

1. I have long since been of the opinion that life is too short to spend it talking to people who piss you off. There is a chap at work who is very annoying, abrupt, and in your face, so apart from the usual hello-type pleasantries, I give him a miss. I mean, there's something like 95 staff members on the floor so it's not a huge deal. But apparently it is! I caught this same chap loudly BITCHING about me at work.

Bitching! About me! The quiet girl who wears boring clothes and sits in the park all the time with a book!

I go out of my way to avoid the bitchy people, and yet I am still bitched about. I am back in high school. He is the student who smokes behind the gym at lunchtime and loses his virginity when he's 13 to a 38-year old man and then loudly tells everyone how he constantly inserts vegetables up his own bottom (ACTUAL FORMER CO-STUDENT). I am the student who thinks 'gosh, this is an eye-opener and all, but I think I'll leave' and goes to their room to play with dolls and read Jane Eyre. This guy's currently being investigated by management due to several complaints being made against him, and I know that people who put others down all the time probably have, I don't know, issues or something, and I'm not really overly offended, but STILL.

2. This weekend, John and I are venturing out into the big wide world to buy a car. Now, I don't know too much about cars (hell, I don't even have my licence), but I know what I like, and I have created a list of the specifications that this broombroom must meet. This list is as follows:

Red, preferably. Because red cars go faster. FACT.
No rev-head, boy-racer, yobbo, or hoon previous owners. In my limited experience, I have discovered that the surefire way to spot a hoon car is a modified gear knob. WHO MODIFIES THEIR GEAR KNOB? Hoons. That's who.
All the buttons need to work. Even the buttons for crap things like your hazard lights.
A customised horn. None of this standard beep-beep bullshit. We're talking La Cucaracha, maybe some Abba or some AC/DC.
No suspicious stains on the seat or floormats. Previous drivers and passengers must not have transferred any bodily fluids to the car. This includes, but is not limited to: weeing, pooing, or the result of carrying a dead body in the trunk.
It should have those cool doors that open upwards. You know. Like a DeLorean. Actually, if it could be a DeLorean, I'd be stoked.

Ok, so maybe I'm just happy if it goes and doesn't smell.

3. John threw a packet of chips at me and it hit me square in the face, so I pinned him down and then hurled the same packet of chips at his head repeatedly. Then he apologised, said it was an accident, and as soon as I had moved away he threw them at my head again. This is our relationship.

The book I am reading, Running With Scissors, makes me feel like I have had the most normal life in the world.

2006-10-22T18:43:00.000+10:00

I was wandering through the Queen Street Mall on my way home, when I noticed a group of very serious people who were wearing black clothes and sunglasses. I was thinking to myself how peculiar they looked; sort of like stand-in Men in Black cast members rather than the usual faux-goths in the city, and I wasn't really looking where I was going or paying much attention to anything else and ended up barging straight through the middle of them. In doing so, I almost bowled over a pint-sized Veronica.

Yes, my life is simply RIDDLED with (near) celebrity encounters. I thought 'gosh, she looks familiar' and then somebody screamed "THE VERONICAS ARE SHIT" really loudly and CLICK went my brain.

Boytown is unfortunately quite rubbish. It's not eye-removingly bad or anything, but I'd probably sooner lounge on the couch and practise belching the alphabet than give it a repeat viewing. This most likely stems from my dislike of Glenn Robbins and Mick Molloy, who have the most lines in the movie, and my love of Bob Franklin, who has the least lines in the movie (all of which are not actually funny). Why did you not tap into the Bob Franklin goldmine, movie makers?

I propose that we write our own movie and make MILLIONS. What say you?

2006-10-17T18:06:00.000+10:00

So John trotted home from the polo with his skin a delightful shade of purple, and I prepared to gloat. Me, with my pasty white Vitamin D-deprived skin and bloated stomach from too many packets of chips, and what I am trying to say here is that obviously I was much better off than John, even if I am not managing it overly successfully. He walked in, sighed contentedly and said, "Today was fantastic. The only thing that could've improved it is you being there."

So. Sucking up, eh? Kissing arse will get you NOWHERE, sonny. You're just trying to make out that you didn't sit in the burning sun on a deckchair and laugh at inane horse jokes. I KNOW YOUR GAME.

"Turns out Malaria Neighbour's got connections," John went on.

The polo invite had come from our nextdoor neighbour, you see, who we thought was dead for quite a while but eventually discovered that he was in Papua New Guinea with malaria, or some such malarkey. John continued:

"Well, it turned out it was the final of the Polo Australian Open, would you believe. We were sat with some chief police commissioner type, and then we all went over to the VIP part and sat with the family of one of Australia's best polo players."

Ok. So maybe it was a bit bigger than I was thinking.

"And then I had a drink with the guy who was doing the entertainment. Guitar bloke. Tom. Tommy something?"

"TOMMY EMMANUEL?!?!?!" I sputtered, my head exploding.

"Yes, that's the one. Nice bloke, really friendly. Very good at guitar..."

Ok, now who was the bright spark who said I shouldn't go to the polo? I have never even managed to stutter hello to a famous musician type, let alone guzzled booze with one. Now I must cry.

I have been given two free tickets to a movie premiere by a co-worker who attracts free stuff like I attract weirdos, and John and I are going to go along and see it tomorrow night. It is an Australian movie called Boytown. Plot: Australian boy band who were big in the 80's decide to reform when they are all old and podgy. COMEDY GOLD. There is a very strong possibility that it will be cheesey and rubbish but hey, who turns down free tickets?

(And also, I am quite secretly in love with Bob Franklin)

2006-10-15T12:13:00.000+10:00

I was invited to the polo!

But I declined.

If it was a day of polo involving cries of 'oh, jolly good!' and 'good show, old sport!' and sipping copious amounts of champagne whilst eating finger food and laughing uproariously, I would've said yes.

But I strongly suspect it would have been a day of sitting on an uncomfortable deck chair, with a group of loud blokes yelling 'get back on ya horse, ya bloody WOMAN!' with no alcohol (because everyone's driving, see) in direct burnyburny sunlight until I looked like a big chunk of pork crackling.

So I said no.

But John has gone. "Oh!" I exclaimed, in my plummiest voice. "Do cut your nails, John, or the posh folk will look at you and exclaim 'why! He has the hands of a common potato farmer, mumsy!' and it will be so dreadfully embarrassing. And make sure you take your blazer in case those awfully messy horseys kick mud onto your shirt. That would be just terrible."

John grunted.

"Perhaps you could have a lovely cup of tea while you watch, and eat cucumber sandwiches! Oh, gosh, how delightful!"

John gave me the evil eye and left the room. I am so snarky.

I am now faced with a Sunday all by my lonesome, and simply don't know what to do. I mean, what can a person do with a budget of $5?

Sit at home and swipe away the stupid twatting flies. Oh, wait, already doing that.
Go for a lovely walk in the extreme heat, perhaps until I die from heat stroke.
Rack up an enormous debt on my credit card by buying booze, whores, and shoes. YEAH!
Buy a tallie and a packet of Chicos and sit on my arse watching b-grade pornography.
Read blogs and watch vlogs. Unfortunately, I think I have already read and watched the WHOLE internet.

Bugger. I should've gone to the polo.

2006-10-09T18:13:00.000+10:00

Four days until the weekend!

I am foolishly going to tell you about the marvellous job I am applying for. This is foolish because I will rant and rave and sound overkeen and then if I do not get it (and it is fabulous, whereas I am a bit mediocre in general, so I am unsuccessfully trying not to get my hopes up/stake my entire life on it) then we will have to throw a humungous pity party and eat cream cakes and lard sandwiches to make me feel better. It is government (cushy), contract (better pay), and not in insurance (HURRAH!). I would quite like to marry it and have its babies. But all I can do is cross my fingers and my toes and bullshit like a trooper on my application, because I am sure that a million and twelve people have applied for it.
Has anyone else noticed a sudden influx in the number of flies around the place? That is, going from no flies, to a MILLION flies? Have I moved out of my house, and into a bin? A house-sized bin with all amenities, and three-week old slabs of meat in place of furniture? Because I do not understand why I am suddenly the Lady of the Flies. They are all buzzing about and shagging in mid-air and sucking on the wine stains on the carpet and I am NOT HAPPY.
All the laydeez are wearing summer dresses at the moment, and I am forever looking at them swishing about and being all flowy and sighing wistfully, because every dress I have ever tried on has made me look like Mrs. Blobby in floral print. 'Hey!' say the dress designers. 'I know what I'll do! Let's make this dress so it's loose and hangs off the bust, but is tight around the stomach, so that girls with a beer gut look like shit! Yeah!' But, after all the girl perving, I decided to give dresses a second chance and chose three to try on. And I can only conclude that they have hired actual women to design the dresses, rather than Girl-Hating-Bitch-Designers, because they ALL fit me. I tried to toss up between them, and then couldn't, and bought them all. I AM POOR. But I am rich in dresses! Now I shall whirl and twirl and my skirt will inevitably be blown up by the wind when I am wearing hideous underpants.

Pot noodles and dancing, hurrah!

2006-10-06T09:31:00.000+10:00

It is Friday, and an RDO, and I am celebrating by lounging about on my arse and eating a pot noodle for breakfast. Hurrah! I am following it up with some chewy fruity snakes, because I can. Carbs and MSG and sugar, oh my!

I was rummaging through the fridge a wee moment ago to pull out a bottle of Coke when something caught my eye.

There was a carton of milk on the shelf. Not unusual. I looked above it.

There was another carton of milk.

BOTH WERE OPEN.

I don't exactly have a waste-not-want-not mentality. I wasn't raised on a diet of potato skins and weak tea, because times were tough. Hell, I ate roast dinners and biscuits, to tell the truth. I sometimes drank lemonade! But less about the (cough) evident affluence of my upbringing and more about this doubling up business.

There is an open milk carton, with two days left until the expiry, and you want some milk. Do you take the open carton and use its contents freely, or do you open a brand new carton? This is a poll. I don't know how to do fancy polls, so here is some paragraph poll action, with 'this is a poll' thrown in for clarity.

There is only one thing worse than seeing that a new carton has been opened for no reason whatsoever.

Picking up the old carton and discovering that it's EMPTY.

Oh, no milk left in this one, I'll just POP IT BACK IN THE FRIDGE. Of course! Perfect place!

This is worse than the time the toilet paper was put on the holder the wrong way up. This does, of course, mean WAR.

2006-10-03T22:22:00.000+10:00

So I take the risk of turning on my TV and my suspicions have been confirmed. Rove makes me want to inflict serious bodily harm upon myself. Or him. Him preferably. With something sharp. Perhaps with more than one sharp bit. A hairbrush-style needle paddle, maybe.

Where oh where have you gone, decent variety television? The quietly (though occasionally blatantly) indecent days of Graham Kennedy have been replaced with a git ripping off US talk show hosts with his opening five minutes of tawdry jokes about current affairs. Fire the joke, pull the amusing face, zoom, repeat. Here's some celebrities sitting in the green room! Look, they're pulling faces! Gosh.

I think maybe I should make my own. Using a trusty handycam, I could interview local celebrities like the muso who plays at the local pub on Thursdays, and the bloke who's coming to fix my roof tomorrow. I could punctuate it with witty remarks and throw in the occasional boobie flash when things are running slow. Chat, jokes, and indecent exposure. What's not to love?

All suggestions for this exciting new venture are welcome. I will give you full credit in the, uh, credits, which I will write on an A4 piece of paper and hold up to the camera at the end.

I am currently hindered by my complete lack of comic timing and evident inability to communicate effectively before 2pm. Or maybe that only applies when I'm at work.

This is, of course, beside the point. What is most important of all is that I sincerely swear to never, ever have Kasey Chambers as a guest.

Oh, you are SO sold.

(Yes, slow night, nothing to write about, but BETTER THAN ROVE.)

2006-09-29T19:22:00.000+10:00

Let us sing and dance in an internet-based frenzy, for my internet peeps have Got Their Shit together and are allowing me to peruse blogs, lonelygirl15's videos, and porn (I think I've covered the whole of the internet there?) to my heart's content once more.

To celebrate, here is some marvellous (cough) bullet pointage of the highest order:

The other night at dancing (yes, I am still going, and yes, I am yet to maim anyone!) I was doing a bit of a swirlytwirl when I gracefully stepped forward and gave my partner a nice gentle nudge in the groin. And you're thinking that this is my subtle way of saying that I completely crotch-crippled the poor guy, but no, I am serious, it was a stripper-lap-dance-dirty-tarty crotch stroke. Which, to be quite frank, is approximately one MILLION times worse than a proper knee to the groin. Well, from my point of view, anyway. At least if I'd kneed him he would've doubled over and I could've apologised profusely, but is it really appropriate for me to stop and say, "oh, I'm sorry for stroking your penis through your clothing with my thigh." Is it? Instead, I remained very calm, turned only slightly purple, and tactfully ignored it.
My job is bullshit, and bollocks, and a royal load of arse.
I have begun a half-arsed attempt at learning Spanish (or, as we bilingual-types call it, good ol' ess-pan-yoll) and though I can only say good morning, what's your name? and I'll have an orange juice, thanks, I'm doing a tremendous job when it comes to pronunciation. It might be something to do with coming from a part of the world where the place names sound like a chain-smoker having a five-minute coughing fit, but I am just fabulous at all of the dislodging phlegm words. I don't just want my sandwich with jamon, I want it with chhhggghhlllllhhhhhamon, gracias. I'm sorry, let me wipe you down.
You may have noticed that, according to my sidebar, I have been reading Love in the time of Cholera for approximately twelve years now, with no end in sight. Truth be told, I did finish it quite a long time ago but I appear to be completely rubbish at taking photos of the new books and updating that Reading bit. This is completely boring for you and all I really wanted was an excuse to mention that the book mentioned above took up hours of my life that I will never get back, and seemed to consist of page upon page of boring drivel with a wee bit of paedophilia thrown in for good measure. Hey. Just my opinion. It's a modern classic, y'know. Searching google for 'Love in the Time of Cholera is crap' and 'I hate Love in the Time of Cholera' gives me no results, so I probably just don't get it.
Reg was going for a bit of a joy flight around the room the other night, miraculously landed on the rim of John's pint glass, and promptly plopped a shit into his beer. No, he didn't continue to drink it, despite my cries of 'it's good for you!'

Welly well well then, I fired this post up with guns a-blazin' and full of enthusiasm, but I have just remembered that, unfortunately, diddly jack shit ever happens to me. Bah.

2006-09-23T13:47:00.000+10:00

Yes. Well.

It seems that the Great Gods of Internet are out to spite me for spending such a long time sinning by ruthlessly thieving my nextdoor neighbour's wireless connection. That is, once I finally make an honest woman of myself by going to the Internet Shop and buying my own, the company goes bust and leaves me stranded and void of internet lovin'.

Which is shit, by the way.

So I'm back at the internet caf', just to let you know that I'm probably shafted for a while.

Yes. Very shit indeed.

2006-09-19T18:05:00.000+10:00

John was cooking dinner. Some sort of curry. And I had arrived home from work and was quite busy with lounging about and sitting on my arse. Then I realised that helping with the cooking (or at least making a cheerful offer) was probably a good idea, since I was going to gorge myself on the result.

"Can I help with anything?"

See? Done. That's all it takes to seem like a fabulously helpful and giving girl. And then he replied.

"You can either chop the chicken, or the garlic."

Gah! Why don't you tell me to go and scoop poo off the floor with my bare hands, because that would be preferable. This is the offer I get? I was hoping for 'stir the contents of this pan' or 'stand in the kitchen and drink the rest of this cooking wine.'

It's not that I hate chopping chicken. There's just things I'd rather do, for example, hacking out my own liver with a rusty piece of barbed wire or, say, slowly decapitating myself with repeated papercuts. Hooray for manhandling OOZING SLIMY GIBLETS.

I ran for the garlic.

As I was finely chopping two cloves of garlic, it crossed my mind that I was due to attend a fancypantsdancing class that very evening, and that I might smell quite fragrant. I washed my hands very thoroughly.

We ate, it was fab, and we trotted along to the class.

And then we danced.

And then I started sweating.

And then I started positively PONGING.

All I could smell was garlic. I wiped my hands furiously on my jeans, to no avail. Boys walked up to me, did a couple of dance steps and then RAN AWAY with an 'oh, uh, that was great, thanks. I'm going to stand over here. Um.' The instructor showed me a couple of things, gave me a friendly tap on the shoulder, smiled, and swiftly walked to the other side of the room.

Who needs silver bullets and a stake through the heart to rid themselves of their pesky local vampires? Just grab the nearest GBE; your very own vampire pied piper*.

I sure know how to make an impression.

(*John has just made me aware that a vampire wouldn't actually follow a pied piper who reeked of garlic. They would run away. And this has made me laugh, so I have left it there. Perhaps if the pied piper chased the vampires, instead. An anti-pied piper. Instead of leading the vampires away, I could just move into the centre of town, and they'd all leave immediately. Um.)

2006-09-14T23:45:00.000+10:00

So, the other day I worked out what the hell YouTube is. Well, I think I did. It's apparently a website that you can post videos on, and, um, I'm hoping I'm right, so that I don't come across like a complete thicko. I don't really know what the kids are getting up to these days.

I was then introduced to the concept of the 'vlog.' I don't know if they pronounce it vee-log, or whether it rhymes with clog, or whether it's a bloody typo. I have even jumped on the lonelygirl15 bandwagon, which, in case you don't know (and I'm sure you do, even if it was all new news for me), involves a girl's video diary recently being exposed as scripted and staged and stuff and oh I AM SO INTRIGUED.

I have even learnt about Emmalina, and in doing so I somehow saw pictures of her putting things in her private parts. Wa-hay!

But. To move right along.

It appears that this standard text blogging business is Old News and VLOGGING is the way to go. I should get started pronto. Ideas include:

A vlog of me drinking beer and cramming my mouth full of chips.
A vlog of me belching the Australian National Anthem.
A vlog of me strumming my guitar and singing hippie songs, sounding not entirely unlike a cat being garrotted.
A vlog of me punching and pinching John.
A vlog of me saying, "Vlog, vlog, vlog. VLOGVLOGVLOOGGGG." Etc.
A vlog of Reg after he mysteriously gets his own poo all over his own beak.
A vlog of me rolling around on the floor, in fits of giggles, after discovering that there is a TV show called 'Simply Ming Cooking.'
A vlog of a vlog of a vlog of a vlog OH!

Internet stardom, HERE I COME.

(I still don't know what a 'podcast' is, though.)

2006-09-09T21:44:00.000+10:00

Things to do when John is away in New Zealand for a night:

Watch made-for-TV movies and realise afterwards that you've just wasted numerous hours of your life.
Blog, when you should actually be looking for jobs.
Watch Monster's Ball and think 'woah, she really did deserve that Oscar.'
Yes, I am aware that this constitutes a pretty sad Saturday night.
Cough your guts up.
Wonder why the hell you're STILL sick.
Do your washing.

I am a boring git. How about:

Have a MASSIVE orgy. With booze and whores and booze!
Get drunk! Yeah!
Do something wacky, like steal a car or flash your underpants at strangers!
Watch a foreign movie... without the subtitles!
Eat your soup straight out of the tin!
Take your medication at the appropriate time and go to bed!

I am going to write a book called How To Spice Up Your Saturday Night and it will ROCK YOUR WORLD.

2006-09-07T10:40:00.000+10:00

Presenting... The GBE Diet!

(Are you excited?)

In order for this to work, it's important that you follow all of the steps precisely. It is also beneficial to have some sort of horrendous virus slowly destroying your body from the inside out.

Over a five-and-a-half day period, only the following food items may be consumed:

One slice of meatlover's pizza.
One piece of cottage pie.
Three slices of bread.

That's in total, there. You might want to spread them out a bit.

Your drink choices are limited to:

Water.
Utterly vile herbal tea.

But hey, you can have as much as you like.

During this time, sleep a lot, cough a lot, and cry occasionally. And then, when you change from your fat pants to your jeans so you can go to the doctor, you TOO will discover that they are so loose that you could fit not one, but TWO cans of beer down them easily (Ooh, cold!) and that they are now so hideously ill-fitting that you probably have to go to the shop and spend $100+ on a new pair. Hurrah!

Oh, wait. This is SHIT.

2006-09-05T11:00:00.000+10:00

I went to the shop.

This was a completely unplanned visit, as I had originally been planning on going to work. This change of events occurred upon waking, when it became evident that the only way I could possibly breathe was if somebody had a very long straw they could stick down my throat and then blow into quite generously.

So I called in sick, and then caught the bus to the shop.

That is, I almost missed the bus. I was there, at the bus stop, nice and early, and there were two different buses due. Three other women sat on the bench, clearly oblivious to my fatty-fat-throat suffering, seeing as they made me stand up and cough loudly. My bus came along, and everyone stood up. The middle woman noticed that it was my bus, rather than the other bus, and on behalf of everyone there decided to shake her head vigorously and WAVE THE BUS ON.

Thank you, thoughtless twatting cow. I HATE YOU. The bus driver saw the lady and sped up to continue past the stop, and it was only with my frantic waving and hobbling onto the road that he pulled over.

So, fast forward to the shop. I bought the following items:

Vicks Throat Drops
Honey and Lemon Herbal Tea for Soothing the Throat
Chemist's Own Mighty Strong Pills, for which my ID was required, because obviously I want to grind them up and make Speed to sell to the children
Herron Ibuprofen, which I am not planning on mixing with the other medication, but wanted to keep in my drawer for when the Speed runs out
Nyal MediThroat Gargle
Bread, mince, and bog roll, but these are irrelevant to the story

The throat drops are utterly useless to a world of pain such as mine. The honey and lemon tea, which smelt quite nice when it was in dry, bagged form on the shelf, is actually utterly MINGING but I am sipping it regardless, for the soothing, soothing heat. The Strong Pills are yet to kick in, but when they do I shall dance about in a pseudoephedrine-induced frenzy. The Ibuprofen is sitting in my drawer, making itself quite at home.

And the gargle. Oh, the arsing gargle. It came with a little measuring cup which I was to use to dilute the potent mixture. Do not use if hypersensitive to iodine, it said, when it actually should say THIS IS PURE IODINE, YUM YUM.

I squirted in my 1mL, added 20mL of water, and swirled it around.

Now I don't know about you, because maybe I have an abnormally small mouth, but 21mL was one hell of a gobful. I poured it in and let it sit while I composed myself. Becoming wary of my teeth turning a lovely shade of purply-brown I tilted my head back and began The Gargling. It frothed out of my mouth and a bit ran down my cheek. I took a short break to mop my face down and continued.

Gargle for thirty seconds, it said. I watched the clock. I got to twelve seconds before I stopped and began to gag. It was so fricking vile, and there was so much of it bubbling out of my mouth that I nearly vomited purplebrown, then and there. Maybe I have too much in my mouth, I thought, and before I knew it the whole lot had come out and sprayed all over the sink. Purplebrown sink. I rinsed my mouth, shoved about eight Vicks Throat Drops in to get rid of That Taste, and sat back down.

Stupid arsing sickness. Why didn't I take the taxi driver's advice and knock back a bottle of brandy?

2006-09-04T08:05:00.000+10:00

Boy, have I had a shit few weeks health-wise. First the son of a bitch wisdom tooth forcing its way inside my flesh and causing not only a throat infection, but an ear infection. Yeah, thanks tooth, for not being able to fit in my God damn mouth like all my other teeth do. What are you there for? Why, God, why? Do you aid mastication? NO.

Secondly, a week ago, and I was up half the night regurgitating the contents of my stomach due to either some suspicious sushi or nasty nachos. Boy, that was pleasant. It had been a long time between non-alcohol-induced vomiting moments. And I'd rather like to avoid those from now on.

BUT NO! Why must I speak too soon? Allow me to introduce you to sickness number three, which kicked in on Saturday night and has been playing havoc with my poor body by inflicting racking coughs, pounding headaches and YES, some more midnight vomming.

I cannot help but think that my immune system must be completely shot to shit, and that it may be in part due to my extremely rubbish diet which currently consists of M&M's and Coke.

This will make it two weeks in a row that I have had to call in sick on a Monday, which looks Extremely Bloody Dodgy, but then again I do not care because we all know what I think of my work. The only downside being that I will not get paid, though, because if you do not have a doctor's certificate - even if a doctor's visit is completely unnecessary - then obviously you are a sickie-chucking LIAR who deserves to have their pay docked and be left scrounging for the next fortnight.

Jesus. And... breathe.

To top all of this off, every time I have a dance class I wake up with an enormous festering zit somewhere on my face, which, despite my 'gentle encouragement' manages to remain large and proud (and sometimes grows in size) by the time my lesson comes around, so that all the boys I have to dance with are probably completely repulsed and have to look at me through squinted eyes so that it doesn't appear that all they can see is my gargantuan welt.

Today's pus volcano is situated directly above my top lip. GET READY BOYS.

But gosh, this cup of tea is just lovely.

I have decided that it's not worth staying at my work until we get a car, just so I can get half-price insurance for it, because a saving of $250 (or so) cannot be compared to another month of wanting to stab myself in the ears. So I am officially On The Market and will start applying for jobs posthaste. Perhaps I could even make a couple of calls today with my nasal snot voice and continually interrupt the conversation with fits of coughing.

Yeah. I know how to impress.

(Hire me? Please?)

2006-09-01T08:15:00.000+10:00

I clap my hands. Count 1.. 2.. 3.. 4. Move my feet in time.

"I don't get it," he says. "Where does Number Four come into it?"

"Well, there's four beats in a bar," I explain. "1.. 2.. 3.. 4."

"I don't understand. I don't know what a bar is."

"You don't need to know what a bar is. You just need to hear the beat. Can you hear the drummer? The drummer keeps the beat."

I play along with the drummer by slapping my knees.

"But what has this got to do with anything, or the fourth beat?"

"You have to hear the beat to know what time to move your feet. They move in time with the music."

He shakes his head and looks at me, resignedly.

I don't know how to teach somebody this. Do I click my fingers loudly in his ear? Buy him a drumkit? Smack his head into the table on counts 1 and 3?

Does anyone know?

2006-08-30T20:27:00.000+10:00

Pure, unadulterated HEAVEN.

Australia, I love you, but why do you refuse to acknowledge the supreme combination of chocolate and peanut butter?

2006-08-29T08:13:00.000+10:00

"You were all flushed when you were dancing with him."

"What? I was not."

"Yes you were. There was only one other girl a brighter red than you, and she became completely incapable of moving her legs whenever he went near her."

"Hmph."

The fancypantsdancingprancing lesson. Twenty-one of us in all, twelve girls to nine guys, stepping awkwardly from side to side. Nervous giggling. People sneaking sly glances at eachother's feet. Look anywhere but their face, because direct eye contact is so incredibly unnerving. Moving from one sweaty-handed partner to another. Wiping my hands on my jeans every five minutes.

Dancing with the instructor every time I got to the front of the circle. He turned off his microphone, said, "You've got it, GBE," and followed it up with "but stop looking at your feet." Anywhere but the eyes. Feet as good a place as any.

Names going in one ear and out the other. Brent, Brenton, Trent, Trenton. Feeling a bit slutty for being introduced to every guy in there but having not spoken a word to any of the girls.

Standing in HolyShittingAWE when the instructors showed what 'proper' dancing looks like. Knowing that my slow-quick-quick really was utterly shite in comparison. Round of applause. Another on Thursday. Free CD next week for home practice. Thank you very much. Wave goodbye. Sweaty hands. Excited talking.

"He kept standing on my feet. She kept staring at my feet. He was really great. Really strong grip. I thought I was going to knee him in the groin! Did you like it? I liked it. I can't wait for the CD! Can you wait for the CD?"

Bright-eyed and childlike.

So. Much. Fun.

2006-08-25T17:26:00.000+10:00

Lovely Pomgirl tagged the whole world with this tops meme about books. And I am doing it, because I am sadly deprived of book talk and am sick of loitering at Dymocks, looking wistfully at the people milling about and waiting for one of them to say, "Gosh, Lolita for only $9.95? I'll take TEN!"

One Book That Changed Your Life:

Erm. I suppose when I graduated from kiddy books to grown-up books it was a bit of a change. It wasn't a gradual thing for me - it was Hairy MacLary one day, Stephen King's Misery and Jane Eyre the next. When I was 12 and a complete arse-kissing teacher's pet, I was given a heap of classic books by Mr. Brennan at the end of the year. Which I thought was great, but the other kids snorted and called me a nerd. But now I am clever! and they're all pregnant and homeless. HA HA.

One Book You Have Read More Than Once:

The aforementioned Jane Eyre is one of them. I'm really not too good at reading books over and over again. Short attention span and all that.

One Book You'd Want On A Desert Island:

Well it seems obvious to say something like 'a copy of How to Build Very Good Boats out of Palm Trees and Sand' but, if I'm supposed to answer properly and pick something that would last me a long time and hopefully not drive me bananas, I would probably have to say The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Which has been sitting on my shelf for approximately one million years after I made a half-arsed effort at being one of them proper clever people by reading Romeo and Juliet and a couple of sonnets.

One Book That Made You Giddy:

Eh? If you picked up my hard-cover copy of Lord of the Rings and threw it at my head, it would make me a bit giddy. It might even kill me. Gosh, I don't know. Lolita swished around inside my head and twirled and whirled and was fabulous. Remind me to loudly answer 'THE ONE ABOUT PAEDOPHILIA' the next time somebody asks me what my favourite book is.

One Book That You Wish Had Been Written:

I completely misread this. I thought it was asking me for one book that I wished I had written. And I thought of a million fantastic, mind-blowing answers, then realised that the question is completely different, and all my ideas went out the window. But, you know. You know those books. The ones where you get to the end and go, 'awwww, I wish it was longer.' Yeah. Them. The sequels to them. That's my answer.

One Book That Wracked You With Sobs:

I think that this question should actually read 'One Book That DIDN'T Wrack You With Sobs' and then we might be getting somewhere. Sometimes it's the lovely words, sometimes it's the hormones, but either way I am a big wailing sissy when it comes to books. It has been worsening steadily as I've been growing older, too. At this rate, by the time I'm 60 I'll be curled up in a corner, constantly crying when I see things like curtains and empty coke bottles. Show me a forlorn puppy, a poor kid with a dirty face, a Greenpeace ad on the telly, and I am a heaving, sobbing mess. The book I am reading right now, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, has already made me cry. I hate this girly bullshit.

One Book You Wish Had Never Been Written:

If I answer The Da Vinci (SHITTINGSHITARSE) Code, then I'll start ranting for the next half-hour. I need to stop the ranting. I need to be a happy person. I need to stop wishing death on Dan Brown. I'll change my answer to Ulysses, and make of it what you will.

One Book You're Currently Reading:

Oh, bollocks. I already answered this one. There's a picture of it over there. It's ok in parts, and as boring as my high school science teacher in others. Hence the Very Long Time it is taking me. But I am hoping it will turn around and end fabulously and heart-wrenchingly, and I am holding out for some raunchy sex.

One Book You've Been Meaning To Read:

Oh, there's only about a million. I'm yet to read any Dostoyevsky, I've fallen behind on the Jane Austen, I've had War and Peace sitting on my shelf for a few years, and haven't tried Dickens since I was spotty and awkward. There will always be books on this list. There's too many books, and too little time.

Ooh, books. I'm all hot and bothered now.

2006-08-23T18:21:00.000+10:00

So my new best friends, The Internet People, have lovingly given me a dial-up account to get me by while they're activating the broadband at my place, for which I have offered to have many of their babies. I am free and easy with cash now that John is earning zillions and I am not petrified of ending up destitute, homeless, and wearing a hessian sack.

Ok, so not zillions. But, let's face it - it doesn't really take much to seem affluent in comparison to my piddling wage. Curse my wretched job. Curse it to hell.

John: [sighs after hanging up the phone]
Me: What's up?
John: Oh, I've just been offered another job, that's all.
Me: SHUT UP, GITFACE.

I have been trying to convince him that, as his girlfriend, it's my right to quit my job and live off him like a parasite, but he does not agree. But! He has agreed that it would be a good idea for me to tell Large Insurance Company to go and eat a plateful of their own excrement, wave my middle finger suggestively, swear like a drunken sailor, and hand in my notice, so I can stop moaning and hoping that death comes sooner than the next phone call.

Which is a fabulous - yet frightening - idea. Back on the unemployment train to Poorville. I am thinking that I will hold off until John buys a car, so I can scam some discounted insurance (yes, the only perk), and then quit. Ha!

The latest:

The weekend involved mucho drinking (ten drinks, people. TEN.) and due to my extreme cadbury nature I have a million black spots. In my memory, that is. Not on my face. Though I've spent the last couple of days slightly zitty in an 'I'm thirteen, how 'bout you?' sort of way. Probably because of the ten drinks. Ten drinks! I am surprised that I am not dead, to be honest. Thank God those bartenders were being stingy with the vodka. Wait. Actually. CURSE THOSE BASTARDS.
I ate a slice of chocolate pizza. Yeah!
I have a wisdom tooth. Well three, actually, but let's focus on this one in particular. It is pushing its way out and feels like it has almost completely burrowed through my cheek. When I reach up and touch my face, I am expecting a big hunk of tooth to be hanging out through a gaping hole in my face. The growing part isn't causing me too much discomfort, to be honest - it's the fact that the son of a bitch seems to be reshaping the inside of my mouth. "Oh, this bit of cheek is in the way, I'll just HACK IT OFF. I'll just make room for myself by creating FESTERING WELTS." It's quite shite, to say the least.
Has anyone seen a (cough) movie called (cough) Wild Orchid? If they are not actually (cough) doing the business in that final scene then I will eat my hat. Hooray for pornography!
(But boo for Mickey Rourke. That son of a bitch scares me.)

That's it. Spent.

2006-08-22T16:03:00.000+10:00

Would you believe that the people whose internet access I have been ruthlessly pilfering have been so inconsiderate as to move out, taking their lovely, lovely bandwidth with them?

Those bastards.

This means that I actually have no access to the internet whatsoever, due to the above and also due to my workplace being so 'antique' that the computers would spontaneously explode if you looked at them sideways and said 'INTERNET' under your breath. I am at an internet cafe. It is full of backpackers and the like.

Please excuse my temporary absence. I shall return shortly.

2006-08-18T19:21:00.000+10:00

Oh, hello there Internet connection. You've decided to come crawling back, huh? Couldn't live without me, could you, bitch?

(Please don't leave me again.)

We have a few things on the agenda for tonight.

1. Regarding That Gym Business, I followed option one and it was nice and simple. The membership is frozen for another two months. I had to actually deal with that smarmy little bitch from the first incident, and used every ounce of will-power to avoid stabbing her in the eye with my membership card. Also, they have never even given me a free gym bag. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?

2. John and I went to check out the fancy pants dancing class, to put John's mind at ease as he was quite fearful he would have to wear frilly pink shirts and shiny heeled shoes. It was entirely fabulous to watch, and I am 99% certain that I will go there and a man wearing high pants will tell me that his partner has been knocked up and that I have to fill in and then we'll dance and do lifts in the water and I'll tell him how I carried a watermelon. John is not happy that I am continually referring to the instructor as 'my husband'.

3. I HATE WORK. It took a while, but my festering hate has now bubbled up to such a level that I get out of bed in the morning, take a shower and get dressed, and then wonder how it would feel to throw myself in front of a bus. Will you hire me, please? Just don't make me talk to people whose main goal in life is to be upset about their insurance policies. THERE'S MORE IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE.

Is it sad when you can sum up an entire week of your life in three paragraphs?

2006-08-13T10:49:00.000+10:00

Apologies for yesterday's drunken rubbish. These things happen after somebody throws themself even further in debt (but now I have all the furniture necessary for a normal household, and don't have to put my TV on a cardboard box anymore!) and celebrates by going to the pub at 3:30pm, drinking four pints and dribbling stew down their chin.

And I really did sign up for Latin dance classes. Not only that, but I signed John up too, because he was stupid enough to drunkenly agree. There's no turning back.

I had a plan for tomorrow. I was going to work all day, turn into One Tough Bitch and cancel my gym membership, and then go and check out the dancing prancing place to see what I've got myself into.

And I looked at this plan, and saw that it was good, except for one little hiccup.

That Gym Business.

I pulled out the terms and conditions and the Fitness Industry Code of Practice. I figured I'd better be well-versed in all of the fine print before I went in refusing to take no for an answer.

Twenty minutes later, I realised that I don't have a leg to stand on. Yeah, I can cancel, but it's subject to their termination fee. Their termination fee is basically to pay out the contract. And I know I could go in there just being extremely difficult and bitchy and it might get me somewhere, but I much prefer to have the upper hand.

So I'm a bit at a loss.

The other options:

Freeze my membership for another two months, pay for two months membership legitimately and then take my plane ticket in, saying that I'm moving to Peru. Permanently. No, I don't speak Spanish. Is that a problem? I'm allowed to move to Peru if I want to.
Force them to cancel the membership by breaching my terms and conditions. That is, cause damage to equipment or take in a pack of tic-tacs and wave them around, yelling, 'LOOK AT MY ANABOLIC STEROIDS.'
Cancel my credit card. Which would cause an enormous amount of shit.

I know I'm covering old ground, here. And yes, I know I'm a twat for entering Satan's lair in the first place. I'm so screwed.

2006-08-12T20:01:00.000+10:00

HELLO! Because I am drunk (HELLO I AM DRUNK), I have signed up for a Latin dance class which is starting in a couple of weeks I have also lost the ability to punctuate and will reply to comments once I'm sober and most importantly does anyone remember a film called The Forbidden Dance?

2006-08-10T20:46:00.000+10:00

I am working the latest shift at work possible. It is a shift that they have recently introduced which includes a 15-minute 'break' at the end of the shift, during which time you don't have to talk to twats (excluding co-workers, unfortunately) but do have to run around the office, emptying paper bins and filling water coolers, after which time you can leave.

So, get the shit done, and be out of there ten minutes early. Hurrah!

It hits dark o'clock, and the rest of the insurance minions trudge off home, leaving everything quiet and gloomy. I get up from my seat and wander over to the water cooler and, well, fill it up.

A voice shoots at me out of the darkness. Sharp, blistering, hateful.

"Do you realise which activity code you're in?" she says, and I suddenly notice the striking resemblance she bears to Voldemort.

"Oh. No, sorry."

Ah, activity codes. Activity codes were invented because the worthless employees, who have numbers rather than names, cannot actually manage their own time and need codes to tell them what to do. If you are not pissing, working on a policy, or having a meeting, YOU'RE NOT FUNCTIONING PROPERLY.

I sigh. OF COURSE I KNOW WHICH ACTIVITY CODE I'M IN. I am not a simple-minded cretin. I play dumb because I can't think of anything suitably scalding to say.

"Well," she says, relishing this moment and sliding her tongue over her lips, "You can only fill that up in your final fifteen minutes here. Do you understand?"

Tell me. Does anyone else put up with that shit? Am I in high school? Is she actually Ms. Tyler who taught me home economics? Can I get away with killing her? Can I call on the great God of Office Politics and launch a spiteful harrassment case against her?

Can I turn bright red, look humiliated and scuffle back to my seat?

Yes. Yes I can.

Due to a chronic fear of confrontation and vocal stature comparable to that of a fourteen-year old, my options to address this issue are as follows:

Ignore it.
Approach a supervisor and express my concerns, saying that it's unfair to be treated like a child, even if I sound and act like one.
Leave thumbtacks on her chair.
Fill up the water cooler and then tip it all over her rotating Satanic condescending head.

To be completely honest, I have had it up to here with that place. And yes, I am gesturing as far above my head as I can reach.

2006-08-08T22:40:00.000+10:00

Sitting back and watching Blackadder of an evening, I am struck with a realisation. My new hairstyle, which can look quite pretty if I smother it with straightening balm, swear at it, and burn it to a crisp with my hair straightener, on an average, cannot-be-arsed day, looks pretty much identical to Baldrick's 'do, circa Series III.

Which is a worry.

Soon I will be telling you how I've never taken off my trousers and am dreaming of a big turnip in the country.

Not that I let it get like that often, mind you. Not unless my plans for the day involve lounging in fat pants and eating rocky road until my stomach bulges so far out that I can rest my beer on it. Then, and only then, is Baldrick hair acceptable.

Lazy Fat Pants Days will be known as Baldrick Hair Days henceforth. Spread this information far and wide.

If you're not already aware, I am bored shirtless. I am officially working the Worst Shift Ever and am about as motivated as a vegetarian on a daytrip to the local slaughterhouse. The feelers I've put out in Salsa Land have so far gone unnoticed and I can only conclude that I am yet to receive any replies to my e-mails because everyone is far too busy dancing and looking attractive.

I imagine that is all they ever do. Ah, what a life.

Feeling inspired by lovely Audrey, I am contemplating going for a walk down Meme Road, but just don't know which one to do, or whether I should make up a completely new one. Any ideas?

2006-08-06T18:30:00.000+10:00

First and foremost, I lopped all of my hair off. Well, not all of my hair, but about half of it. And, um, a hairdresser did it, rather than me. And then I watched Aeon Flux and thought, Shit, Why didn't I cut my hair like Charlize? Short bits with some long bits = HOT. And then I thought, Shit, This movie's plot has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss fricking cheese. I prefaced a few more thoughts with Shit for good measure.

Last night, instead of the usual teenage miscreant rabble at The Embassy (a bar/nightclub-type place in Brisbane), my lovely Best Mate and some of her co-workers (along with myself, of course) were drunkenly wobbling on the dance floor when we were struck dumb by some fricking fantastic salsa dancing.

I've never been so pleased to hear a remix of Madonna's La Isla Bonita, which, incidentally, has been chorusing through my brain NON-STOP. He was spinning her all over the place and she was flicking her hair and WOW. We cheered loudly after the song finished but it was drowned out by J-Kwon, or whatever the hell they played next.

We found out that they teach classes and all of a sudden I'm thinking that when I grow up, I want to dance salsa. None of this astronaut/ballerina/doctor shit for me. SALSA. And I will spin and wear skirts that flare with silver shoes. I will dance with handsome men whose sexuality may be questionable and people will look at me and think, That girl has picked a really rewarding career path. And also, check out how hot her arse is from all of that dancing.

YEAH.

Hey now. It's feasible.

2006-08-03T18:14:00.000+10:00

Gosh.

The only good thing about being stuck without an internet connection is discovering that lovely bloggers have posted LOADS of stuff and I get to read it all in one hit.

I dreamt that John asked me to have sex with him, and I said no, so he cracked onto MY MOTHER. For some reason, I woke up more angry than completely grossed out.
It seems to be the time of year for sleazebags to hit on me over the phone at work. I had one man say that it was only because he feared I was recording the conversation that he didn't ask me to do things that could have him arrested. And I thinking, hey, do you want me to assassinate somebody, mate? Because asking me to touch your privates probably won't get the cops round there. It is either a sleazy time of year, or my voice has finally hit its Phone Sex Operator peak.
There is no food in the house, and no Coke and no beer! I am going to have a chicken burger but as I have no bread rolls I am having the chicken patty in bread. It is a chicken breader. With no other filling. YUM.
John has gone for a couple of job interviews to bring in some 'spare cash' and just because he knows stupid boring stuff about stupid boring computers, they are THROWING jobs at him. Paying Over Three Times what I earn. PUNK. Punches for John.
I finished Don Quixote! I know I can use my bollocking workhours and time spent with John as an excuse, but only Ulysses and the Lord of the Rings trilogy have taken more time to complete. I know you probably don't care, but HEY. I am excited. Now I am positively whizzing through light and fluffy books that weren't published in 1605 (and 1615) to give my head a rest. Where are the footnotes? There are no footnotes, the writing is large and the pages are few.

There is just one day until the weekend, and by using my clever brain I can deduce that I only have to put up with 7.25 hours of talking to braindead twats about insurance before I have two glorious days off work. HURRAH. Let us drink and be merry. Who's with me?

2006-07-30T09:55:00.000+10:00

Extremely long and mind-numbing, as promised.

Surfers Paradise. Beautiful, mostly-clean beaches. Gazillions of tourists. Tacky shops selling Australian souvenirs made in China. Home of 'Schoolies Week', where children celebrate leaving school with an orgy of drugs, booze, and sex with strangers. Yes, it is indeed a pervert's heaven. Home of backpackers galore, who walk into bottle shops with a shopping trolley and leave with it full to the brim with booze.

Home to people who can't hold their alcohol. Eighteen-year old punks who yell loudly because they've had two schooners of Tooheys and proceed to dance around with their pants down. John and I walked around on Friday night and picked out the people we'd most like to marry.

John: It's not fair. There's way more potential husbands for you than there are wives for me.
Me: Yes. Spoilt by choice. I'll narrow down my selection criteria. My new husband needs to be: drunk, loud, obnoxious, arrogant...
John: You're not narrowing it down very much.
Me: ...they've got to have unruly facial hair, foul body odour, they must be incoherent, illiterate, and homeless.
John: I think we better head back to Brisbane.

Some 'highlights':

My INSANE Comedy Skills:

John and I were going to the train station. We passed two other commuters who were speaking a different language.

John: I think those people were Russian.
Me: Yeah. Russian FOR THE TRAIN. HAHAHAHAHA.
John: ...

The Q1 Building and THE MEETING:

The tallest building in Australia, and the 20th tallest in the world, but only because they put a really huge spike on the top of it. Which is just cheating, really. I could put an incredibly enormous spike on the top of my house and then call it one of the tallest buildings in the world, too.

Yeah. It was high.

YEAH. IT WAS HIGH.

This was where we sat and chatted with John's Reader and her boyfriend, which was quite lovely. Very chatty and normal and proof that real human beings do actually partake in this internet business.

It was quite strange in parts, though, like when they went into blog mode and started saying, "I liked it when you posted that thing" "Yeah and I liked it when you did that thing" "Yeah and what's with that thing you did the other day?" And I am thinking HEY. I AM THE BLOGGER.

Also,

Her: So, are you feeling better? And, did you enjoy your birthday trip up to Mt. Tamborine? Did you manage to resolve that other thing you were having problems with? And how about that mouse, eh?
Me: Um. Yeah. And, uh, how are you?

Thanks to those guys for taking those photos, by the way. Even though they won't read this. Thanks. Thanks also for taking a million photos of the back of my head, providing me with sidebar profile pictures for years to come.

The Worst Band in the World:

One of a couple of pubs we visited on Friday night was Gilhooleys, which seemed respectable enough. Irish dancers pranced about on the floor and stamped their feet loudly and I realised that they actually do exactly the same routine in every Gilhooleys I have ever been to. It's the Gilhooleys routine. I will soon know it by heart.

The band started playing, and they were obviously quite good. The bass player was amusing because he kicked his feet randomly. The lead singer and guitarist was a talented chap. And then they played a song that I know quite well.

It was Scar by Missy Higgins. Shut up. Not a favourite song, but I do happen to know all of the words. The lead singer launched into the tune with enthusiasm.

"He left a card, a bar of soap and a ha-ir brush..."

I'm sorry now? Surely you mean a 'scrubbing brush'?

"..next to a note that said 'use these, down to your homes'..."

HOMES? Surely you mean 'bones', my son. I shot him an evil glare to see if he was aware of what he was doing.

"And before I do I have shiny skin and it felt breezy being seen like him..."

Before you KNEW, singer. BREEZY? You mean EASY. And what is this 'seen' BULLSHIT, when you obviously mean clean?

I dug my nails into the table. Gritted my teeth. My eyes bulged out of their sockets.

"Finish. Your. Drink." I said to John, and he got a very distinct Do Not Mess With Me vibe.

"I. Hate. This. Band. We. Are. Leaving." I said, unable to speak without large, dramatic pauses between words.

And so we did. Sing the wrong words, will you? PUNKS. Assume that everyone is so drunk that they won't notice? GRR.

Instances like this make me realise that I am very odd indeed.

Infinity! And Spacewalker.

Two of the tourist traps in Surfers, I was inexplicably drawn to them with their flashy lights and techno blaring over the speakers.

Infinity is basically a large maze mainly composed of mirrors, with lighting effects and strobe lights and lasers designed to cause seizures in the young and heart attacks in the old. You put glow-in-the-dark gloves and shoe-covers on and off you go. I actually quite enjoyed it, to be honest.

We bought a tandem ticket with its buddy tourist trap, Spacewalker. This one wasn't so great as the bulk of it was made up of 'informative' videos in which teenagers say things like, 'woah, that's cosmic!' and 'that's mentally indelible!' The staff keep yelling 'HELLO EARTHLINGS' at you, too, and it was getting so annoying that I was about to kick some alien arse.

But hey now, you've got to trust the reputation of a company with a guestbook like this:

Click on it so you can get the detail, and please note that the four lines with red asterisks have obviously been written by the same person.

You've got to love it when the staff fill out the guestbook.

2006-07-29T18:28:00.000+10:00

Hello there.

I have returned from my rain-soaked trip away and will do a very boring 'and then we went to the beach'-type of write-up shortly. But I need to plough through the photos and see if there's anything worth posting first and foremost. And then I have to copy the photos, resize them, upload them and so on and so forth and GOSH, BEST BLOG CONTENT EVER.

And I don't actually have the link to John's blog, by the way. Should've mentioned that in my last post, come to think of it. Sorry 'bout that. But I swear that if he gives it to me, or if I track it down in a 'curiosity killed the cat' frenzy, then I'll give it you. Even if he has put pictures of me up there in which I might possibly look HIDEOUS, because he's crap at telling the difference between good photos and bulgy and zitty photos.

The chicken shnitzel, or the chocolate chip biscuits?

2006-07-26T19:48:00.000+10:00

Ready? Ok.

So, I found out a while ago that John has a blog. Because he can't help but COPY ME. He told me when we were drunk and then I said something along the lines of 'gosh, beer ish yummo' and fell asleep. I promptly forgot about it from there.

He brought it up a while later and my memory returned to me, slightly groggy and minus a few braincells.

Thing is, I gather that this blog is all about me. ME. Moi. GBE. Gee-Bee-ee. The odd girl with the crap hair and the boring job.

Which is weird, but hey, who am I to talk?

Right, so, turns out he has loads of readers, who comment about me, and give him their thoughts on me, my life, our relationship, etc. How I call him 'gitface' when he annoys me and the way I'm always yelling 'SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE, YOU KNOB!' at Reg. How I belch loudly after meals/beer and how I always pick Old English cheese at Subway, and then nudge him, giggling and saying 'John, look, it's you in cheese form'.

I can only imagine.

The thing is, when we go away tomorrow (oh, by the way, going away tomorrow, won't be back for a few days, etc.), there very well may be a meeting arranged. With one of his readers.

One of his readers!

FREAK OUT!

It will involve meeting a person (for I am invited, you see) who knows me. Knows me. You know. Sort of. Knows stuff about me. Which is, well, weird. Not weird, but weird. Here's some more randomly italicised words.

And I don't know what to do. Will I live up to expectation? Will I belch enough, make enough random comments, and frequently abuse objects/people with juvenile insults, like 'poobreath', 'knobjockey' and 'crapface'?

It is going to be easier than meeting somebody who reads this, of course, because then you would discover that I'm actually very quiet, and keep my sense of humour to myself, mainly, and can't physically bring myself to burp in front of people I've known for less than five years.

Golly gosh. What do I do?

2006-07-24T19:30:00.000+10:00

Today, there was a meeting.

An unexpected meeting. It is apparently a meeting that everyone in the company has to go through at this time of year, though, being completely oblivious to anything relating to my employment besides 'why is my pay one day late, punks?' I was not aware it was coming.

There was some brief chat about targets and strengths and weaknesses and some mention of 'low-hanging fruit' and 'pooling our resources.' She probably harangued me about my TPS reports and not wearing enough flare.

I had zoned out at that point.

She then asked me where I want to go in the company. What my plans were. Whether I had any Long-Term Goals. And then I opened my mouth.

"Well, Supervisor, working in insurance isn't exactly my dream job."

Oooh, good start, me.

"I think that my, uh, strengths lie in other areas. That is, I don't actually like customer service. Um. What I mean to say, is, um, I'd rather not actually speak to, you know, people."

WELL DONE ME.

"Ok," she replied, somewhat hesitantly. "Uh, well there's areas within the company with more of an admin focus, if that's what you mean?"

"Oh, yes," I replied, not wanting to seem an utter twat. "An admin focus." I nodded furiously. "That's what I mean."

"Well I think that you have a great rapport with the customers, you know. You shouldn't underestimate yourself."

"Thanks. Um." I pause. "Yeah, no, I don't really want to talk to them."

"Ok." She sighs, audibly. "Let's run over..."

"HEY!" I cut her off, suddenly, filled with enthusiasm spawned by the thought that she might actually give a shit. "I'm thinking about travelling for even longer when I go away next year, and then QUITTING!"

Oh. My. God. If anyone is skilled in the art of wiring mouths closed, then Hook Me Up.

"Ok, well keep me posted on that." She starts tidying her books and papers in a 'Yes, I am most definitely leaving' manner.

"Um, thanks for the meeting."

"No problem."

Is it any wonder that I can only find monkey's work?

2006-07-23T16:37:00.000+10:00

Last night.

Perhaps the most intelligent conversation in which I have partaken in quite a while:

Drunken bricklayer: Were you born in Australia?

Which I find to be quite a strange question, actually. Do most people assume that other people were not born in Australia? But then again, I was there with John, who is so English I should really refer to him as Mr. Cup o' tea 'n' Toad in the 'Ole.

Me: No, actually. I was born in Wales.
Him: OH. Haw haw. Did you see any WHALES in WALES? HAW HAW HAW.
Me: [rolling my eyes] No, surprisingly not. But I did see WHALES in New South WALES.
Him: Oh, so there's no WHALES in WALES but there is in New South WALES? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I thought he was going to fall over, it was so damn funny.

Today.

John and I were waiting for a bus after a completely unsuccessful expedition in the city, during which time I gave up on the idea of ever finding a dress that I like and decided that I will wear Doc Martens and jeans and will just avoid nice restaurants and go to kebab shops instead. To our left was perhaps the largest puddle of spew that mankind has ever seen.

The bus stop is outside a pub, you see.

This puddle was an absolute Barry Crocker. During the ten minutes we spent waiting for the bus, I managed to deduce that the spewer had eaten Chinese for dinner - containing hokkien noodles and beef - and that it had been consumed no less than ten minutes before it all came back up.

A boy started heading towards us. Thirteen or fourteen, I'd say, with headphones plugging his ears and a soccer ball. That is, he was kicking the soccer ball, rather than using it to plug his ears. He was nudging it along the ground and kicking it up in the air while his younger brother and father trailed along behind.

He nudged it closer. Then a bit closer.

Then it rolled straight through the spew.

The look on his face was absolutely priceless. I covered my mouth with one hand and clutched my side with the other. John almost fell over in a coughing fit. I damn near wet my pants as he gingerly picked the ball up and started scraping it on the wall of the pub, desperately trying to remove any traces of Beef Surprise.

His younger brother yelled 'EWWW!' loudly, to add to his embarrassment. His father tutted and shook his head. I almost fell off my seat.

Sometimes I wonder if I have the mentality of a twelve-year old.

2006-07-21T19:54:00.000+10:00

The usual bollocks.

If you are in Brisbane, can you please go to the Dymocks at the bottom of the mall and buy Nabokov's Lolita, because it is only $9.95. BARGAIN. A Confederacy of Dunces is also the same price, if that's your bag. If you go around lunchtime and see a quiet girl dressed worky and spending money on books when she really shouldn't be, then hi there. How's it going.
Brilliant Brisbane Babes Blogging, OOH!
The mini-break has been planned. After weighing up the options, we decided on good ol' Surfers Paradise, because John still falls under the 'tourist' category and he hasn't done many of the Queensland bits yet. We booked one of those mystery deals where the hotel refuses to reveal its name until the very end because it's Oh So Cheap, and then discovered we had booked the bloody Marriott for a third of the normal price. Which is great, but I cannot help but envisage myself walking into the posh foyer in pluggers, carrying a backpack, after using public transport and smelling like my own sweat as well as that of other people, and the looks of disdain I can expect. If you are in the Courtyard Marriott in Surfers Paradise between 27 - 29 July and you see a red-faced hippie carrying a backpack and being followed by a weird Englishman, then hi there. How's it going.
I am sick. Once again. Bad time of year, or something. And I have no sick leave, so I am basically taking unpaid leave. Which means I am highly poor right now.
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for meeeeee.

Ok. So maybe the mouse has left a gaping (yet well-rested) void in my life. I must re-learn the art of blogging about nothing. Teach me, sensei.

2006-07-18T17:50:00.000+10:00

It had been the worst night yet.

The scratching had started at 11:30pm and continued until the early hours of the morn. I dragged myself out of bed several times, and discovered that pounding on the floor made the little bastard shut the hell up for a few minutes, but resistance was, indeed, futile.

I stomped around the house after my alarm went off. "We have GOT to do something about that mouse," I declared. "Let's redouble our efforts, call in the troops, buy and bait Every Fricking Trap that Coles has on offer."

I picked up my work bag.

"I mean, seriously. I'VE HAD ENOUGH."

I pulled out my empty lunch container from the day prior. I looked down at my hand.

THE MOUSE! THE FRICKING SON OF A WHORE ARSING MOUSE!

ON. MY. HAND.

I am not shitting you. Keep in mind that John has never actually seen the mouse at all, whereas I have had it leap out of a washing machine at me, fly up and smack me in the face, and then, the icing on the cake, pulled its little furry body out of my work bag.

I dropped it on the floor. Shrieked. Yelled, "I DON'T BELIEVE IT," at a reasonable volume. Watched him scurry under the bed.

And the search began.

I continued getting ready for work and John pulled out every bag from under the bed, of which there were many, seeing as I use it as my main storage space. He pulled out a roll of Christmas paper and peered through the middle, not entirely unlike a sailor.

"Ah... hah," he said.

We did what any normal people would do. We folded down the ends of the roll and sticky-taped them shut while we further considered our options.

Me: What should we do?
John: I don't know. What do you think we should do?
Me: I don't know. What do you think we should do?
John: I don't know.
Me: Me either.

I went to work.

I called John at lunchtime and he informed me that we no longer have a mouse problem. Which sounds quite sad, really. You're imagining poor mousey being fed his last meal, being asked whether he had any last requests, and being given John's passport for one last wee, aren't you?

It would be nice to say that we released him in a field full of wild flowers and peanut butter and watched him frolic with the other mice, but truth be told, I'm fairly certain that the little son of a bitch is in Mouse Heaven.

RIP, Mousey.

(Or rather, Try And Rest In Peace While Somebody Makes Scratching Noises Next To Your Head For All Of Eternity, Mousey. Yeah.)

2006-07-16T10:09:00.000+10:00

Some old-fashioned bullet pointage, to show that my entire life doesn't revolve around That Little Furry Son of a Bitch.

Quite amusingly for all involved, I somehow bluffed my way into the Top Six Salespeople in a recent competition at work, and was put to the test against the other five for Two Solid Hours of sales. I very loudly said, 'Two hours of sales! Somebody slit my wrists,' to no avail. I came joint-last with two others, but received half a day off as a reward for getting there in the first place. What a load of bollocks.
But, half a day off! As I am working this Saturday and receiving the following Friday as an RDO, it makes sense to throw the half-day in for good measure and have a FABULOUS holiday. Alas, I am mighty poor, so my options are quite limited. I am thinking of flying off to another part of Australia, but am not entirely sure where. (I was going to go for the Alice Springs experience, but this has since been ruled out, because the flights are so pricey I would need to sell my organs and whore my shell of a body to pay for them.)
I am thinking about taking unpaid leave when I go to South America next year, extending the trip to include Brazil, and coming home, QUITTING, and getting a job with a travel agent. Excuse me while I completely alter the course of my life YET AGAIN. I am a big twat.
My mobile phone was being a right arse and didn't deliver any of my messages until Friday evening, when I discovered four voicemail messages. Three of them were from the real estate organising some repair work, and the third was eight minutes of a little girl CRYING. She wailed 'mummy' a few times, too. To say I was freaked out would be quite an understatement.

And now, to move right along to the subject occupying the most mind space:

Mousey McTwatFace is yet to die. The little shit is outsmarting us at every turn, and I discovered the night after the Indian Drums incident that the intolerable scratchyscratch noises occurring every night will apparently continue, despite removing mousey's stenchy nest.

I think he is getting under the floorboards. Or inside the walls. I am truly going bananas. I get up every night, wearing naught, and stamp on the floor loudly. Then I crouch down on the floor and push my ear to the floorboards. Scratchscratchscratch. I punch the floor, and then curl up in the foetal position, or rock gently back and forth. Scratchscratchscratch.

Can't. Sleep.

Scratchscratchscratch.

I crawl back to bed, defeated, and lay there, unblinking, until it stops. A lifetime later.

This is no longer a laughing matter. My sanity is at sake.

Also, John is convinced that the mouse is mocking him as it somehow climbs up on top of the fridge every night, and takes a piss on his passport. No, I do not know why he has not removed his passport. But every morning, another puddle of mouse wee. I have told him that most countries will now refuse him entry because he smells like a mouse toilet, but still he does not listen. He has requested that we buy a non-fatal trap so that once we catch the mouse, he can torture it by, you know, poking it. And stuff.

I am almost ready to admit defeat. I will probably do a special episode of girl.blog.etc featuring the various mouse traps we have used in an attempt to catch the little shit, because, yes, we have tried THAT MANY different ways.

He'll die of old age before we catch him. Or we will first.

2006-07-11T19:03:00.000+10:00

I don't think mousey will be doing any more nighttime scratching.

No. He's not dead.

They put bright pink plastic bags in our letter box, which we were to fill with old clothes and useless crap and leave outside for charity. 'Ah HAH!' I thought. 'Now I can get rid of those old Indian drums!'

Yes, I have old Indian drums. And only one drumstick, for some fricking reason. I received them as a birthday gift when I was convinced that my life would only be complete if I had a pair of Indian drums.

I have played them, oh, about twice since then.

I reached behind the couch and pulled them out, and something flew out with them. It hit me in the chin and then fell on the floor.

THE MOUSE! THE EFFING MOUSE!

The little son of a bitch tried to take my head off. I squealed like a girl and John came running in.

Me: [breathlessly] M-m-m... mouse.
John: Hmm.
Me: MOUSE!
John: Is this your overactive imagination again?

Ooh. John is asking for it. Since the mouse traps are virtually useless for mouse-catching, I may leave them in the bedroom doorway ready for John's early morning toes.

Mousey had been building a nest inside my bloody Indian drums. They're pretty solid, so he hadn't done much except shit and piss all over them. That same solid surface, combined with the hollow interior, meant that the scratching was being echoed around the house Every Fricking Night and driving me utterly bananas. No more! Hurrah!

We thought we had DangerMouse cornered when he ran out from under the couch, but after removing every item from the lounge room, we discovered that he had disappeared, not entirely unlike David Copperfield.

And I cannot help but think that maybe the charity people will not want my drums anymore.

(I promise I will stop blogging about the mouse as soon as it stops LAUNCHING ITSELF AT MY HEAD.)

2006-07-10T19:41:00.000+10:00

Ratty McRatFace, Little Mousey Bastard, Scummy Rodent Shit - whatever your preference - has had a veritable FEAST at our expense. The little punk is eating us out of house and home. In the last day and a half, he has eaten:

Bacon rind.
Buttered toast.
The entire contents of the last slice of chicken and vegetable pie.
Cottage pie.
Apricot jam.
Large chunks of bread.
Vodka-soaked bread, in the hope that the little shit is a Cadbury and will get tipsy and DIE.

All off his favourite serving plate: a supposedly very sensitive trap designed to trigger as soon as mousey even looks in its direction.

John, who is getting all inventive, is going to find a piece of cork - so that he can't pull it off the trap, see (a skill at which he EXCELS) - and cover it in pate, to see if mousey's delicate tastes can tempt him to his Snappy death.

Yes, we have resolved to send him to Mouse Heaven. You cannot shit on my clothes and expect to get away with it. This rule applies not only to evil mouses, but to everyone. I think it is a reasonable rule. I do not use your clothes as toilet paper, and I expect the same courtesy in return. If we all did our business on eachother's clothes, where would we be?

And, I know, I know: the miraculous peanut butter. We are completely abnormal in that we do not have peanut butter in our house. Not a bit. I am a jammer; not a peanut butterer. And I am a tight cow who is going to refrain from buying an entire jar of peanut butter with which to tempt a mouse until the very last minute.

If Shitty McMouseShit does his scratching business tonight and keeps waking me up again, THE LAST MINUTE IS NIGH.

Our other options:

Poison. We bought some, in the form of tasty chocolate treats, and then read the packaging to discover that baiting must continue for TWO WEEKS. Two weeks! I cannot handle that little shite scratching and biting his way through the wall to build his festering nest of mouse babies and wee for two whole weeks. I am not a longsuffering Saint who loves mouses.
I wonder if there is a Patron Saint of Mice? There's Saints for everything. The Patron Saint of Gardening, the Patron Saint of Taking a Wee, the Patron Saint of Shaving your Armpits. EVERYTHING.
Taming mousey, and training him to do cool things like walk tightropes and make cups of tea. Hey, you never know.
Continue to feed him food until he is so fat he cannot fit under the washing machine anymore and resigns himself to a life of waddling, and taking frequent breaks.
Catch him, make him wear an eyepatch and refer to him as DangerMouse. DangerMouse! He's the greatest! He's fantastic!

Sigh.

This internet thing is completely distracting me from my trap-watching.

2006-07-08T16:18:00.000+10:00

So. I casually strolled over to the washing machine, opened the lid, and was about to push a towel in on top of the large blanket thing already sitting in there when a little brown blur caught my eye.

A mouse! A mouse in my house! More interestingly, a mouse IN MY WASHING MACHINE!

He hopped into the little crevice bit above the tub and sat there with his tail sticking out. Then he was gone. I pulled out the blankets and saw mouse shit GALORE. Well, a week's worth at least, because I'm guessing he wasn't in there when I did the washing last week, unless he is AquaMouse.

I briefly wondered How The Hell a mouse could get into my washing machine, with its closed lid and much-taller-than-a-mouse sides, but it was quickly replaced by How The Hell do I get the little bastard OUT of my washing machine.

I do no favours for mouses. None of that Stuart Little shit for me. A mouse is a mouse and they shit, breed, and chew through things they shouldn't. I had one as a pet when I was a kid and the little bastard smelt bad, and bit me. NO FAVOURS.

I need to do my washing by tomorrow. If I do my washing, mousey will drown, or be crushed by the wobbling tub thing, or be burnt by the hot motor thing. And then I will have Dead Mouse in my washing machine forever more, which will be gross indeed. And Dead Mouse on my clothes.

(Morbid? Yes. Sorry.)

If I do not do my washing, then I will smell like pre-worn clothes, or have to wear clothes that I don't normally wear. And doing the latter will get me by for a week or two, but what happens then? I only have so many clothes. Fewer than the average girl, too, due to being crap at the whole girl thing.

I don't know what to do. Any suggestions?

2006-07-05T20:06:00.000+10:00

Please note that the post following this one was actually typed up yesterday, but for some reason or a-fricking-nother, I could not post it. My internet connection has been entirely up the (Hilary) duff and I AM ANNOYED.

But, no matter. I have looked into obtaining a more stable connection but it turns out that I HATE TELSTRA. You have my landline and my mobile phone, yet you're completely unflexible and unwilling to negotiate. I should not expect so much from your staff members, because I know you only give them three minutes of on-the-fly training and allow them to shrug in response to queries more complex than "have I reached Telstra?"

(If you work for Telstra and you are competent and able, then my apologies, but I have most definitely never spoken to you.)

I was so incredibly bored yesterday (when I was at home with sickness and no internet), that I drew this smiley face in Paint, using only my feet.

Yes, I was that bored.

John: [examining the picture] Do you ever look at pictures and start to see other things? Like when you look at clouds?
Me: No.

A moment passes.

Me: A man bungee jumping off a bridge.

Another moment.

John: OH MY GOD. I see it.

What can you see?

2006-07-05T19:59:00.000+10:00

I have an internet connection like the proverbial whore's drawers so have been forced to travel to the nearest uber-trendy cafe, which has $5 coffees, customers wearing outfits entirely composed of black, experimental instrumental somethingelsemental background music, and, most importantly of all, free wireless access for all patrons. The reason I am able to do this on a weekday is due to the sudden wrenching gut pain I experienced a whole fifteen minutes before I was due to leave for work, making me have a big whinge and call in sick.

So hi! My shifts this week are the shittiest shifts in all the land, so I figured I'd make use of this time, even if my guts are still all twisty and wrenchy. I may need to excuse myself momentarily to groan and whine. I am not entirely sure what has caused it, but it may be the risotto that John made last night. At least that's what I'm telling John, so that he is racked with guilt and keeps bringing me cups of tea.

On the subject of Superman Returns: PHWOAARRRRRR! I sang along loudly with the theme music (which I had forgotten entirely until I heard it again) and sneered at the kids who were too young to remember Christopher Reeve in lycra. To show that Superman is now modern and post-millennium, somebody very nearly says 'shit' and it is implied that Superman and Lois have SHAGGED. Can you imagine shagging Superman? It raises all sorts of interesting questions and theories.

I was gaily walking home from work last Friday afternoon and slipped a little bit on some loose twigs and leaves. The whole thing felt a little bit odd and left me a little askew so I looked down at my shoe and realised that I didn't actually have a heel anymore. And because my heels were about three inches high, I walked all the way home like I had one leg shorter than the other. All I need to do now is grow a hunchback and take up residence in the nearest bell tower.

But! Having a snapped shoe (and not being inclined to take it to the cobbler bloke to be repaired, because they were dodgy shoes that had been on their last legs (HA!) for quite a while) meant that I could then justify going out to buy Brand-New shoes. So I went out and looked at all the shoes on sale due to the end of financial year and bought a pair that WEREN'T ON SALE and COST A LOT. But oh. Oh. They are hot.

(Then I spent money on clothes that WERE on sale, and two work shirts and a pair of work pants for under $100 is a DEALANDAHALF, I say. So, um, it's ok. And, um, I put it on my credit card anyway. So it's like I haven't really spent anything at all. Cough.)

Also! Not having to pay gym fees this month means I am something like $76 richer, as well. (Still no news on that, by the way. I picked up their terms and conditions leaflet on the weekend and everything the cow said is written in there, so I've got to examine my options. I'm thinking of a) murder, or b) faking my own death.)

And! On the subject of increasing wealth, I sold that bloody jersey on ebay, for all of $61. Somebody got the fricking deal of the century on that one. They e-mailed me to say they had deposited the money, and even though it hasn't shown up in my account yet I have express posted it to them, because, let's face it, if I don't get rid of the son of a bitch it's going to rot at the back of my wardrobe for the rest of my life.

I now LOVE ebay. Once I discovered the e-mail saying that I'd sold the jersey (which came as a shock in itself, because I had actually completely forgotten that I'd put it up for auction), I rolled about rapturous and in fits of ecstasy. Best. Feeling. Ever. I then ran around the house, trying to find other things to sell but John tells me that buyers apparently would not appreciate my old jeans, my pet cockatiel, or my copy of How I Live Now (in which a girl has sex with her cousin quite a lot, and I don't know about you, but that doesn't sit quite right with me. No, I don't care if it is WWIII. Do not let your blood relatives put their parts anywhere near your parts.).

Wa-hay. I'm a bit off track. I know I'm a bit behind the times with this new-found love of ebay, but I always have been a bit slow with the trends. I'm still trying to work out what a myspace is.

There was also: the acquisition of a new item of furniture, the purchase of a new bag of bird seed, and the replenishing of our supply of laundry detergent. DOES THE EXCITEMENT EVER STOP?!

No. No it doesn't.

2006-06-30T19:48:00.000+10:00

Well arsing arsity arse.

Allow me to mount my exceedingly high horse.

Fitness First. Or, as I have taken to calling it, Shitness First. Shitness First and Foremost. Fitness later.

The sons of bitches are charging $36.95 to my credit card every fortnight, and do you think I get anything for it? No. Diddly squat. The reasons for this are as follows:

1. My hours are all over the place, and I have entire weeks where I am unable to go due to late finishes. And I personally am not a fan of the 'allow me to take all of my gym gear to work, plus my work clothes, plus everything I need to get ready for work including everything necessary for a shower, and allow me take three million bags to carry it in and smack them into people on the bus, or almost die from walking to work whilst carrying them, negating the need for the gym visit' method of visiting the gym in the early morning.

I warned you how high this horse is.

2. An extraordinary number of my co-workers visit. Yes, this seems silly, but seeing them all day and THEN having to see them while I'm stomping on a treadmill, dripping with sweat with a face the colour of an extra-red beetroot, after work is gone and done with is just not my cup of tea. Yeah. I'm petty.

3. I am now walking to and from work Every Single Day, which is giving me shitloads more exercise than I would get from my pithy occasional gym visits, making the membership completely unnecessary and a waste of my hard-earned beer money.

4. I DON'T WANT TO GO.

So, seeing as I am trying to save for that whole Different Continent thing happening in seven months or so, I figured I'd cancel the membership. I made an enquiry or two and was told that there's a bit of paperwork to get through, and a $150 fee, but I can drop in and do it anytime. A $150 fee is nothing compared to another nine months of paying for that bastard fortnightly, so I was all 'sign me up, hippie' and dropped in as soon as I could.

They told me I had to make an appointment.

Oh. Ok. I made one.

I met Jasmine, who is a pretty girl who slowly revealed that she is actually the fruit of Satan's loins.

Jasmine: Ok, so work is causing a bit of trouble lately?
Me: Well, my hours have changed, so I can't make it anymore.
Jasmine: Oh, ok. Well, you have two options. You can transfer your membership to somebody else if you like, or you can put your membership on hold for up to four months.
Me: Um. Well I called and they said I could cancel it and just pay a fee.
Jasmine: Oh! Ok.

Jasmine slowly ponders this and her master, The Dark Lord, gives her instructions on what to say next.

Jasmine: I'm sorry. I don't know who you spoke to, but you need a medical certificate for that. Or proof that you've moved at least thirty kilometres away from a Shitness First.
Me: I'm sorry? I was told different by two separate employees of your company.
Jasmine: Oh. It's incorrect.

She refuses to make eye contact with me. Little smarmy bitch. I notice that she's carefully picked a seating area surrounded by other Official Gym People so that I'm less likely to grab her pretty ponytail and slam her head into the table.

Jasmine: Otherwise you can pay out the rest of the membership. It comes to... [pushes buttons on a calculator] $665.10.

She smiles. I make a hmm noise and pick up a pen on the table, twirl it between my fingers and ponder the feasibility of stabbing it into her eye. She waits.

Me: Look. Jasmine, is it? Ok. I WILL NOT be using this membership. I will be paying money for absolutely nothing if you do not cancel it, which is something I don't appreciate very much. I want to cancel it.

Which would have been loads more impressive if I had said it all stern and grown-uppish, but having the voice of a 14-year old and a hair-twirling habit probably detracted from my toughness a bit.

She says nothing in response. Just sort of shrugs and looks away. Are you telling me that I CANNOT leave, you pack of arses? HOW ABOUT I CANCEL MY CREDIT CARD, YOU HO. Yeah, now I'm getting gangsta. I say all of this in my head, while I twirl my hair and giggle.

Me: Ok. Well I'll put it on hold for a month while I see what I can do. If that's ok?

IF THAT'S OK?! Somebody punch me.

Jasmine: Oh, sure. Let's go up to the front desk and arrange this. So, have you got anything planned for the weekend?
Me: NO.

I don't do small talk. Not even at the best of times, and certainly not when I'm seething with fury at a company who made me wait in the city for two hours after my shift finished to tell me something they could've said over the phone, gave me contradictory information, and don't list their terms and conditions online so I can't go through them with a fine-tooth comb and get all legal on their arses.

All the way home, I muttered, "I'll get them. Yeah, I'll get them. I'LL GET THEM."

Ever been in this situation before?

Yeah. Google knows what I'm on about.

2006-06-29T18:38:00.000+10:00

John: Yeah, I done it.
Me: You did it.
John: Yeah.
Me: No, you did it.
John: Um.
Me: Did. Did not done.
John: Sorry?
Me: 'I done it' isn't the correct way of saying it. I did it.
John: No. I don't think so.
Me: [incredulous] You're the one who's supposed to be bloody English. You named the language after your country. Or the country after your language. Or. Um.
John: I'm good at English.
Me: I'm not talking to you anymore.
John: I DONE IT!!!

Ok. Vote time*.

(*Though keep in mind that this is my blog, and should always show me to be in the right and terribly, terribly clever, and admitting that I am wrong would lead to utter humiliation and I CAN BAN YOU, you know.)

I done it.

I did it.

The words don't make sense any more.

2006-06-28T16:34:00.000+10:00

AHOY!

Oh dear. The internet that I mercilessly steal was stolen back from me for several days, and I found myself internetless, and void of bloggy inter(net)action, and forced to speak to real-life human beings in real-life situations with a real-life voice.

Yes, that's right. Hell. Living hell.

As a consequence, I am typing at three million words per minute, in case it drops again, so please forgive the tpyos. (Ha! What a cracking sense of humour.)

So, right, to get right down to business, here is the latest on me:

Um.

Shit.

Oh! I watched The Chronicles of Narnia last night, and is it just me, or does Lucy form some sort of child bride relationship with Tumnus the faun?

Also. Work shits me to tears, and in the last week three of my original training group have announced that they're leaving (or have already left quite unexpectedly) and they're telling me all about their fabulous new jobs, which are easier, and pay so much more, and don't require that you sell anything (and, let's face it, my sales skills are equivalent to those possessed by the Aussie Home Loans guy), and it's stirring up feelings. Should I be searching for the perfect job, too? Or am I such a big sissy that I'll stay in the position I'm in forever and ever until I am old and wrinkly and saggy and crusty? Oh. Oh my.

Went to the pub last Saturday. Was drunk. Etc.

I'm still trying to gather my thoughts after my sudden delirium at discovering I had an internet connection, so I'll now go to my thinking corner, have a sit down and a cup of tea (Yeah. I drink tea now.), and get back to you shortly. What's the best number to reach you on? Can I help you with anything else today?

Shit. Work has completely brainwashed me.

2006-06-23T10:27:00.000+10:00

Well Holy Arsing Shit.

Does anyone know where I can buy an edible hat?

2006-06-21T12:11:00.000+10:00

Man, this World Cup thing is tough. The first week was fine. Picking the winners was a matter of 'they're crap, they're good'. And then a couple of matches pass, and suddenly we're examining their every move, assessing who has more to play for, 'he's been yellow carded, so they'll probably sit him out', looking at the hunger in their eyes, going for the upsets, hoping that they'll make us rather than break us.

I thought it was just about blokes kicking a ball. This shit is driving me nuts. When that toss of the coin doesn't work out, my blood pressure soars and my heart audibly snaps. I apologised to my Tipping Buddy for a bad call, and he said 'oh, it's ok', with a tear in his eye and a face filled with sorrow.

I knew that being a lazy shit wasn't the only reason I was never hugely into sports. I was saving myself heartbreak by sitting on my arse and reading. HEARTBREAK.

Moving along (HEARTBREAK, PEOPLE), John has gone to fetch Indian spices and a wok and I am off sick with a case of SnotNose-itis, so Hi Blog! Missed you, old buddy old pal. Here, have some bullet points, baby. Just the way you like it.

John bought a bookcase! I actually unpacked two boxes, which had been packed since all of that backpacking bollocks in early 2005. I filled these three shelves immediately, and there's another shelf full in the Unread Books pile, too.

I have never actually had a proper bookcase before. This is why I am very excited.
The anniversary of the day of my birth led us up Mount Tamborine, which was chocka-block with arty farty home-made crafty foody winey shops. I stuffed my face and drank wine, and it was terribly terribly fun. John gave me a book voucher! And boy, do I love books. Hey, did I mention my bookcase? So yeah, there was a book voucher, andalsodiamondearrings and BOY, do I love books. Then we got home and started discussing what we would do with the evening, before I almost spewed and then FELL ASLEEP FOR 14 HOURS. Uh huh. I know how to make birthdays FUN.
The day after that fiasco, I was feeling fine and dandy and John and I visited Mumsy and had lunch at a little country pub, full of tourists with prestige cars whose ideal weekend involves driving a prestige car to a country pub. John met my mum, and my mum said, "He creates a pleasant atmosphere," which I think means she likes him. John told me I look like my mother, which is OLD NEWS. Everyone thinks I look like my mother. Even people who haven't met my mother.
I dropped into a co-worker's place on the weekend to fix his computer, which actually involved copying three files into a directory (taking a total of four minutes - the majority of which was spent waiting for the computer to boot up), and he gave me a box of chocolates for it. And I am thinking HEY NOW, this is a lucrative fricking industry. Why do I not work in Computer Fixing? I could be stuffing my face with Cadbury Roses Day. And. Night.
The weekend was Hugely, Massively busy. And I realised I'm pretty used to the weekends where I drink beer and live like a hermit and don't do much at all. But, it's ok, because I'm off work now and am having a mid-week weekend. Except I can't actually drink any beer because I'm ill and it would knock me out, and I keep having to blow my nose and sneeze and cough and OH WAIT, this is a right load of arse.

(But still better than work.)
Today I am going to read, eat, blog, and read. In that order.
This is a box of sweet biscuit things with soft, chewy, sweet stuff in the middle. John brought them from Kuala Lumpur, just so the following could take place:

"Oh no, the kok-kok fell out!"

"Mm, I fancy some kok-kok."

"This kok-kok tastes great."

Small minds.

2006-06-19T20:04:00.000+10:00

I want to sit down and write a proper post on here, about all of the birthday bollocks and the insane busy-ness (business?) and the evening of sleep and illness, but I'm completely distracted by catching up with everyone elses blogs right now, and also cake, and beer. And ironing. And the second half of Desperately Seeking Susan, which I've been meaning to watch for five days. Numerous things, really.

But I looked at my own blog and saw that I hadn't posted since Thursday and went Woah. I should post.

So. Um. Hello.

I have to go now.

(Yeah. It was worth it.)

2006-06-15T20:21:00.000+10:00

I have a humungous 'hello, I've just hit puberty' zit on my face, which I suspect is something to do with John inflicting masses of British chocolate on me. Also, I won a State of Origin jersey. It is worth something like $150. I didn't get to pick a size, they just handed me a women's size 14. It is moroon. Moroon is the colour of the Queensland team, apparently.

If you would like to buy it, let me know. Because otherwise it hits e-bay. As soon as I can be arsed.

(Don't ask me why I would enter a competition for a State of Origin jersey when I barely know what a State of Origin is. It was through work, and the entries were free.)

I was given a pen! One of those fancy ones with the metal tip bit. You know what I mean. A posh pen. I am ridiculously excited.

I now have three days off work for The Birthday, during which time I will cease being 22, and commence being 23. From all reports, I hear that 23 is ok. We'll see how it goes. I am hoping my wisdom tooth will magically piss off. Perhaps it could fall out. That would be good.

This post should really have bullet points.

Now that John is here, I can no longer pee with the bathroom door open.

Ok. That's all.

2006-06-12T19:16:00.000+10:00

Lessons learnt:

Running through a room packed full of England supporters and yelling "I'M FROM PARAGUAY!" does not a good joke make.
Drinking too much leads to waking up with a blister on your toe, a burnt nose, and a scratch on your eyelid.
The Lad is still, well and truly, an absolute twat when he drinks.
Typing out really long, rambling posts about how you got really pissed on the weekend and ended up stuck in a room packed with hundreds of men in England t-shirts, singing 'It's coming on, it's coming... FOOTBALL's coming on, it's coming on, it's coming on...' makes you sound like such a pisshead that you delete it and resort to bullet points.
(You don't have to tell me that I still come across like a pisshead. I know, I know.)
Wimbledon is truly one of the most appalling movies I have ever seen in my life. Kirsten Dunst is the spawn of Satan.

I've really got nothing, kids. I'm picking John up from the airport tomorrow morning. And by 'picking up' I mean I'm meeting him there, and then using public transport and taxis, because I am carless. Carless, not careless. I am quite careful. With everything in general.

Rightio. I'll be leaving now.

2006-06-09T19:56:00.000+10:00

My phone makes a plopping noise. This means that I have received a message.

change your god damn address with the electrol [sic] commission. sick of getting shit from them for you.

You know, it's funny the way these things work. It was an amicable parting, and full of tears and heartache. He said he'd always love me and be there for me, no matter what. We'd discussed splitting up, and changed our minds a hundred times, but in the end we knew it was time.

Well, I knew it was time.

It happened gradually. He called me frequently, and told me he loved me. He called me less frequently, and told me he missed me. For the last few months of my overseas trip, he sent me the occasional e-mail, telling me how great he was going.

He picked me up from the airport, took me home and asked me if I was going to stay with him. Deliberately led me into the bedroom so I could see the pictures he had of me lined up on his desk. Wore his favourite shirt. Showed me his new couch. Told me how expensive it was.

When I told him I was staying elsewhere, I noticed the first signs. The Bitterness. The pained look on his face. The way he'd give me a friend's hug, hang on for a moment too long, and then roughly pull away.

Geez exBF, I'm sorry to be such an inconvenience.

The friendly phone calls I'd receive, in which he'd ask me how I was before quickly moving on to how great he was doing. His plans to move interstate, because he'd received not one, but two job offers, both paying over $100k. Namedropping his new girlfriend. She's moving in. Sleeping in our room. In our bed.

I didn't react. I said, 'Oh, that's great.' 'Oh, she always seemed nice.' 'Oh, I'm happy for you.' He started to hate me. Because I didn't want him. Because I wasn't jealous of him. Because I didn't regret leaving him. Because I didn't express any desire for him. Because he knew I'd been spending time with somebody else.

I hate the thought that the three years we spent together have ended this way. With catty text messages and gloating phone calls. I thought we'd done it differently to the rest of the world.

It hurts.

What hurts most of all is the burgeoning spite, and the sudden realisation that maybe I really did waste three whole years of my life.

2006-06-07T17:20:00.000+10:00

Hello there. I work, and sleep, and have no life. I play Pink on the guitar. Yes, you can punch me for that. I am teaching my bird Spanish, and he whistles the phrase instead of saying it, and this is about to lead to some serious Bird Slaughter. Mock me, will you, Reg? I'll show you, bird punk.

I wear grandpa vests to work in grandpa colours. Old Man Cup of Tea Brown is a favourite, as is When I Was A Youngun In The War Green. The married man at work invited me to dinner with his wife, and I was very weirded out, and also feeling guilty for suspecting him of wanting to put his thingy in my thingy, since he wants me to meet his wife and chat and eat.

I've been watching DVD's. This week it's been Secretary, Full Metal Jacket, Mulholland Drive and Disco Pigs, and I enjoyed Secretary way too much, which I secretly suspect has something to do with never having sex ever never ever. Maybe it is my secret fantasy to have a good-looking boss who spanks me. Maybe. (YES)

I accidentally crushed a loaf of bread on the walk home. And I was carrying a hundred things, and so annoyed by it that I wanted to throw everything on the floor and stamp on it all, and seeing that crushed loaf of bread meant that I actually could've done it anyway, and my burning desire for stampage would have been sated.

Tonight's soup is some sort of Malaysian Laksa, because I came to the conclusion that I have actually tried Every. Single. Soup in the soupermarket (ha). I wish I was at Split Enz tonight. The World Cup tips are in and I'm actually excited about watching it, even if my knowledge of the game only extends as far as "hey, you, kicking bloke! Go, um, kick the ball in that goal thing! Go on! Yeah." I bought a really cheap ironing board which turned out to be made of wood, and it makes my clothes smell piney. And a bit sappy.

...

Every now and then, a blogger reaches a point where she/he realises she/he has no one topic to rant and rave about, and that she/he is neglecting her/his blog because of it, and suddenly spews forth masses of absolute shit to fill the non-blogging void.

Welcome to my moment.

2006-06-04T19:22:00.000+10:00

Dear Brain,

I don't ask much of you. There's little use for you in the job I do, I only make you read books containing big words for a tiny part of the day, and I let you sit there, happy and numbed by beer, on a pretty regular basis. To my subconscious, or the bit that makes my dreams, all I ask is:

Please stop giving me sex dreams about my co-workers.

Sex dreams are fab. Really they are. But I don't want to walk up to people at work, all familiar and touchy-like, turning bright red and thinking, 'Gosh, how awkward - I wonder what made me shag him, knowing that I have to see him every day at work? This is really embarrassing. OH WAIT. DREAM.'

Brain, if you would like to give me sex dreams, then perhaps they could feature one (or all of) the following people:

Colin Firth
Keanu Reeves
Natalie Portman

If you could grant me this, then I solemnly swear to keep you hangover-free for a period of two weeks. Starting yesterday. But no longer, because then it will be my birthday and I'm going to kill off a heap of your cells. Oh, shit, sorry. Forget I said that. I love you, brain.

Faithfully yours,

girl.blog.etc

2006-06-02T18:05:00.001+10:00

Miscellany:

It's dry RETCH. Pronounced RETCH. Is there an A in there? Or an extra E? It is not pronounced reetch. Unless you are a New Zealander. And I don't mean that to be offensive. It's just that New Zealand e's have more of an ee sound. Sometimes. Usually. Sorry. Bollocks.
Hey! If you're going to push past the whole group of people at the pedestrian crossing so you can stand at the very front, DON'T WALK AT TORTOISE SPEED. Punk. You push to the front, and now I have to push past you, and step into oncoming traffic, when I'd actually like to push YOU into oncoming traffic. Punk, did I mention punk? Punk.
It is Friday, and I am at home, and I about to start picking through the guitar tabs given to me by that guy at work, but I HAVE NO BEER. And it's Friday, and I'm playing guitar, and I like to add beer to this mix. So if you have beer, and you live in Brisbane, please share the beery love. I almost wish I had that bottle of dodgy spiced rum that John left here.
John! He is coming to visit me for my birthday, he says. Which means, you know, I won't be acting like I'm a loony hag who talks to my bird all the time. Quite so much.
You're dry reaching? What are you reaching for? And how are you doing it 'dry'? If I spray you with water will you wet reach for this mysterious object? GAH DON'T TALK TO ME.
I bought lip balm. And, um, soup. I am going to have one of these for dinner tonight. Guess which, and win a prize!

Is anyone else sitting on their arse on a Friday night?