How did I get here?

Ways to leave a mark

2012-01-05T20:37:00.003+11:00

Ok, so I know people read this blog because I have the stats (and because my darling friends tell me so) but not many people leave me comments and when they do it's often something about viagra for sale or something they've paraphrased from the book of revelations. There are lots of crazies out there.

Once in a while, someone will say something smart about anime or comment on my 'JTT is gay?!' post but all in all as far as discussion goes, it's really quiet in here.

Even though I'm fanatical about SEO at work, I have absolutely none of that on this blog at all. There are no tags, no meta-keywords, no blog circles, and so when people come in from Turkey and Iceland, I often wonder what they typed to get here. (Haha, How did I get here right?)

I logged on today to see that Joel had left me a comment on a post I had written on Photoshop all the way back in 2008. Apparently if you type in Google 'photoshop draw a fucking rectangle', my blog comes up as first. Needless to say, that totally made my day.

That's the kind of internet footprint I want to leave! (Adobe still does frustrate me from time to time)

An unforgettable start to the new year

2012-01-02T10:00:00.008+11:00

This was at eleven, we are really old.

As the clock struck twelve (AEST of course) while everyone started to gather on the balcony, I followed ND into the bathroom and at 12:01, I stood there aghast as he hurled exorcist-style all over the Happy Wrestler's bathroom.

I have never seen so much intestinal juice in my entire life. It covered the walls, the floors and the sink was full of it.

Normally (normally!) I'm the one holding people's hair as they throw up but even I couldn't step into the swamp of vomit. If you say your love is unconditional, I defy you to try walking through the contents of their stomach. No- wait, I mean on. On the contents of their stomach.

And then he went to collapse on the couch, exhausted and not very kissable (unless of course, regurgitated acid is your kind of thing). I think he might have tracked it on the carpet.

Leaving me leaning in the doorway of one filthy bathroom at 12:06. And who was going to clean it? This is when my Asian martyr complex officially kicked in (do I have one? yes I do.): oh fuck, it's going to have to be me.

And so there I am on my hands and knees mopping up vomit for the next hour mumbling to myself:

There are cleaners out there who will be doing much worse tomorrow morning.
There are cleaners out there who will be doing much worse tomorrow morning.
Of course, they are doing it for money and I am not.
There are cleaners out there who will be doing much worse tomorrow morning.

This is while all my friends do drive-by inspections of the bomb site. Complete with witty and vibrant commentary of 'ew!' and 'Oh my God, I will never get to pee.' Someone tried to get a camera shot in (in which I say, over my dead and disintegrating body.)

A little while later, ND's woken up and is feeling guilty so he decides to help. By pouring water all over the hallway. I look down at the matted carpet, look back up at him, look down on the carpet and I think I am turning a nice puce colour- the colour of a vodka cranberry. He hightails it back to the lounge room before I can kick him like a puppy. And then promptly passes out again.

By 1:15, everything is clean except the sink, which had clogged itself. And at this point, I am this close to bursting into tears at the thought of having to dump my hand in there and scoop stuff out. My hands were made for typing! and manicures! and being pampered! And no chopstick/fork/sparkler/kitchen utensil was making a dent. So in the end, I had to bail the water out with a plastic cup. Which is what people do when their boat is sinking normally I guess.

Eventually it's all done and I go and collapse on the couch, smelling like peaches and cream (you believe me right??). We are both hella exhausted (imagine how our goodbyes went- they were sort of muted) so I take him home, I'm holding bags of something and he's holding a big bowl of pasta.

I swing open the door and I think he's holding the door behind me. He is not. So the door flies back and hits him (in the face) and sends the bowl of pasta flying everywhere.

There's pasta and food all over the floor.

I start to peal in hysterical laughter and then begin to rock backwards and forwards like a mental person. Happy 2012!

--

(Of course, then the next day we locked ourselves out with no keys and no mobile phones. It's an extremely auspicious start if I must say so myself.)

Short Looking Back

2011-12-28T18:42:00.014+11:00

"When she was a girl, she expected the world."
-Paradise, Coldplay.

In comparison to the past few years, 2011 was the calm after the storm. It was the year I learnt to stop panicking (and stop blogging apparently).

What me panic for right?

It's like this- there's always an alternative. There's always another way. If you lose your job, get a new one. If your boyfriend dumps you, take a sabbatical. If your car doesn't work then take a bus and quit quit feeling sorry for yourself because you expend so much time worrying about things that don't even matter in a few months.

So what did I gain this year?
Lines under my eyes that won't go away. Sigh.
Perspective.
A new appreciation for the comforts of home ( I think I must've locked myself out about four times this year including today).
An iPad. A kindle. I was debating between them at the beginning of the year and then somehow I ended up with both? It's like the magic fairy in the sky is trying to turn me away from paper.
An allergy to nightclubs. I can't do them anymore.
New friends. Old friends. Of which I am much grateful to have always. Also lucky for them, they are no longer graced with drunken midnight phone calls.

and last but not least, a big goofy goofball.

They say that 28 is statistically the best year of people's lives. I didn't bungee jump off a cliff or perform any death defying acts (that I can think of) but you know what? I'm really happy with it. You really can't ask for more than that.

Drive Through Breakfast

2011-11-17T20:08:00.003+11:00

Some prep history:
I drive past ND's house everyday on the way to work and if he's at home, we'll wave at each other. It's goofy I know. (Sometimes I wonder if we were to split up, if I would have to drive an alternative route to work, the problem is that there is no alternative route that doesn't take five hours. Anyway.)

And more prep history: I always eat two sandwiches in the car on the way to work.

So this morning, for some fuzzy reason- I left my sandwiches on the counter and didn't remember that I was missing something until ten minutes later. Fk! fk! And thus I message him with an appropriate morning epistle of 'I left my breakfast at home! fk! fk!' (I'm a morning person, can you tell?)

I didn't actually think he'd be awake and so I was surprised when he replied 'Stop by. I have breakfast on the go here.'

Ten minutes later, with tactical CIA co-ordination and the help of a bucketload of traffic, he managed to open my cardoor, propel a lunchbox of poached egg and toast into the passenger seat, wave and dash off Flash-style.

And to make my heart go a little bit smushy- it was raining as well.

When I got to work (a million hours later) I opened up the box to see this.

M: There's a bite missing from my toast!
N: Yes cos it WAS my breakfast!

Wherein I rant about Honkie matrons

2011-11-16T21:42:00.003+11:00

Just a slight disclaimer beforehand, I'm not disparaging all honkie ladies, just that certain type- those 40plus matrons that carry their LVs like they're hotshit even though their wealth comes from marrying a rich husband and not from any actual any hard work ethic. Yeah, you know which ones I'm talking about- don't pretend like you don't!

So I'm with my cousin Matty for the soft opening of my uncle's cafe and this lady (we'll call her Queen Money for fun) swans in and my uncle comes up to greet her. This is how the conversation actually went and how I tried to keep my eyes from rolling out of my head with sheer force of will

U: Oh hello! Thank you for coming! I appreciate it so much
QM: Oh no problem, I always do what I say.
U: So this must be your lovely daughter.
QM: Yes, I just had to bring her. She has a great taste for eating. She eats wherever she travels, so in Japan, in Europe, in America. We're always looking for fine dining all over the world. Ha! ha! ha!

At this my face contorted into some sort of spasm where it just folded in half. Matty just looks at me and says: I concur.

So we're at different tables and I ignore their conversation but bits of it float towards me like twenty year old air freshener and I hear bitching about shopping. Life is hard.

Nighttime falls and my uncle comes outside to play with the light switches and he adjusts it to give it this amazing effect of being bright yet romantic. He calls over to me and asks," how is it?"
And I respond "Super! It looks great!"

He calls over to her table and asks what she thinks as well.

QM: Well it's fine for Asians, but a bit bright for caucasians because they like it dimmer for their fine dining. But we fine dine so much that we're used to their lighting.

I think I almost spat my orange juice.

Here in a 'normal' situation, an ordinary person would say either a) it's too bright! b) it's a bit dim or c)it's great, thank you. But she is so determined to flaunt her wealth and make her status known to everyone, that a base question that can't be answered without a graceless aside.

Let's play an example game of how I see conversation with her going
M: Oh it's sunny outside
QM: It is isn't it! I must take my Hermes umbrella out to protect my SKII protected skin.

M: How do you find these carrots?
QM: They are nice, but they are nothing like the ones I had last week. They were 700 a carrot and boiled by Belgian monks. Ha! Ha! ha!

Seriously, I hate people like that. It just wouldn't hurt them to show a little grace and humility (and for some reason in Hong Kong, these types of matrons multiply like seagulls on a damn chip. I can't explain it, I have no idea where they come from. They're a mutant phenomenon.)

Divorce as dinner conversation

2011-11-14T20:12:00.005+11:00

So the six of us were sitting around the dinner table when for some reason or another it occurred to us that we all had divorced parents. I think we were all a bit gobsmacked by those odds and then we mentioned the mutual friends who were running late and they turned out to be children of divorce as well. Eight out of eight.

When I was a child, no-one had divorced parents. Divorced parents were an anomaly. I think about how ashamed my Dad and Stepmum were of being seen as a blended family and how I was ever the only child on the airplane flying interstate between parents.

Now everyone has a blended family and flights are filled with children who got the short end of the stick in custody battles.

Some of us told stories about the traumatic things their parents had done to their families before and during the divorce. Some of us stayed quiet not wanting to share things which were too personal even for close friends.

I think though that we'll all in our way, be more self aware when we choose our partners to not make the mistakes of our parents.

Coconat spoke up at some point to reassure us ".. it doesn't matter, because despite everything we all turned out okay."

No-one agreed with her though and the table went silent.

In a canoe

2011-11-14T19:33:00.003+11:00

Ehm. As much as I love my blackberry and it takes a good photo, I really miss my pink point and shoot. I'm doing so many amazing things lately and I'm only documenting it with my swiss cheese brain (which is overtaken with such useless factoids as did you know the Easter Island statues used to wear hats?) so it'll only be a matter of time before I completely forget that I did anything at all.

So this weekend I went to see Strassman (who doesn't love a bear puppet right?) and
I went kayaking. Yeah me, kayaking. Did you fall down in a dead faint yet? I thought I really haven't pushed the limits of my comfort zone this year so I thought I might go and do something that I wouldn't normally do.

I'd build some emotional growth and have an adventure at the same time. See, and this is where the photos would have come in handy to prove that I did it. Whoops.

In any case, I did it and we didn't run into any speeding boats, were not attacked by any bullsharks (I probably wouldn't have put my hands so flippantly in the water if there were any around) and didn't overturn the canoe at any point (ND did fall in when he was getting out, but that isn't counted I think) but most of all we had fun.

See? I can have outdoorsy and healthy fun! Who woulda thunk.

Older?

2011-11-08T19:50:00.001+11:00

I always look sleepy in photos lately. They say that as you get older, your nose gets bigger. They never said that your eyes shrink to go along with it. (There's an easy squinty Asian joke in there somewhere but I'm bigger than that and I won't do it!)

Lessons in Love

2011-11-03T13:16:00.003+11:00

She: (after I had done her a favour) I love you!
Me: Haha.. no I love you.
She: Thank you!
Me: Did you say thank you? What does that mean. When someone says I love you- you say I love you too.
She: Oh, I didn't know that.
Me: .. What do you say when your husband says 'wo ai ni'??
She: He's never said it to me.... Stop making me face reality!

(Edited) Sigh

2011-11-01T20:05:00.003+11:00

I seriously want to talk about how I feel but I think I'm going to get in trouble for salacious gossiping. So, let's just say this: If your girlfriend has only kissed you once all year? She doesn't really like you all that much. Also, get yourself a new one that likes you.

Kinda saved a dog

2011-11-01T18:35:00.005+11:00

The above image is not mine- I pulled it off someone else's images. It's an approximation of what the dog looked like. Actually in all honesty they could probably be identical.**

Let's be frank, I am not a cat person and lucky for me (and unlucky for all the cats in the world because I am a super duper owner) ND doesn't love them either. So I live in a relatively cat-free world. I am without a doubt a dog person. Dogs love me and we generally get along because they don't try to claw out the backs of my thighs.

In a moment of frustration with my company a couple of weeks before, I exclaimed angrily to ND "Fuck this! fuckitall! I'm going to quit and become a dogwalker!"

Of course God heard me and went 'heeheehee.. she thinks she wants to be a dogwalker. I have a plan to make her stay in marketing forever!'

And ever since then I have been saving dogs all over my neighbourhood. That is, rather hilariously you'll find me chasing Ted from downstairs up hills or rounding up poodles back into their gates. Here she comes to save the day.

Today however, I thought I would spend a quiet afternoon in the park near mine.

You know the one. And I was on the phone with St Mary (because I am one of those annoying loud people) and there was no-one around except an old lady and her two dogs. A staffy and Bobby .. a rat terrier? Well, they were in line of my vision and then Bobby was not. Bobby fell straight into the water with a plop. If you can see the photo, it's kind of a deep drop down.

I was baffled. Dogs are dumb at the best of times, how the heck did that happen?

The lady then started calling Bobby and was trying to coax him to swim to safety. Of course, safety was about 100m to the left and Bobby was a small dog. She gave up and hopped down there to save him.

Lucky for her and Bobby- that it was low tide and she was standing on a little shelf. That little shelf is not usually there. She propped Bobby back onto land and by then I was like 'lady, do you need help??' She looked sprightly but she wasn't young. I was a little bit worried about how she thought she was going to climb back up.

That crazy dog was running around in circles and weaving everywhere and she said breathlessly 'Please get him! He's blind!'

And Bobby was weaving right back to the edge of the harbour so I dived for him before he reached and he got frightened and headed the other way, before turning back and almost weaving back into the damn ocean.

Have you ever tried to stop a miniscule (and wet) rat terrier from falling off a ledge? It's kinda hard. Everytime I almost had him by the collar 'here Bobby, here boy, good boy..' he'd duck and go careening too damn close for my liking. That dog had a massive death wish.

Finally (finally!) I had him tightened to a lead and he was frightened (He probably thought the dogcatcher was chasing him around. The staffy was just sitting there enjoying the show.) and I was puffed. I peered over the ledge- 'Are you okay?'
She made her way to dry land and she pulled herself up. I gotta give her props for that.

She thanked me profusely and I made my way back to my handbag/mobile phone/ipad which were rather miraculously still there (Thank jeebus for white middle class suburbs where they couldn't be bothered to steal these kinds of things because they already have them in spades)

At any rate, the lesson for today kiddos, is don't take your blind dog off leash near water. Well you can, if your dog is massive like a saint bernard and doesn't have any chance of falling in. Don't do it if the dog is smaller than your backpack.

--

Only way down

2011-10-31T20:22:00.004+11:00

It's just that I don't feel like writing and my point and shoots are all broken so basically I feel like I have nothing to say.

And when I come in here and realise that I've written half of what I did last year, I feel super duper guilty.

(I guess if you wanted to know why I'm not around so much anymore.)

Through the grapevine, I heard that someone I used to be friends with is in a mental hospital after trying to kill himself. When I was first told this, I didn't believe it.

But then there are people who can't stand the noose of normal life. Who look for the maddest and most flamboyant ways to self-destruct. Those who hold tragedy like badges of honour. Who think the bravest way is to die down and out.

I believed it after I thought about it.

There's no place like home hey?

2011-10-20T22:08:00.001+11:00

Old love letters

2011-10-20T21:47:00.002+11:00

I'm cleaning out my computer and I came across a really old love letter.

It made my heart go whap-whap-whrrrrfrr?

I have no idea what to do with it, am I supposed to save it?

I thought I got rid of everything in the great purge of 09.

Picnicky

2011-10-10T20:45:00.000+11:00

Where have you been?!

2011-09-18T19:06:00.002+10:00

Mmm.. well this is going to be a rubbish blog post because I have to get off any minute now and resume working myself to death (freelancing is awesome!) and I have no pictures to show you that I still have a life because I used ND's camera .. and that camera is floating somewhere now in Glebe.

So.

And last week was truly an FML type of week in which (descending order):

*My brakelight was kicked in on Monday
*On Wednesday I got into a discussion with my co-worker which resulted in me bursting into tears and then angrily flinging rocks everywhere (I realise that makes me sound like I've lost my marbles)
*And then to cap off Thursday, I got into a fight with my neighbour who proceeded to try and run me over (!) which ended up with the police being called.

Thus on Saturday, my hairdresser gave me a onceover with his observant eye and asked me if I was feeling a little tired... "you look a little worn out." - I feel like I want to sleep for the next twelve years, preferably in an apartment where I don't have to pay rent.

And somewhere in there I had a failed double date, time-out at the oxygen bar, a major family dinner, an anniversary and an interview. That move to the farm is starting to look realllllly good.

(I swear the next post will be a happy post. And that this week is going to be better. It has to be better. )

Tears redux

2011-08-30T15:44:00.002+10:00

I haven't cried, really cried, for months and then one thing triggers you and you can't stop. The sheets are soaked and your head is dizzy from it and you realize you're not crying just for that one thing but for all the other little injustices and troubles and everything that you just can't help.

Self Destruct

2011-08-21T22:39:00.001+10:00

He looks at me and says "don't judge me."
I just sigh and I am only half joking when I say,"I am judging the holy shit out of you right now"

He looks miserable and the guilt is eating him alive. He shouldn't be having an affair with his secretary and he's doing it in such a way that at any moment his girlfriend and the boyfriend are going to find out.

I can see and he can see that he's going to crush his girlfriends heart. He's walking towards inevitability and it's damn hard to watch.

I wind the window down, "God, why can't you just keep it in your pants?"
"I know I'm doing the wrong thing." Though neither of us can explain why he's doing it.

Sofa

2011-08-18T19:27:00.002+10:00

"And my eyes are closed
And I’m way too tired
Hoody still smells of the beach bonfire
On the sofa, where we lay
I wanna stay inside all day
And it’s cold outside, again

And we’re both so high
We could fly to Berlin, Tokyo or Jamaica
We can go where you want
Say the word and I’ll take ya
But I’d rather stay on the sofa
On the sofa, with you"
- Sofa, Ed Sheeran

Bucket List: 1 down, 13 to go

2011-08-14T20:05:00.002+10:00

You know how some people are born performers and just naturally like being on stage? I am not one of those people.

So just for kicks, I thought I'd put perform on stage on my bucket list and maybe I'd enjoy it. I guess I thought that eventually when I did it, talent would come pouring out of me like a slot machine jackpot, well that's what I was hoping. Yes, I know -come back down to earth, little one.

Anyway I dropped it on my things to do and I forgot about it. Until it occurred to me some time last week that I'm approaching thirty and I have done close to nothing on it. It was time to get a move on.

So the challenge was: perform live on stage and clearly there were certain limitations to go with it. Like as in, I'm not going to squeeze myself into a box vis a vis Cirque Du Soleil, I don't have time to audition for the community centre performance of Les Mis and I honestly have no ambitions to be a rockstar [if I became once incidentally that would be okay though]

So the easiest way to do this would be of course to participate in a live karaoke session. Instant audience, no rehearsals and pants-peeing terror. In my dreams, I could see people booing me off stage, I would become the Rebecca Black of Chinatown, shunned and reviled for my inability to keep pitch.

I recruited a whole bunch of my closest friends so they could fight off the tomato-throwing contingent and the scene was set.

Location: Covent Garden. Notorious live karaoke joint in Sydney. Full of space cadet-y bartenders and regulars with bad haircuts and big performances.

I had never been to Covent Garden and for some reason I was expecting it to be much bigger and full of talentless mumbos like me. Of course, I was wrong and it was not full of talentless mumbos. I started having my first panic attack at some lady's rendition of Rolling in the Deep and then I had my second one when an office worker belted out the operatic version of The Prayer complete with high notes. Uh huh, the italian version of The Prayer as originated from Andrea Bocelli. That one.

So I started tippling at the wine bottle (it's a wonder I didn't slug from the whole thing!) and the more nervous I got and the longer I waited, the more the room started to fill up with people. I had thought that Covent Garden would be quiet and uncrowded. Wrong Assumption no 2. Lady, next time do your research!

If I had been by myself I would have started edging quietly towards the door but as it so happens, eight or nine of my nearest and dearest were there and I wasn't going anywhere. Erk. ND was giving me a Rocky Balboa massage while the others were giving me words of encouragement and promising not to boo me (aww, you guys!).

So I mounted the stage and I saw a million pairs of eyes looking at me expectantly and as I made my dedication, I was drowned out by cheers. The cheers of my friends. Surveying the room, I could see Egg and St Mary off to the frontside videoing, and everyone else at the table making woo noises. ND had stood on his chair so I could see him the most clearly and he was beaming at me.

I closed my eyes and launched into a rendition of 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' (oh come on, what did you expect?) and it wasn't bad, it wasn't great and I certainly am never going to be the next .. Britney but it was kinda fun and when I finished the DJ whispered to me 'that was okay.' As I got off the stage, I was rushed by everyone for hugs and love and everyone told me how proud they were of me. And I was dazed, really dazed and all I could think of was 'fuck, how lucky am I? I really have the best friends in the world.'

Sometimes that kind of outpouring is a revelation in itself.

On a friendship implosion

2011-08-11T19:06:00.003+10:00

I wasn't going to write about this because briefs and census forms stand in my way, but I guess I kind of want to document this because I'm learning a lesson from this- I'm not sure what kind of lesson exactly.

When she and I met, we were both extremely young pups. She was 19 and I was 21 and I guess we were kind of mismatched friends from the start. She was extremely glamorous and I was.. how I am now, a bit bumbling and goofy. If I look back in hindsight, we really didn't have that much in common other than that we were both isolated in what was a very very crap workplace.

And I think we were both disliked for completely diametrical reasons, she was maximumly confident and people resented her for it while I was the deer-in-the-headlights and someone had apparently pinned a kick me sign to my forehead, whatever it was, we bypassed that place and we've been friends ever since.

Through break-ups , career changes, birthdays and early twenties angst. We orbited around each other.

Until this year. This year it's been incredibly strained and I can't pinpoint why. Well I guess I can give a whole host of varied reasons from busy lifestyles to basic geography to just plain ol' growing apart but none of those things were the main reason or maybe they just combined to smush our relationship into the ground. I have no idea.

Two weeks ago, the entire friendship fell apart so fast that I gave myself whiplash watching it crumble. And the thing is? I don't know why [or how I contributed ] into making it happen. That's right- I have no idea what brought us together in the first place, what killed it or how I'm supposed to fix it. Essentially, this is a post full of giant question marks. Someone please buy me a clue.

And then I think if that's the end, it cannot have been that strong in the first place. That if no-one reaches out to the other, then no-one thinks that its worth saving. And ladies and gentlemen, thats one damn sad place to be.

I don't know about her, and I speak only for myself here, when I say, I am exhausted. I am really really tired of navigating relationships and when I think about all that time I spent in my misguided youth chasing around 'friends' who didn't want to actually be friends with me (not that I"m saying that she's one of those) but I want to slap my past self up in the head. Yeah, that's right past self, why the hell were you so damn needy?

I think I don't want to ruminate on this anymore after this because it just makes me too upset and there's no answer, I just keep going around in laps arriving at no conclusion at all.

Pantsless Cera and Schwartzman

2011-08-07T20:17:00.003+10:00

Who knows why they're pantsless? It amuses me.

A different way of reminding yourself

2011-08-07T19:40:00.003+10:00

"Carve your name into my arm.
Instead of stressed, I lie here charmed."
-Every You, Every Me, Placebo

He* has the words Love carved in several places on his arm, back when he and his-ex girlfriend used to be passionately madly in love with each other. You can't see it unless he rolls up his sleeve and twists his arm into a certain way in the light.

I gaped at it "Are you fucking crazy? That's crazy. Holy Crap." (Do you remember when I used to be open-minded? It feels like a loooong time ago)

He laughs, "yeah, it's crazy. It reminds me everyday that that kind of love? It fades."

*He prefers to stay anonymous. If you'd like to find out who this is- I suggest you start rolling up the sleeves of all my male acquaintances. I'm just kidding. Don't do that.

Short Pieces

2011-07-31T21:26:00.006+10:00

Short pieces because I don't want to think so hard today.

--

Mystic Meg is reading ND's palm.
MM: You're going to have four kids.
ND slowly swivels to look at me.
Me: Not with me you're not.

--

Jamais vu: the opposite to deja vu. you've done this before but for some reason you have the sensation that you haven't.

--

"All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun"
- Pumped Up Kicks, Foster the People

It's rather highly disturbing that commercial radio is releasing this song so close to the aftermath of the Oslo massacre. On the other hand, it's a ridiculously fun song to dance around to and quite possibly no-one is paying attention to the lyrics. I mean it sounds like 'run faster than my brother' rather than 'run faster than my bullet'.

--

Dyl: They do the Greek thing,
Me: What are you talking about. What Greek thing?
Dyl: ............ what did the Greeks invent?
MD: Wine?
Me: Math?
Dyl: Rear Entry.
Me: ...............................now you're just making stuff up!

--
--

And he said: My boyfriend works in a catholic school and he can't tell them he's gay. They might suspect, but there's this don't ask, don't tell policy happening.

I said: What does he do there? (and why is this still an issue in Sydney 2011?!)

He said: He's a religion teacher. A theologian.

The irony. It's killing me oh so hard.

--

Oh.. they've decapitated her... I don't know how to feel about that. I wish for those brushes though.

Bad Habit.

2011-07-25T20:36:00.003+10:00

I have two bad habits:

The first is that I somehow chronically always get the bathroom floor wet after I shower. It doesnt matter how dry I am, I manage to leave puddles everywhere. I get that it must be irritating for lovers/families/flatmates.

The second is that I don't do well in phone fighting and so if you exasperate me enough, I will hang up on you without fail. There'll be a brief tense silence on the phone and then you'll just hear a click. You may think that my hang-up is silent but deadly but often its just because if I don't hang up on you, I'm going to say something that I'm never going to be able to take back. Don't worry, you'll have enraged me to the point that after I throw my mobile across the room, I'm still going to head outside and kick something small and fluffy.

I recall that SB used to call back to yell at me for hanging up on him and I would just pitch the phone into the freezer for a good three hours. My phone has been remarkably ice-free for the past few years.

At any rate, ND and I had our first fight tonight, and it wasn't anything too serious but it was enough for my finger to reach for that little red button and end it pretty damn abruptly [don't tell me to grow up! what the hell!] and so now I'm sitting here mulling over history repeating and my inability to break old bad habits.

And the thing is right, that that is the way that I fight. I slam doors and I hang up phones and I wave my arms around like a windmill. I'm a ridiculously melodramatic drama queen. And I am who I am. What remains to be seen is if he will be okay with that.

Mugs 2#

2011-07-19T18:10:00.005+10:00

LA Noire. Ever so slightly boring.

2011-07-14T19:16:00.005+10:00

Team Bondi took seven years to make it- with over 100 creatives involved.
They've mapped out the entire 1940's city of LA including hotels, landmarks, train tracks, suburbs..
The graphics are without a doubt phenomenal (and you can run people over! It's awesome!)
IGN has given it a rating of 8.5
I've spent something like a year waiting for it to come out
Plus paid 90 big ones to own a copy (at a time when I am not rolling around in disposable money)

And still the entire thing puts me to sleep faster than dropping a 40kg mallet on my head in a doorway. At first, I was afraid to say it out loud-because I had waited so long and paid so much money and it was clear that so much effort had been put into it - that voicing it would be kind of a sacrilege.

But here I said it first: LA Noire is boring. It's boring. It bores me to tears. Pretty graphics do not a game make. You actually have to have gameplay that involves more than walking around and waiting til the controller shakes. Hell even my beloved Mario steps on Goombas from time to time in the 64 version.

And yet I have to finish it. I have to finish it because I already spent 8 hours of my life trying not to doze through it [and according to reviewers.. it's 30 hours of gameplay so I only have.. 22 hours of not-dozing left] and I just keep hoping it gets better. Maybe something interesting will happen. Maybe some zombies will show up and eat Cole Phelps. That might be too much to ask.

Whatever. I'm going to get through to the end and then sell it on eBay lauding it as the best game I ever played. And then take the money I get from that and spend it on shoes.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you haven't bought it and you're interested, I have a very high boredom threshold. You would probably misunderestimate the time I spend playing spider solitaire in my spare time. So if I think it's boring and you still decide to go ahead, don't say I didn't give you fair warning.

It really is a spectacular looking game though.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm going on about, don't worry it's nothing- Here's a picture of cakepops.

Poison Pens

2011-07-10T21:51:00.002+10:00

And I'm clickclacking away when my phone beeps and I stop working for a minute to see that it's a facebook message.

I was expecting.. a haiku, a question, an events notice.. what I wasn't expecting was a poison pen letter.

A ten paragraph epistle on why this person didn't want to be my friend and I was to put it short, a little stunned. [I'm still a little stunned actually, it might explain why I'm typing in such stunted sentences]

The reasons being:

She was uncomfortable around me. (And couldn't wait til I wasn't around)
I sucked all the fun out of the room?!
I'm too negative to be friends with and that being friends with me is such an effort
She feels sorry for me
No-one wants to hang around me someone like me

This is a girl who I haven't seen for months. So if we had a beef, I didn't know it.

I could tell by the way she wrote- that she was looking for a fight. That she wanted me to slang back at her. That if I just returned that volley, I would be giving her permission to be out and out vicious towards one another, that what she wanted was a leeway to tear each other to bits.

And then I looked at my work, my 1000 word article on car radiators -which I know I have to finish tonight and I just felt tired. We are not in high school, I am not in high school and this is not the way that I deal with things when I am twenty eight. I don't facebook message fight- And truly I think that way of behaving is just.. pathetic.

But maybe if there was one thing she was right about, it's that there are some things in life that we just don't need. Right on? Right on.

So I clicked delete. All gone.

Fortune 2#

2011-07-10T19:01:00.002+10:00

Sunshine on a winters day, dumplings, good friends, hand in hand with the amazing ND. So who me worry?
Shut up stupid fortune cookie.

A pink room.

2011-07-03T22:03:00.005+10:00

My perfect house has a library with bookcase with several ladders that move back and forward on wheels. It has high ceilings and wooden floors and lots of natural lighting. I have an open courtyard and in this courtyard, in the middle is a large oak tree which has a little rope swing, which I can sit upon on summer days.

But sometimes (and this will never happen) I dream of a pink room with a big old Hello Kitty mirror with chequered walls. Uninterrupted and unfettered girliness- you could never be miserable in a room like that.

We all need a little change

2011-07-03T19:22:00.004+10:00

I haven't seen Speedy in three months

Speedy: What happened to you? Where have you been? Why didn't you call me?
Me: I thought you were mad at me ................
Speedy: Wait, what. So if I didn't call you, you wouldn't have called me?
Me: You were mad!
Speedy: No, I wasn't! What happened to your hair?!
Me: Oh, you just noticed it? It's a little darker than before.
Speedy: It looks nice. You look like a grown up.
Me: Oh, thank you.
Speedy: Let's go for a coffee and cake.
Me: Cool!
Speedy: (horrified) I was just kidding. Coffee? Cake? It's a Friday! What happened to you?? What happened to my party girl friend? I miss her.
Me: .................... I got old. Real old.
Speedy: Do you blog anymore?
Me:...... Not much.
Speedy: You better blog about this. About how you almost abandoned your Mexican friend and about how you changed.
Me: Were you really kidding about coffee and cake?

Ba-dump

2011-06-30T13:17:00.003+10:00

And when he thought I wasn't looking, he starts to dance to Edge of Glory, I spotted him on the outer edges of my mirror and it was probably the cutest thing I have ever seen.

I straightened up, turned around and grinned at him. "Baby, what are you doing?"

He stops mid-motion "Uh. Nothing! I have an itch. Itchy back."

"I believe that you were just dancing to Lady Gaga"

He starts to blush and laugh. "No, I wasn't. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go be manly and play LA Noire."

I corner him "yeah you were! Do it again!"

And in that moment, it occurs to me that I love him. He's so charming and goofy and he makes my heart go ba-dump at unexpected moments. And help me God, he secretly dances to Top 40.

I don't know quite how to say this to him, those three words that I throw around so easily with other people.

He gives me an aggrieved look before throwing himself facedown on the bed: You're still grinning at me. It never happened.

And I can't say it still, my throat closes over and so I substitute instead with"I think you're the greatest".

Too Much

2011-06-26T22:17:00.002+10:00

"Do you like your new job?"
"Meh. It's okay. It's probably temporary."
"What? You just started."
"Well it's not what I want to do."
"..... What exactly do you want?"
"I want to love the job"
"You ask for too much lady."

Goodbye Card

2011-06-21T18:59:00.003+10:00

My work presented me with a giant goodbye card today. It's funny the things you remember about people.

Edge of Glory

2011-06-20T22:14:00.004+10:00

Dancing around madly in my apartment to this. Toothbrush doubling up as a microphone. I fucking love it. I'M ON THE EDGE WITH YOU!

Mugs

2011-06-20T18:49:00.004+10:00

So I am pulling myself off Facebook/LA Noire/Season 6 of Criminal Minds and a backlog of Mental Floss articles to come here and post this. Between the two of us, we spend a lot of time pulling funny faces at each other and on camera.

So if you ask where I've been working, going to interviews [sigh for the Gen Y in me], trying to get a life in this miserable weather and doing lots and lots of mugging for the camera.

Fools

2011-06-12T18:31:00.003+10:00

"You might actually be born with the most beautiful features in the whole of the world, you might have the best intellect, you might have all of these wonderful qualities and characteristics but in make-over culture you won't be seen as perfect, you'll always be seen as someone that can be improved upon.. and I think that's the most detrimental part of make-over culture- it doesn't allow us to rest, we can never be perfect, we can never say to ourselves - I'm okay now. Once we do that, we're accused of letting ourselves go."

I don't know who this video was from but I guess it's something for you [and me] to chew upon. Should we not always be striving to better ourselves and if we don't, are we not just being complacent? But are these standards [and in particular societal beauty standards] too high? Are we reaching for something that doesn't exist and if so, does that make fools of us all?

Talking to children

2011-05-26T20:24:00.003+10:00

[Reading out her childcare report card to me]
Mum: But she must always remember to speak to a child at their level. What does that mean?
Mush: That means you talk to the kid like an adult. You're supposed to talk to the kid like a kid.
Mum: Oh, do I?
Mush: Yeah, but don't worry -it's a very specifically Asian thing to do.
Mum: Huh. And you? How did I talk to you as a child?
Mush: Like an adult.

Actually now that I think about it, I do that a lot too- talking to toddlers and babies about definitions and concepts. You will never find me in front of a pram cooing 'it's a teddy-weddy-weddy-bear!' Maybe it's genetic.

Just smoke the damn cigarette already

2011-05-26T18:55:00.002+10:00

And so lately everyone has been pointing out vanilla I am. And you don't have to really know me that well to know just how much I hate this. Just because I'm not snorting things up my damn nose every night and sleeping with Tom, Dick and Harry at the same time doesn't mean you should put me in this damn goody-goody box. I resent this damn box.

RR: something something drugs.
Mush: Oh that's not how it is.
RR: How would you know? As if you've ever taken drugs.
Mush: ........
RR: Look at you in all your vanillaness.
Mush: [glaring at her from my stupid nerdy glasses] Oh yeah? And how can you tell?
RR: [exasperated] You're a good girl. You just are. You never would.
Mush: I am not a good girl! (if I punch you in the head I think you would stop calling me that)
RR: There's nothing wrong with being good you know? It's okay.

RR really knows how to push my damn buttons. And of course she's right- recently I'm going out of my way to be reasonable and sensible. I'm sleeping at ten. I'm not showing up late for anything. I'm not drinking.. at all, I've turned into some sort of ghastly teetotaller. I don't throw Veruca Salt like tantrums. I mean for Og's sake- my hair is a nice nominal black colour and not the candy floss pink that I originally wanted - in short it's like I've been dialled back to minus five.

Which must be nice for my parents. I'm not so sure how I feel about this.

And that might go a long way to explaining why I'm constantly craving cigarettes lately. I want to pick them up and twirl them in my fingers, I want to take a damn cigarette break in front of my work and not give a shit what anybody walking past thinks, I want to smell them on my hands when I lift them to my face and most of all I want to inhale. The hilarious thing is I don't smoke, not really. I am well aware that this is my self-destructive streak rising to the surface like a kraken heading for the buffet.

I guess if chaining out my window is the most rebellious thing I do in the next few months, I truly am vanilla- I'll give up and own that title.

Stop for a moment

2011-05-21T00:59:00.000+10:00

My eyes are so wide like you reached into my head and turned on a light inside- Be Mine, David Gray.

I'm standing here on the street corner, four blocks away from my house. And I can't explain the stillness, I don't have the writing capacity to explain stillness. My feet hurt and I'm tired but that's ok. Because the world is so quiet that all I can hear is the gentle tapping on my keypad and my own footsteps in the leaves and I think that if this is as good as it gets, for five minutes, for ten, for fifteen, then that should be all I ever ask for. Momentary stillness.

Priorities, priorities.

2011-05-18T18:10:00.004+10:00

Well see here's proof that I'm alive and eating cake. Cake with dessicated coconut so maybe not so much alive.

I guess I'll return when I have something concrete to say. At this point I feel like if I analyse my life, I'm going to find a gap and poke a hole right through it. I am that superstitious. Or maybe I'm just too old to care about everything and everyone all the time. Right now, I'm focusing quite a bit of energy on one person and I'm finding it reallly damn hard to spread myself around when [certain] friends have mental crises. And you know? that's strange to say even for me, if you call for me I'm the first one out the door for you- no questions asked and lately I have a hard time picking up the phone or even just summoning the energy to roll out of bed. [In fact, my bed is eyeing me now but so are my sink of dishes. The dishes win.]

I'm not twenty one anymore and nowhere is this more evident than my inability to give people equal time. As Coconat so eloquently put it "We're too old for this shit. And we're too old to deal with crap that's really not that important."

And so it is. I was talking to my mum about ND and she as always shoots straight from the hip.
Mum: SB once said to me that you always put your friends before him.
Me: He said that to you? Why the fk would he say that to you? When the hell? What the heck!
Mum: Are you still doing that? Maybe you should reconsider doing that.
Me: [defensive] well it's true. I don't admit that it's not true. I knew it, he knew it. It was the way things were done. Friends are forever and boyfriends are.. transient. Case in point. I'd just like to point out that if I leaned on him hard, where would I be? I'd be Wiley Coyote'd all over the ground.
Mum: Aren't you tired? Don't you just want to lean and be taken care of? Would it not make your life easier?
Me: You brought me up to be completely self-sufficient and independent. What are you asking of me?
Mum: Maybe too much for your own good.

I don't know where I'm going with this, I think I'm just in a roundabout way trying to say that my priorities are getting a total reconfiguration and I'm still in the process of trying to figure it out myself. Which is not really the reason I'm neglecting the holy moly out of this blog.

I swear I'll be good and offer you more cake pictures. Amateur cake photographs. There'll at least be a lot of those coming up

Try thinking before you speak

2011-05-02T20:27:00.003+10:00

Betty asked for more posting, so hi Betty! *waves*

--

I was absorbed in creating a mixtape on the computer and he was sitting behind me just watching me mess around, when I noticed the time was getting close to midnight so not moving my eyes away from the screen, I felt around for his face and said absently:

You know I love you but you have to go soon.

Uhm. It took me about several beats to realise what I just said and then the room went completely silent in a death pall. Who the hell makes random love declarations two weeks in while multi-tasking? Me apparently. Oh I fail sometimes, I really do.

I swivelled around in horror and almost knocked him off the seat in the process.

"I.. uhhhh. OH MY GOD. I didn't mean that. I mean I like you a lot but that's not what I meant. I was distracted. I say that to everyone. I tell everyone I love them, it's not personal. I don't know why I said that. ..... uhhhhhhhhhh....." [smooth Mush smooth! You missed out on an incredible public relations career!] By this time I'm quite sure my face is fire engine red.

He starts to laugh, he's finding it hilarious. "Should I just pretend I didn't hear that?"

Dumbdumbdumbdumbdumb! Argh! Stupid mixtape! "But it's true. I say I love everyone." This is sounding lame even to my ears, but it's TRUE. "Forget it! It didn't happen!."

I don't even know if there's a moral to this other than: Dear God, I need to relearn when to start and stop talking.

At least I'm still making an effort to write something.

2011-04-27T20:14:00.005+10:00

There once was this blogger who used to WRITE give or take three times a week.. and then one day she just ran out of things to talk about. Completely flat. What the heck happened? She was probably too busy posing in front of mirrors. Probably. I'm not trying to show off my new jacket or anything.

Jumping off that cliff

2011-04-19T19:53:00.006+10:00

So it turns out I actually had some sort of undiagnosed tuberculosis and then I lost my voice completely. Not so good for me, possibly good for everyone else.

--

I've been thinking a bit about whether I should talk about this- because possibly too early, too soon and probably I have a feelling I'm not going to portray myself too well in this post- so avert your eyes.

So there's this new person in my life, we'll call him ND and because I [am/was?] on a sabbatical, I was extremely reticent about going out with him.. well he doesn't know that. It really isn't you, it's me!

And so in hindsight, I started making excuses to myself and to my friends about why I shouldn't do this.

a) Firstly, he's not my ordinary type and when I say not my type- I don't know if you've noticed but since I quit with SB, my type has been precocious party boys. I figure if you lined up Coffee, R6 and DS against a wall and measured liver function, there would not be a working liver among them. I apparently like my men on pre-destined dialysis drips.

b) I let a random stranger press my buttons. Who listens to random strangers? Me.

c) He's too good for me. And when I say too good for me, I don't mean as in he's punching below his weight, I mean as in [following on from the whole type thing] he's a good guy. He doesn't drink much, he doesn't smoke, the guy doesn't even drink coffee. And me? Have you met me? If you flicked holy water on me, I might explode into a pile of ashes. Where can a relationship go with such uneven levels? an exorcism?

You know how I always mention that I have really good friends and they're good because truly they never sugar coat anything and they're not afraid to bitchslap the holy crap out of me when they know I'm being a fuck up. So here is what Ms Smith said to all of that [paraphrasing]:

"What are you saying?! You're not going to date him because he's good. You won't take a chance on him because he's not a party boy. You would rather date someone who just goes out and messes around all weekend and doesn't call you when they're supposed to than someone who doesn't. Isn't he good and kind and nice? How is the whole dating party boys thing working out for you anyway? "

"......Fantastically."

The thing is that you may think someone is good and kind and nice and then they may turn around and throw you under a bus anyway. I honestly think that I'm really not emotionally prepared enough to go for another round of relationship roadkill. But that whole conversation really made me stop and think about what the heck I'm doing. How I'm letting my commitmentphobia run the show, how I might be letting go of someone genuinely good because I don't want to dump my hand in the water and so what if this one throws me under too? What can possibly be the worst that can happen? I'll be here in three months time feeling mopey and stupid and blogging about it but I'll get over it. Eventually. I really suck at getting over things as we all know.

So we're dating. I really like him and we talk about obscure history and he really makes me laugh, so here's to closing my eyes and jumping off that cliff. I am ridiculously petrified.

It was only just a dream.

2011-04-12T20:08:00.003+10:00

[Yeah yeah I just gave one of the least deserving artists in the world a shoutout.]

Errr.. I'm just going to talk about this dream that I had this morning, it really bothered me and I'm going to start navel gazing about it [but I'm going to cover the names again so that my friends don't start hammering me about my demented subconscious tomorrow if they get past the 2nd paragraph.] so feel free to tune out in 5, 4, 3, 2....

--

So I wake up in the dream [yeah I woke up in the dream- how fricking weird is that? It's a bit backwards] and I'm discombobulated, I'm in a bed in my aunty's house and ☼ is standing over at the end of the bed and he's smiling. I think he says "Wakey wakey."
I'm confused and I look at him, "What are you doing here?"
He laughs and says "Why wouldn't I be here, we're in a relationship!"
And now I'm completely baffled, "uhhhh.... we are?" (no-one's told me that! What the hell!)
He smiles again, "Sure." and then he crosses the room, leans over the bed and kisses me. On the mouth. It's one helluva kiss and when he finishes up.. ummm.. okay I'm convinced! That works for me!
But maybe I should get out of bed yeah? So I swing out of bed and my foot kicks this make-up palette, I pick it up and open it and it crumbles everywhere. I have make-up all over my hands and I've made a mess. I put the palette back on the floor and when I look up he's gone. I figure ☼ went off to another part of the house, I have no idea.

I would look for him but I'm distracted by noise coming from the window. I walk to the window and I can see that the house next door is having a party and ◙ is standing right in my view. I'm not sure if he can see me looking but the next thing I know, his girlfriend runs up to him in this ridiculously beautiful blue dress, wraps her arms around his neck and gives him a hug. And the dress. It's cornflower blue with ruffle straps, a fitted bodice and a flared skirt and she's not beautiful but the dress makes her beautiful if you know what I mean.

He leans down to kiss her and as he does, he opens his eyes and looks at me. He knew I was there the entire time and he still did it. The intent and malice of it takes my breath away and I'm upset, I'm hurt, I'm jealous and most absurdly of all I covet her dress.

I run out of the house barefoot [the make-up is still on my hands] and I make my way to the nearest comic book store where I hide behind the counter and try to bury myself in comic books.

--
You don't really need a psychoanalyst with a specialisation in ridiculously obvious metaphors to see where my head's at.

All downhill from here

2011-04-11T19:44:00.004+10:00

She said on the phone, "I was thinking this morning- have we reached a pinnacle where we're so disillusioned that we're not even impressed with nice guys and goodness anymore."
I think she might be right.

I just wanted to show off my glasses. And the view. And talk about the song.

2011-04-10T22:15:00.004+10:00

"And if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born/
Then it's time to go/
And to find your destination/
There's so many different places to call home

Sometimes the best intentions are in need of redemption/
Would you agree?"
-You are a Tourist- Death Cab for Cutie

Seriously Ben Gibbard speaks to me in a way no other songwriter can. Loving this to death.

Take one feminist and stir. Stir damn well.

2011-04-10T20:42:00.002+10:00

and so I had a huge fight with my parents this week and I was very much snuffly and upset when I answered the phone.

Fark, I know she has the best intentions and loves me very much but sometimes I look at her and wonder how we stay friends if we truly don't understand each other.

Me: *snuffle snuffle*
Her: I know you don't listen but listen to this. I think you're much happier when you're with someone.
Me: Say what now? I don't know if you're advocating what I think you're advocating.
Her: Just find someone and be happy
Me: ..............................................................................................

There. That. We're from different planets. Look I get where's she coming from. Having a partner would make life easier. I'd be doing less heavy lifting for one. Money would be free-er. And my parents would be less worried that they're going to leave me alone on the planet. But I chose to walk away from all that. I very methodically walked away from marriage and a walk-in closet (I still dream of walk-in closets) knowing that none of it was going to be easy and truly if you've been following this blog even somewhat, you'd know that breakup was and will always be one of the defining moments of my life.

And I guess as my friend or even as a damn random acquaintance, you'd know just how highly I prize my independence. I don't need a partner to be happy. If they come by and ake me happy then bonus! But I won't place my happiness on their shoulders. Some people are just not happy unless they are in a relationship and that's fine, she's clearly one of those people.

And we've come around full circle because truly I don't know why she said it when it really has nothing to do with the fight I had with my parents!

The Neighbourhood Bulletin

2011-04-05T18:30:00.007+10:00

Amended (With photos!)
I swore I wasn't going to come on the internet tonight because I'm just a tiny bit feeling like I have tuberculosis, but do you see this?

That's an entirely full bulletin board full of passive-aggressive notes [from four different neighbours!] about dog poop. I am going to go take a better picture later on because I didn't want to hang around too long and have people think that I'm a dog-hater.

But as I was readng it in fascination, some [fairly okay looking!] guy poppped up behind me and said "Oh haha. Haven't you seen that?"
And I was "No! This is crazy! That's so funny! Don't mind me I'm just going to take a picture to document. (click) Are you new here? I haven't seen you around"
"I've been here for two years, my name is Alex."
"I'm Mush and I live upstairs. I've been here two years as well."
"The people in this building are always complaining! Last week it was something about books."
"Oh. Really. Odd."**
He turns to leave and says "It's nice to meet you Mush!" then he winks at me and gestures towards the board, "Don't get involved."

Okay well he's pretty nice and the neighbour that calls me Tiger is pretty nice, but the rest of them and I'll repeat for the record. Again. My neighbours are fucking crazy. I'm starting to think that the building is built on some sort of Indian burial ground, it's cursed and it's all going to drive us eventually all mad. I would not be that surprised.

**I wasn't complaining. I thought it was a valid question!

Life is absurd.

2011-04-04T19:21:00.004+10:00

As I sit here thumping my head against the desk. Struggling, struggling, struggling. The pornstar next door is screaming and getting it on. It's really hard to be openly miserable and sorry for yourself when ten metres away you can hear her having this ridiculously long orgasm.

Advice for the neurotic

2011-03-31T18:28:00.005+11:00

So I'm fretting [and I never normally fret because as you know my forté is venting.] and finally she says: You really should stop analysing your eggs before they hatch

And she's right. You know and I know that I'm going to have to stop being so Charlie Brown with everything.

because everybody knows how that ends. Not well.

30/3/2011

2011-03-30T19:45:00.005+11:00

I totally heart shape this poster.

"Malkovich?"

"Malkovich! Malkovich Malkovich, Malkovich."

"MALKOVICH!!! Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich; Malokovich Malkovich, Malkovich Malkovich."

"Malkovich. Malkovich."

[Which is pretty much all I'm hearing today. La la la.]

I'll take 17 of those- thanks very much!

"No I don't wanna get thrown in your ocean/
Don't try/
You know that we already know you/
It's over

At your own burial/
Don't forget to cry at your own burial
-Burial, Miike Snow

For all my talk of self-preservation, the truth is I don't really have any. I'm completely shell-less and for some reason in my la-la-la head I have a tendency to forget this when I'm distracted by other things [like shoes, books and pretty diet coke bottles]. Which is why even when I see something hurtling at me from two hundred metres metres away and people on the sidelines are yelling "move dumbass! move!"- I don't duck.

And I am never failingly surprised when it clonks me on the head and I get hurt.

Yeah, it's dumb I know. Watch the ball, don't stand in the line of fire and be more careful next time when playing with stupid boys.

Relatives that are lost and found.

2011-03-28T19:54:00.002+11:00

"Billie Jean is not my lover. And the kid is not my son!"
-Billie Jean, Michael Jackson

This post is dedicated to my Great-Grandfather who passed away 10 years before I was born and almost got away with it. Boss, if you're feeling guilty- I don't blame you.

So I'm having yum cha with some relatives on my Dad's side, specifically my Uncle G [who is my Dad's cousin] and my Great-Uncle W [who is my Dad's Uncle/My Grandfather's brother], there were other relatives there but I don't want to make this too confusing for people not familiar with my family tree.

Uncle G mentions that they might possibly be heading to Adelaide during the Easter Holidays and my curiosity was instantly piqued. Why? Don't get me wrong, I love Adelaide but there is absolutely nothing to do there - the zoo maybe.

Uncle G: We might have a long-lost relative [he gestures to Great-Uncle W] We think he might have a half-brother.
[Great-Uncle W just keeps eating his dumpling as if he has half siblings all over the country and it's no big deal.]

Me: What? What do you mean?

Uncle G: Well it's this amazing serendipitous story. We were driving in Port Pirie last year to visit your Great-Grandma's grave and Little G felt that he lost his driving plates and so we pulled over at the nearest petrol to get new plates. And as I was buying them, the lady at the counter said "What are you doing here?" because as you know, there are no Asians in Port Pirie.

And I said "Oh, we have relatives that used to live here, you may not know him but he was called Ah Gap! and he's buried around here."
And she said "Isn't that odd! you might be related to..Charlie [let's call him Charlie]. Charlie is Ah Gap's son.
And I said "Is that so?" and she replied "Yes, it's such a sad story. Ah Gap misbehaved with this married woman and then when Charlie came out, he was most certainly .. well Eurasian! It just couldn't be hidden. The woman's husband was very angry and he sent Charlie to an orphanage in Perth. He came back to Port Pirie eventually- I'm not sure if they reunited or anything, but Charlie is still around, he's still around here."
[Uncle G smiles at this point] well I didn't know whether to believe her or not. What an amazing story! So I looked him up in the phonebook and there he is! So we're going to go and find him and confirm the story when we have time.

Me: Wow. Whoa. Wow. He might not want to accept this motley crew you know. [He may not even remember anything! He'd be .. between 80 and 90?!]

Uncle G: Well we're going to go and see him and if he doesn't accept us, then that's okay too. But you know as long as we try.

Possibly none of this is true or maybe all of it is true, but there are elements of it which are gobsmackingly heart-breaking, a little boy who no-one wanted, three adults who were more than a bit assy about the whole thing [ I find it mind-boggling that they were just hoping he'd turn out white], a father who never got to see his son and the son who returned to the provincial little town and stayed for.. some sort of resolution.

There are so many untied threads to this whole thing and maybe if he's lucid enough and willing, he'll talk about it but I don't blame him if he doesn't.

(My Dad used to talk about how when he was naughty as a child, my Great-Grandmother used to chase him around with an axe so he would run up a tree and hide. I figure she never found out about the lovechild because if she did Ol' Ah Gap would have died a little more prematurely than he did.)

Dude, wear protection.

2011-03-27T14:24:00.002+11:00

A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I asked him where he went the night before and he was "I did this bar, and this bar and then we went to the Ivy!"
I think at that point I must've pulled a face and he said "what? what you don't like the Ivy?"
"Not really, that place is full of douches. If you threw a rock into the crowd there, you'd hit a douche."
He laughed and looked at me like I was seven years old. Anyway.

So last night [while there, natch] while in a line to get up the stairs [yeah, there's a line for the stairs. It's really stupid.] there was a guy behind me on the phone talking really loudly and this is what I mean when I say douches.

"YOU MUST GET AN ABORTION! I don't want no kid! Do you hear me?? An Abortion! Get an abortion! NAO!"

This is all while the music is slowly getting louder and louder. Everyone around us is either dancing or swaying. Saint Mary and I are dying to turn around and get a look at this guy.

"I TOLD YOU. YOU'RE NOT KEEPING IT AND I DON'T WANT IT."
He's quiet for thirteen seconds while I presume she's pleading for the life of her unborn child or something before he kicks her down the stairs which are not the ones we are lining up for.

"AN ABORTION! YOU ARE GETTING AN ABORTION!"
Ok, I can't do it anymore. I'm going to pass out from curiosity. Even if God wants to turn me into a pillar of salt- I pay that. I turn around to see this fairly young mediterranean looking guy [uh.. twenty three?] in a white collared shirt being led away by his friends, they've given up on the line and are heading to the bar. Apparently he needs a drink!

I'm going to need a drink after recapping that. And probably a neck brace because I just can't stop shaking my head in consternation. Is it too much for him to get a passout and take the call outside and not in the middle of an extremely busy and crowded club? Especially when it possibly involves him paying child support for the next eighteen years? And her?! If you can barely hear him over the music or if he sounds possibly like he might be getting a wee bit drunk, and you want to keep the child.. you might want to pick a better time to tell him. Like in the daytime. In person. You might want your partner to have a little clarity when talking to him about life-altering decisions.

In sum, he's a complete asshole, she has atrocious timing and we should all wear protection because there but for the grace of God go you.

[Hey you! If you're reading this- then I was right! So many assholes!]

The answers you seek may not be the ones you have answered*

2011-03-26T14:19:00.002+11:00

*see below

My street and the book club on the graas

2011-03-24T18:36:00.004+11:00

I was going to ruminate on the last days of summer but I won't go there today.

My street is really really weird. For such a 'upper class' street, it really is populated by bunch of weirdos [including myself of course]. If it's not car vandalism [sticky tape much?], it's all hours sex screaming, kidnapped dogs and drunken banjo playing. Or we're all just all out fighting for carspots.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that someone had left some books on the grass next to the mailbox. They'd kind of spread them out like a showcase, there was a couple of Patricia Cornwells and a Michael Connelly and some other authors I didn't really recognise. I would possibly have picked up the Michael Connelly .. if I wasn't completely OCD about second hand books and also I was running late so I kind of ran off and didn't really think about it.

When I came home, everything but one Cornwell was gone and then the next morning that had disappeared as well. So maybe my street is full of mystery novel fans??

Anyway, I thought that would have been a one-off incident until I came home today and there was just one lonely book sitting in the grass. Shantaram.

Yes it was just sitting there like that

By my knowledge Shantaram is not a cheap book, I recall standing at a bookstore once and debating whether it would've been worth it to pay the thirty-five for it. Thirty five was just way too dear.

And for some unfathomable reason or another, my neighbour [neighbours?] have decided to start passing off their old books on the grass. I don't get it. So I tacked a sign on the bulletin board asking Why exactly are people leaving books everywhere and could you please explain. I really hope someone answers.

I picked up Shantaram with two fingers and am now in the process of disinfecting it with disinfectant cloths. I may never read it.. [what if someone took it into the bathroom?! erk] I guess I could always put it back if I don't want it?

Presumptious

2011-03-23T22:01:00.002+11:00

And so he messages me without any prior conversation or forewarning "Oaks 2morrow 9pm"

I'm.. I'm just supposed to show up because you say so?! Should I be all swoony because you're so masculine and demanding like a demanding masculine hybrid of Russell Crowe and Don Draper?? Do all the ladies come-a-runnin' at your beck and call?

Fuck you buddy, I'd rather stay home and wash my hair.

22/03/2011

2011-03-22T19:46:00.002+11:00

If you ask where I've been-I've been around giving myself a bittermelon jelly eating disorder. The thing with bittermelon jelly [and it tastes almost as despicable as it sounds] is that its this cool frosty green colour and it looks oh so inviting. You lift it to your lips and delicately place it on your tongue and it tastes exactly like normal sweet delightful jelly but give it a few seconds and the bittermelon aftertaste rolls around and in your mouth what was once a sweet sweet dessert morphs into a pissed off vegetable. Breathe, gag and swallow [Keep your mind out of the gutter folks!].

And then because it's sitting in front of you all pretty and green and you remember how enchanting the jelly was before the aftertaste, you reach out and do it all again. Thus giving yourself what can only be described as a bittermelon jelly eating disorder. I didn't realise I was such a sadomasochist.

--

"It's too fucking late to be happy."
Rabbit, Run. John Updike
That book pissed me off so bad. Why would anyone empathise with Rabbit? Rabbit is not complex or sympathetic and comes across about as 2Dimensional as a torn off piece of the Yellow Pages. He runs away from his pregnant wife, he stuffs around on her while she drowns their kid, he pins the blame on her at the funeral ("I didn't do it" [!]) and then he runs away from his pregnant mistress. In short, Rabbit is a complete asshole and if John Updike wasn't dead, I'd punch him for completely wasting my time.

--

Today my co-worker was complaining that she wasn't able to photoshop the logo into the box without destroying the proportions. I said very helpfully "Why don't you just keep it the size it is and just add a black box to the back?". She gave me a cranky look "Because that would take fifteen minutes."
I opened my mouth to say "It would only take two seconds!" but then I remembered when I first started using photoshop, I wanted to throw bricks at the inventors of Adobe and I distinctly recall blogging about it ( there it is!) And Photoshop is really really hard for beginners. So I shut my mouth and didn't say anything. I give myself a pat on the back for not being a total hypocrite. Yeah I do.

--

Jewel tones are in this winter, that means mixing purple and green. There's just no way. We'd all end up looking like Zelda.

--

And I guess that's where I've been. Reading. driving around. trying to be good, eating obnoxious concoctions and doing my best to stay upbeat [because lately I'm varying between tearful and snippy.. snearful? tearippy? bipolar??]. This weather is making me crazy.

:)

2011-03-19T18:31:00.001+11:00

At this time last year

2011-03-16T23:21:00.000+11:00

Last year at this exact time, I received a call "I was just thinking about you, do you want to meet up?" And I felt invincible, like I was standing on a precipice of infinite possibilities.

If I had to say I miss him, I'd say that I miss his boundless enthusiasm, he was positively contagious with it and it was hard to not get caught up in it as well. He was a guy who unapologetically and sincerely loved life. He never went through the motions like the rest of us poor mopes.

I guess I say this because a year feels like such a long time ago and that feeling even longer. It doesn't feel like all of that was a year ago, so much has happened that it seems closer to fifty.

He turns to me and says excitedly "Oh my God! I just saw a shooting star! Over there! Look!". I completely missed it but I'm in my own way still looking for one.

The boyfriend log

2011-03-15T23:40:00.003+11:00

He called it quits with me after two months
She and he mutually broke up just short of three
And then this one scraped in a record low with one

Jeebus. I kind of have to shake my head at our current track record. It's like the three of us are in a fight to the death to see who can have the shortest relationship.

She finds this hilarious: So far I win no?

More randomness

2011-03-14T18:57:00.003+11:00

[Ignore my hands.. I don't know why they look so big. And yellow.] But a lanyard with a key on it can only mean one thing- I'm sort of-kind of coming out of retirement and hurrah!

On a sadder note, my first blog today at work was on the Japanese earthquake tsunami. Going to Google People Finder and then sobbing like a baby is considered highly unprofessional in the workplace, so you just kind of have to look up at the ceiling and blink for a bit. [My advice for tears at work from a consumate crier]

Not everyone is going to find everyone.

In case you missed this on my facebook, I'm going to post it again [and probably periodically on a monthly basis] because I love it on so much. Rawrrrr.. Bacon.

There are so many things that I love about this picture that I can't even begin to name all of them [but I'll try?] 1. It's a SHOE!
2. It's a SHOE that drives at 19mph
3. What the hell is he doing in a SHOE?
4. I looove how happy the guy is in the shoe, he is the happiest shoe guy ever.
5. And he's cute! Bonus!
6. And I like what he's wearing clothes-wise.
7. What's with all the pissed off Asians in the background?
7. Oh. It's a test drive for a shoe car [only $6500!] I'm guessing then those pissed off people are actually pissed off commie workers and that the rider is the factory owner's son. They might uprise and kill him.
8. He wouldn't get very far at 19mph .
9.It can carry two people! Take me away in a giant SHOE!

The resemblance is uncanny!

2011-03-11T14:41:00.004+11:00

I think that if he were younger, I'd be more attracted to him and less likely to find his philosophies tired and blustery. I don't know when I ended up so ageist.

--
We're sitting around and he's going through my iPod [hilariously he doesn't know how to use it] and to his delight he scrolls to: Kate Bush! You have Kate Bush!

Me: Yeah, I like Kate Bush
Him: Have you seen the clip for Wuthering Heights, she's just so...
Me: Sure, the one where's she dancing around the forest? It's really something.
Him: She is really unique, with the dancing and the falsetto. You know you remind me of her?

This is Kate Bush for the uninitiated.

Me: ................................................................................... Oh-kay! [She's white! She's really really white! He's getting myopic in his old age. And possibly colour blind.]
Him: Yeah, it's the whole quirkiness and mystique thing
Me: I think you're just in a roundabout way saying that I can't dance and I can't really sing. Normally.
Him: You are really awful at taking compliments
Me: I don't know how saying that I resemble Kate Bush is a compliment
Him: I also think you look like Lucy Liu
Me: *aghast. My eyes are bigger!

10 Random Disney thoughts

2011-03-10T20:53:00.006+11:00

I was going to talk about my toes and genetics.. aren't you glad I decided not to?

1. I just saw Tangled, and I must be getting really old in my old age but I did not get what was going on half the time because of the MTV jumpcuts [also get off my lawn yeah?]

2. I'd still marry Flynn Rider though! I'm exempting the fact that he can't sing. But he has gorgeous hair for the entire movie and wields a mean frying pan. What can I say? I'm easy.

Also this is his schmooze face. I love schmooze face.

3. In no particular order, I still wouldn't date: The Beast [attitude!], Simba [Daddy issues], Robin Hood [Not much attraction to foxes], John Smith [I don't care how blonde you are, You can't just dig up other peoples countries. God.]

4. I miss sitting in front of the small tv watching Steamboat Willie on vhs. I'm pretty sure no-one under 70 knows what I'm talking about so if you're under 70 don't ask. Just google.

5. But if you ask nicely, I can whistle you the Steamboat Willie theme like Mickey Mouse. And if you pass me one of those boat-moving-steering-wheel things, I could probably jig like him although it wouldn't be as cute. Because I'm not a cartoon mouse.

6. And this was disturbing to the extreme. I was so innocent upon a time before the internet.

7. I always felt sorry for the girl squirrel from Sword in the Stone. Stupid Arthur.

Arthur: I tried to tell you. I'm, I'm a boy. A human boy! Oh! If you could only understand.
Merlin: You know, lad, that love business is a powerful thing.
Arthur: Greater than gravity?
Merlin: Well yes, boy, in its way... yes, I'd say it's the greatest force on earth.

8. I had a copy of Song of the South on vhs which I rewatched to death and I didn't grow up to encourage slavery or trick my fellow animals into thorn bushes. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah folks. Kids are not as literal as you think, so release the DVD already! Actually no, release the Black Cauldron DVD first. Release something!

9. Look out! Look out!
Pink elephants on parade
Here they come!

10. And lastly for some Queen Latifah/Ursula awesomeness! Cool right?

I don't love Annie Leibovitz but this is one of the best of the series. Also look for the one with Olivia Wilde as the Evil Queen. It's really something.

My darling turtle

2011-03-09T22:58:00.002+11:00

*Names withheld for my safety. If you come by this, don't kill me. No-one knows its you! Unless they decide to process my elimination and then I'm stuffed but I never write here anymore so I'm thinking that no-one reads it? Hm.

[They've just started dating]
She: He's calling me by an animal name already! I'm doomed!
Me: What's that? Puppy? Kitty? Piggy? My neighbour calls me Tiger. I find that really attractive. I don't know why. I'm a bit demented. So what is he calling you?
She: Turtle. Awkward turtle.
Me: .............................................................. I thought turtle was a euphemism for penis in Chinese. You know the turtle head kinda looks like a penis head...... and... and...
She: Oh my God. What. are. you. trying. to say.
Me: He's Chinese and he called you a turtle... albeit an awkward one. I uhm. Hm. Let's drag another friend into this to solve this shall we!?

Me: What's with this whole turtle=penis thing?
Him: A turtle pulls its head back into its shell like a penis pulls itself back into uncircumcised skin.
Me: Wow. Graphic. Is the whole turtle=penis thing a country specific thing or is it say regulated to one county?
He: It's one county
Me: And it's not his county! You can relax! You're just his darling turtle!
She: That's just spiffing. He didn't affectionately refer to me as his awkward penis.

I give up.

2011-03-08T00:04:00.003+11:00

Mush: Come meet my friend Coconat. She's smart and pretty!

Matty: Smart girls freak me out.

Why advocate trying to change the world one person at a time when you can simply stay at home and beat your head in a rhythmic fashion against the desk like this? Whump. Whump. Whump.

Ninnies and romance

2011-03-03T22:37:00.002+11:00

“Men don’t want successful women, men want to be admired,” she said. “It’s important to them that the woman is full of energy at night and not playing with her BlackBerry in bed.”

And that's not even the choicest quote in the whole article. Keeping Romance Alive in the Age of Female Empowerment. It's a feature written by ninnies for ninnies with ninnies in mind, God, I can't even muster the energy to be mad at this thing. Suffice to say, if you're paying for everything and your partner only ever whips out his own credit card to make himself look good in front of the receptionist/waiter/valet.. maybe you should have a couple of question marks over your head about his priorities?! No? Ok, just me then.

And I'm going to be playing with my Blackberry in bed anyway, I'd rather be doing that than soothing the ego of some insecure headcase.

Penguins who can't spell are problematic

2011-02-28T23:24:00.005+11:00

He came up to me in a tuxedo complete with a little bowtie and asked me how I was doing. He looked like a boyband member dressed up for the prom and I was really really drunk.

So when he leaned in and kissed me, my thoughts were not on sabbaticals or exes or even how high school it was [the only thing missing was my maths folder with the doodled love hearts], I was just enjoying the moment for what it was worth. A brief connection with a stranger, in the middle of a crowded club.

I’m so cynical lately [which is so unlike me!] because I leaned back at one point and said ‘So where is your girlfriend? Did you leave her at home?’ and he laughed and said ‘Look in the mirror, there she is’- which is quite sweet, but I didn’t just graduate from the school of newbies.

And that was what I thought would be the end of that. I gave him my number, tried to drink from a swizzle stick, promptly fell over onto my ass, had to be rescued from wandering around the bathroom area, lost my bracelet , discussed the meaning of life with my taxi driver and apparently called everyone in a 50km vicinity at 5am. So all in all a pretty good night.

I wasn’t expecting a message the next morning from the Penguin asking how I was. But there it was.

I give him props for being sweet and I guess ordinarily I would have been swayed. But I had a no dating policy to maintain.

So my message back was very polite and cheerful [considering I felt like death on toast] and I asked him how he was as well. And then he replied:

I fill so tiad.

I had to reread it a couple of times to be sure I was reading what I was reading. And then I kind of had to hold myself for a minute because my internal spelling nazi took herself out the back and shot herself.

This is where I reveal myself to be a complete and utter elitist. I don’t know how come I keep ending up with people that can’t spell properly but for some reason I do [maybe I should start making prospective candidates take a literacy test or something] and I can’t frigging abide it. I can’t stand it. I regardless of a dating or no-dating policy will no longer have anything other than a platonic relationship with someone who can’t spell ‘commencement’ without looking it up in a dictionary [but clearly run-on sentences are fine].

And I don’t care if the guy climbs mountains, is an astronaut, is as sweet as the Penguin appears to be or is actually my soulmate. Close your eyes and spell ‘Woolloomooloo’ and I grant you a pass.

I told Betty about it this morning, and her response was: Stupid Head! Why close yourself off to these opportunities? I think his spelling is cute! When I text type, sometimes I say meepi for sleepy.

Me: Fine, meepi for sleepy is cute. But this was not meepi. I get meepi. This was tiad. He fills tiad. Who does that??

I started talking about the Penguin to my friends over board game night, and I couldn’t hear myself over the shouts of “WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR SABBATICAL?!”
“I said dating! Not making out! Making out is fine!”

Sometimes I think of you at 4am

2011-02-25T04:03:00.001+11:00

He was the kind of person who helped strangers out of mud puddles. He deliberately left a trail of chaos everywhere he went. He was constantly trying to find the meaning of life at the bottom of a scotch glass. He knew that smiling at you would get him out of trouble every single time and you loved him for his self-destructive streak that mirrored your own.

Hello you, do you still think of me? Everytime I take a shot of soju, I silently raise my glass to you as well. Even now you are still my favourite mistake.

Reading, reading

2011-02-23T19:46:00.004+11:00

Because I'm constantly applying for online positions, it apparently doesn't make any sense to anyone that I read.. books. As the theory goes, for online to succeed then publishing must fail and vice versa. Actually I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone [besides myself] who believes that the two can simultaneously exist.

And the last thing I want to do in the middle of an interview is stand on my soapbox and proclaim that publishing is not dead and will most likely not be going anywhere within our lifetimes. I say what they want to hear, "Ahem. hypothetical bosses, online is the way of the future, limitless information, social connectability and instant access will kill publishing deader than a doornail. Or something."

But it will never take away the thrill of opening the cover of a new book, of laying in bed and flipping through the pages, of having a book drown out every other piece of outside noise or even the singular satisfaction of hurling a really shitty book across the room. I never say that because I need to pass round one.

I let my guard down a bit last week and I mentioned to an agent that I love to read.

A: Do you?

M: I do. Reading is one of my passions. I just love books . I always have a new one with me all the time.

A: Hahahaha! No need to be that intimate. It's not like your boyfriend or anything.

How can you explain anything to someone like that? You know what they really want to hear is that online is the only way and that publishing is moot.

So when I’m right I’m right.

2011-02-22T20:18:00.002+11:00

And so she was talking to me the other night about her relationship problems and I was exhausted from a full day of driving and I was not verbalizing properly.

I’m one of those people who always think that they’re right so the more I was trying to explain to her what she was doing wrong, the more frustrated I was getting and thus my usual concise reasonings were coming out as “Purple! Monkey! Dishwasher! ……….. Forget it!”

I could hardly talk and it was all I could do to stop from thumping the table in frustration, caveman style. All of this coupled with my inability to keep her from driving off a cliff into impending doom.

So I just gave up and looked annoyed.

Later on, I had to explain to her that I wasn’t annoyed at her per se, but.. but.. but…Refrigerator! Mushroom! Enunciate!

And she very gently explained to me that these was her mistakes to make. Which is true. But still if I see someone get into a helicopter..I’m still going to say wear a seatbelt right? Right?

So maybe the problem is that I get too involved in my friends lives. I’m quite a good judge of character, and I give good advice but really no-one is going to crown me the relationship queen [maybe before but definitely not now. Yikes.]

And then on the other hand, today I had another friend say to me “You give really good advice and I’m making more of an effort to follow it now because I reallllly should have listened to you before.”

See! She should have listened to me!

“what.. you’re going to start now?”

She started to laugh. “Better late than never!”

Something I don't miss

2011-02-17T21:40:00.003+11:00

She was walking down the street with her boyfriend and he tried to take her by the arm. She shrugged him off and kept walking. But he wasn't to be deterred so he kept fumbling for it. He at some point managed to grab hold of said arm and attempted to plant a kiss on her shoulder. It only served to annoy her further. That was as far as I saw before they crossed the street.

Someone like you by Adele

2011-02-17T12:49:00.003+11:00

"I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited,
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it,
I had hoped you'd see my face,
And that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over,

Never mind, I'll find someone like you,
I wish nothing but the best for you too

Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead"
-Someone like you, Adele

Those three words.

2011-02-15T18:34:00.004+11:00

Unless I'm hugely distracted or talking to the electricity company, I usually end my phone conversations with 'Love you. Bye!'. If I think about it, I probably tell people I love them more than I actually thank them. And then if I think about it some more, this doesn't stop with people this also goes for inanimate objects. I've been known to profess my love to laptops, Hello Kitty frying pans, Michael Cera on the tv and countless pairs of shoes.

I swear I have more than once told a random stranger I loved them just because they were funny.
RS: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb? I couldn't tell you because it's too obscure! Ha! ha!
Mush: Oh my God. ha. ha. ha. ha. I think I love you.

Of course all of this has in its own way served to dilute the message, so when I have to show support for an upset friend, I kind of feel like I have to underline the I love you part in case it wings over their heads.

Mush: Don't be upset. He's a douche. Don't do anything stupid. We love you. You're very important to us. We. love. you.
Friend: What does that mean?! He also said he loves me! Waaaaaaaaaaaah!

I say it flippantly and he says it to get by. The difference is in intent but aren't we both guilty of throwing those three words around like they mean nothing?

Big Cat.

2011-02-13T19:19:00.003+11:00

A quote from future Troy

2011-02-11T13:48:00.008+11:00

"There's this idea that a person's life is like a staircase… A mistake happens, a lesson is learned, and you're constantly growing and growing until you become older and wiser and then you die…

Life doesn't seem to work that way. I think I believed that it would, that I would try these different things - writing, acting, theater, directing - and somehow it would all make it clear where to go. And instead here I am in the middle of my life, completely lost." -Ethan Hawke

Oh my God! That's so Troy! How did I end up as fucking Troy?! I hate Troy! [Sigh, the establishment owes me a snickers. Or two.]

Saying it out loud

2011-02-09T21:18:00.002+11:00

Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of really lovely friends who I can tell everything but lately I don't feel that I can. And I guess that's why I've been avoiding really blogging because I think if I put those words out there then they are really out there. Never to be taken back.

I feel unhappy. There, I said it.

And if anybody was ever to stop me on the street and ask me how I'm doing I would say 'Good! Chugging along.' I'm not really lying. I am chugging along.

Looking for a job, hanging out with my friends, hoping this sensation will pass because eventually I'll have to talk to someone about it and then it will be real.

I'm hoping these are just post-birthday blues.

Periodically aggravated

2011-02-07T21:04:00.003+11:00

Every once in a while [it's a small world I know] some part of my family will bump into him somewhere and then report back to me about it. If I'm the mood I will just go along with it, and if I'm not in the mood, I feel I'm in the section of Dante's hell where the poor soul is encased in a block of ice. Come 'ere. You're not going anywhere.

H: So I bumped into him.. and he was by himself. He looks single.
M: He looks single. How do you look single?
H: I just feel like he's not with her anymore. He's such a good boy. He's always been such a good boy. And he's always so kind to me!
M: Sure. He's... great.
H: Do you believe in destiny? Do you know some things are just fated to be...
M: .....
Mum: Would you take him back?
M: What are you talking about? No. (much exasperated) You can't go back. There's just no going back. Done. Finito. Basta.
L: But you're getting old. You should be getting worried? You must be a little worried about relationships. Time is running out.
M: !! I. am. not. worried.
L: Why not? You should be.
M: Because I'm not afraid to be alone.
L: Oh**[like it had never occurred to her!]

By the time they were done I felt like I had been waterboarded for 48 hours. Never ever discount Chinese interrogation as a form of torture. And of course, my pissiness manifested itself into shouting. So I shouted at my stepdad and he shouted back at me, and my mum stepped in and tried to shout over us and it was shouting, shouting, shouting.

I'm over him. You'd think my family would be over him too.

Adulthood

2011-02-06T20:02:00.005+11:00

And I may seem all right and smile when you leave
But my smiles are just a front
Just a front, hey
- I Try, Macy Gray

When you're young, no-one ever tells you that acting like an adult requires effort.

I don't want to be the bigger person, I don't even necessarily want to be the kinder person

I will not begrudge someone for caring less for me than I do for them. The temptation is there though.

Welcome to age 28, it's all about extending your hand through your misgivings [of which there are too many].

Happy CNY!

2011-01-31T17:27:00.004+11:00

[Back for a minute] Happy Chinese New Year everyone. May your year of the rabbit be filled with love, family and lots and lots of food.

Listen to your parents, be kinder to your friends and take your fortune cookies with a grain of salt.

Hiatus

2011-01-25T21:38:00.002+11:00

Whatever it is, I lost it and I don't know where to find it. And I give up trying to write about it. I've been staring at the screen for like two hours now and I can't even muster up decent rage.

So universe, do with me what you will. I give up.

Going to take a break from the blogosphere. I'm not dead folks, but I really need some time out.

Apply to reapply

2011-01-20T15:52:00.002+11:00

And this is how I know I'm turning into my mother.

In the car I turn around to Campbell and say "sunscreen?" and she refuses.

When we get to the beach, I offer it to her again. Nope.

We're on the Bronte walk and I give her a "put the sunscreen on" lecture and she breezily replies "Don't worry, I won't burn" [I have on good authority that she will burn because you know I've seen it.]

And then this triangle pink patch starts forming on her shoulder like the beginnings of the Bermuda Triangle.

Lady, you are roasting! And now she starts to believe me.. so she obediently applies.. but I'm thinking it's too late.

She looks concernedly at her shoulder. I think I'm burnt. This is your fault. And then I turn into my mother: I TOLD YOU TO APPLY! and if you complain to me about how much it hurts, I'm going to push you over the insanely pretty cliff.

I hate you. I hate you more.

We head to the beach where I flop over onto my stomach and start reading and Campbell sits on her towel and starts people watching. Our snark radars are up, so we talk about bad tattoos, people's bodies and of course, the sunburn. There are a lot of people with really really bad tanlines.. it's like they're wearing two shirts. Good thing that we ourselves are not burnt right?

I shove the sunscreen at her, your thighs. And she says no worries, I'll just sit on my legs so that they don't get burnt. Okay then.

And she looks okay. Until we get home. Where her sunburn shows up. It looks like pink pizza patterns have been applied all over her body. And she starts freaking out.

AHHHHHH..! AHHHHHHHH..! Oh My God. What happened?! You burnt me!

I know it's really mean but I can't stop laughing. I applied the sunscreen on you! I wasn't randomly slapping you! I told you!

And then she looks down at her thighs which have started turning salmon fresh. And the screaming begins anew.

AHHHHHHH! You killed me! I'm never going outside ever again!

I've never seen anyone drive so fast for a dosage of aloe vera.

I think possibly the two of us [well her more likely] are going to stay out of the sun for a while, and for all my lecturing the bridge of my nose really hurts. I hope it's not sunburn. I only do a passable Rudolph imitation.

Conversations about nothing

2011-01-18T22:52:00.006+11:00

"I think she hates me deep down
I know she does
She wants to erase me
hmmmmmmmmm"
-Erase Me Kid Cudi

I've been dancing around my living room to Erase Me for something like six months. It's what we would call an unhealthy obsession. So at the house party the other day, imagine my delight when this song started to play over the stereo. And then the host started to bust-a-move to it. He had these cool foot swivels going on and he started gyrating.

It was kind of all I could do to keep from squealing like a stuck princess.

Did I mention I'm refraining from total contact with the male species this year? And especially male species of the hipster variety? Well I'm not breaking that two weeks in. Come on, I can hold tight better than that.

So I gulped, gripped the sides of the couch and said very casually. "Cool song."
He smiled "Isn't it?"
Ha. See I'm not the kind of girl who would throw herself at someone just because they got down to one of her favourite songs. I totally am. But I didn't. Does that make me easy?

--

Matty: I'm buying a car!
Mush: What are you buying?
Matty: A Toyota Corolla.
Mush: ........................................ Are you planning on starting a family?
Matty: Haha! No! It's for dating.
Mush: Dating. You need to think about this more carefully. You're not going to impress anyone with your Corolla unless they have kids.
Matty: When they see my Corolla, they'll think I'm stable and responsible. It sends the message that I'll sleep with them but I won't cheat.
Mush: I concede your point.

--

I was having yum cha with my parents, when the trolley lady stopped to offer dumplings to the table. I think she vaguely knew my stepdad and she began to make conversation with him about I can't-remember-what. The weather I think. And then she noticed me [although seriously I don't think she could of really missed me because I was in bright red -you could probably have spotted me from space today]
She turns to him and says: Is this your daughter?
He smiles and says: Yup
TL: Wah! She's so grown up! And you're so young!
Mush: I'm so grown up?
Stepdad: I have an older son too.
TL: Seriously? But you are not that old?
Mum: [joking] He got married in his teens and had them in his teens. Also [gesturing to me] she's only twenty.
Mush: I'm twenty?
TL: Wow. Even though she's twenty, you still had them really young. She's so grown up! [shaking her head, walks off]

Mush: What was that?? Why do I feel insulted by that entire conversation??
My stepdad just smiled and looked proud. What the heck.

Earth from the Air

2011-01-16T21:45:00.003+11:00

I was in Ariel with Speedy today and I was flipping through Yann Arthus-Bertrand's photography book 'Earth from the Air' and this image caught my eye. It's an Iraqi tank graveyard. And I'm really sorry that the picture can't accurately convey the detail of seeing the page up close. But I thought I would share it anyway. It really is something fucking amazing.. seriously go source the book or try the website.

[My travel bug is going haywire lately, I wonder if I should take that leap and just go get a damn TESOL]

The one

2011-01-15T02:28:00.002+11:00

And he said: Looking for the one is, I feel, really emotionally unhealthy. Life is too short. You could search the world and never find them. If I had an eternity, I would do it. But I don't have eternity.

Happy Easter

2011-01-13T22:54:00.003+11:00

Happy Easter! It's what, Jan the 13th? And already they're laying out the Cadbury Cremes [at $1.58 each! When did Easter become a millionaire's holiday?!]

--

Coincidentally while trawling through a HK employment website [yep. Still looking.] one ad for a teacher was very clear to point out that Easter is not a holiday. So lest you be employed by them, you'll be praying during a bathroom break and smuggling chocolate like contraband. They also point out how much fun they are to work for. It's not very convincing
--

Lately life has been very quiet, I don't even know what to say when people ask me what I've been up to. It depresses me when I can't tell them my week was full of naked men, bungee jumping and presidental assassination attempts. So what can be said but "uh, nothing?". It's a conversation killer. I asked for retirement a couple of months ago and now I have it. I kind of like this quiet lifestyle but as always be careful what you wish for [I'm reduced to writing about eggs, people. Eggs.]

Standing in the flood

2011-01-12T10:33:00.003+11:00

I've been watching the news coverage of the Queensland floods and there really is no eloquent way to describe that kind of damage and devastation. I guess a submerged phone booth can say a thousand words.

It's been getting progressively closer and closer to my parent's house. Which I guess makes it all the more real and not just moving images on a television screen. I still can't pick up the phone to call my Dad [we really are more alike than we think] but my brother says that they're good for the moment.

I forgot to ask him if they brought Tess inside. That big crazy dog would probably knock everything over.

The mating call

2011-01-09T22:42:00.005+11:00

People keep asking me why I don't want to get back out there. Imagine someone placed a bucket of dark water in front of you and said that at the bottom there's a gold coin! But before you dump your hand in there, just as a warning - in the bucket there's also hundreds of rats and frogs in there swimming around. The rats are bitey and the frogs are slimy. Enjoy! Would you seriously still put your hand in there??!
No, of course not. Don't be silly.
--

So we're sitting at the table outside the club when we notice some random plunker eyeballing us. This would all be good if he didn't resemble a really really sleazy Kevin Smith [just for the record, I like my Kevin Smiths with wide friendly expressions and mute. Like Silent Bob. I digress.] He stood there and stared for a while as we gossiped and then he decided to pull a move.

I've never seen this move before. It was a brand new move. I give him a one handed clap for audacity.

He slid into the bench opposite us and gave us both a meaningful stare.
And then he proceeded to light the cigarette. Smoke it.
And then blew the smoke directly at us. Several times.

Now if this was a play or something it would go one of two ways -the first being that one of us would be polite and ask him to stop and he would then apologise and then you'd be friends in a meet-cute type situation. I think this was what he thought would happen. Uhm. Poor dude. He misunderestimated how pissed off we get when smoke overpowers our fragrance.

St Mary: What the fuck are you doing?
Not Kevin Smith: !!
St Mary: WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DON'T BLOW THAT SMOKE ON US!
Not Kevin Smith: what.. I..?
St Mary: Didn't you hear me?
[Not Kevin Smith tries to salvage the situation and he lumbers over and pretty much stands over St Mary who is giving him snake eyes. If her ears were on top of her head, they'd be flattened]
Not Kevin Smith: Sorry?
St Mary: DON'T SMOKE ON US. SMOKE OVER THERE. [points in a far off direction ] please.

Not Kevin Smith sulks off back to his friends in the far corner who all give him commiseration pats.

Mush: Ouch.
St Mary: I said please.

--

And then later on in the night, St Mary is approached by some random and he was so suave and memorable that I cannot for the life of me remember what he said. Whatever it was, she completely rebuffed him and he walked off. I looked down at my glass for two seconds and when I looked up, he turned around at the same time - caught my eye and gave me the international symbol for a serious-good-time.

[Sorry, I had to post this random photo so you could see what I mean- I couldn't search anymore, Google now thinks I'm totally perverty. Anyway]

It was so unexpected and funny [seriously who does that?! When did that become a substitute for a goodbye wave??] that I almost fell off my stool, I was laughing hysterically when Miss HK patted me on the hand.

Miss HK: Do you like him? He likes you. You should go and talk to him.
Mush: [trying to regain composure].. he.. what.. you can't be serious... you're totally serious!
Miss HK: Yes.
Mush: [studying her] Lady, that doesn't mean he likes me. He likes something. But it's not me.
Miss HK: ..what do you mean? what does that mean?
Mush: Oh my God, you're so young and cute. I don't want to corrupt your innocence.
Miss HK: St Mary, what does that mean?
St Mary: [laughing] I think you need to think about it!

--

I'm not putting my hand in that goddamn bucket.

4am

2011-01-09T03:21:00.000+11:00

Its 4am and I'm laying in bed listening to the rain outside. I wonder if he thinks about me as well. Would have been, could have been, should have been. Its the hour for nighttime regrets. There are too many things I would've done differently. I'm never plagued like this during the day.

I hate being awake at 4am.

Ramblement

2011-01-05T19:21:00.006+11:00

I ran out of internet credit and so no photo uploading.. until the 15th .. well here's one. Wireless is going to be the death of me.

I love it .. my parents are such goofballs.

Here's a thought: Do you think the dork gene is exacerbated by environment? Say you grew up in a house where there were Peter Parker and Wolverine posters all over the walls - would you grow up dorkier? or would your innate coolness just rise above it souffle-style?
Am I dorky because my parents are dorky? If that's true, does that mean my ancestors were running around the rice fields being really really goofy?

If you've just tuned in - I don't think 2011 is going to be the year of the epiphany. I'm going to stay out [out!] of relationships [Noodle: Geez, don't you think that's going to be hard?] thus most likely cementing my status as that manic pixie dream girl. Except not tied down and not dead and I'm really sick of damaged hipster boys... is it too late to switch to nebbish sidekick?

All I seem to attract is damaged hipsters though. I will not be seduced by pop culture talk this year [or men offering candy and php skills].

I'm so uncertain about where this year is headed that I kind of want to fast forward through it to see where I am at the end [I do realise it's only the 5th]. I need a fortune teller stat.

Back from the holidays and straight from the beach

2011-01-03T00:24:00.032+11:00

**Blogger just deleted 40 photos worth and a billion hours of uploading. Am going to follow my own advice and not rage everywhere. I will just try again tomorrow.

-Put sunscreen on your feet

-Research where the fireworks are actually going to be

-Be the only person you know to wear green converse [Cue exasperated sighs of another pair?]

-Appreciate what you have

-Breathe. This year you're going to learn to breathe properly and you're going to slow the hell down.

Done for 2010!

2010-12-25T00:20:00.007+11:00

She: Your life is so romantic because you see it so romantically. Don't ever change babe ok?

I’ve written and rewritten this thing like three or four times because I can’t accurately convey how momentous 2010 was to me.
I stood awestruck in front of Van Gogh’s Room at Arles and De Kooning’s Woman V. I was in the crowd chanting to Salt N Pepa’s Push It and I sang along with everyone to Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer. I looked Bono in the eye! I danced with 500 people in unison to Greased Lightning. I learnt to drive manual. I was proposed to on a busy street. I was soul wrenchingly-mind blowingly kissed [“Do you know you give me a certain look after we kiss? It’s like you’ve gone away somewhere and then come back. Where do you go Mush?”]
And I picked myself up from the grave because I told myself I could.

Somewhere along the way I found whatever it is that I lost and I bring it with me as I start rebuilding my life in 2011.

It’s been one helluva ride. Merry Christmas everybody. This is my last post for the year –see you on the flip side.

On the motorbike

2010-12-23T08:51:00.002+11:00

Every once in a while, if you can - while you can - you should do something completely spontaneous, random and out of character. So when he said 'I'll take you to see the sunrise on my bike', I just kind of nodded. Oh, what the hell. I don't want to regret never doing this on my death bed [even though, ironically sitting on an unprotected contraption could possibly bring me closer to my death bed anyway].

He blinked. Wow, I didn't think you would agree.

I did not agree to getting up at 4:30.

Seriously sitting on the back of that thing, you start to have really interesting thoughts on the state of your mortality. Namely, you are alive -but it's highly likely that that truck coming round the corner will make you a wee bit dead. Or that car. Any car. A pedestrian. An errant pot hole. Chicken Little.

He kept turning his head to talk to me the entire way [it's kind of funny when your helmets bounce off each other. Wonk. ] and I was feverishly thinking 'eyes on the road! eyes on the road!'
You have to give me credit for not clinging onto him like a deranged koala on my first time.

I'm really glad I did it and its crossed off. But I don't know if I would enthusiastically jump up and down to volunteer for the next ride. I liked it but I'm just not an adrenaline junkie - epiphany 67#.

[On a side note, I may associate motorbikes with death because I grew up watching honkie movies where the protagonist with the motorbike always dies. Thanks for that Andy Lau, I blame you.]

Not enough Campbell in my life

2010-12-22T21:23:00.003+11:00

Campbell: This cop pulled me over and he was all 'I saw you talking on the phone' and I said 'No, I didn't' and he said 'I saw you.' So what could I say except for 'yeah okay fine I did.'
And then I asked him if I could sweet talk him out of it and he said I couldn't.

Mush: You asked if you could sweet talk yourself out of a ticket...AhAHAHAHA.. you did not!

Campbell: I so did.

Mush: Lady, you seriously have balls of steel.

--

And then the two of us walked down the street singing harmonies on What's my name by Rihanna. Oh na na na what's my name? what's my name? And of course talking about how Drake makes us want to drop our milk on the floor too [that's not a euphemism]. I really miss that girl! I didn't get to see her enough this year.

--

I have a big long post to write which I've been writing in my head for about two weeks now but that will have to wait. I take my first motorbike ride tomorrow.. wish me luck yeah? Rounding off 2010 with one last challenge!

Things I'm loving 45#

2010-12-20T16:44:00.002+11:00

Beach House - Norway
Don't you know it's true?

Love it. It feels like driving past a beach at night.

On our way to Bon Jovi!

2010-12-19T12:20:00.001+11:00

He: This is my first concert...
Me: Oh. Really. You're going to lose your concert virginity with me.
He: Yeah, you're going to pop my cherry.

Like a doll

2010-12-16T22:58:00.003+11:00

Whenever I see Mystic Meg, she always tells me I look like a Japanese doll.
Mush: So how do I look?
Mystic Meg: Like a frigging doll. You belong on a shelf.
She's my go-to for a compliment. She really is.

Random Photos December 2010

2010-12-16T22:18:00.006+11:00

So I'm procrastinating.
Procrastinating with writing
Procrastinating with designing a new layout [transparencies are so 2010 no?]

I'm supposed to be sleeping because I have a big day tomorrow.

Look! the road is giving us philosophical code

Someone was clearly high writing copy.

Love love Jay Z

Coincidentally the meaning of life is also u2!

It's a plan.

2010-12-11T02:29:00.002+11:00

Mush: Let's make a deal. If I don't leave in February, we will go to San Francisco together in July, walk around, do nothing.
Speedy: [eyes wide open] Go to a baseball game!
Mush: We will totally go to a baseball game. [Mentally writes that on the bucket list] The 49ers yes?
Speedy: The clubs, we have to hit the clubs.
Mush: Of course. That's a given.
Speedy: Vegas! We have to do Vegas since you did it with your parents last time *breathes in* So. Much. Fun.
Mush: We're agreed?
Speedy: We're agreed!
Mush: Shake!

I love those moments when life just gives you something to look forward to.

---

And what I really needed was to go out and get my dance on. One really good friend, my favourite bar, a shitload of really good songs [Walk this way! Ghetto Superstar! Shook me all night long!] and I feel normal normal like I retrieved something that went missing. It was totally worth another pair of ruined shoes.

Hilariously I bumped into that prostitute recruiter from a few months ago, she's still hanging around there looking for new bait. She didn' t recognise me however and I wasn't about to greet her.

Mexicana: Of course, she didn't recognise you. You're just one of the other prostitutes that got away.
Mush: AHAHAHA. Thanks babes.

Thanks Google Maps!

2010-12-10T00:13:00.005+11:00

When you type 280 George St into Google Maps, it tells you that 280 George St is where A is.
Next to Town Hall, thus across from St Andrew's Cathedral and next to the Police Station.
280 George St is not near any of those places, 280 George St is [and I would think that all you Sydneysiders would get why I'm so mad] is down near Hunter St, close to the Establishment- next to Australia Square Building. That's a good fucking twenty blocks. I've marked the actual location with a little x.

So I was unbelievably late to my meeting [flustered and sweaty is always a good look], I've ruined my heels, and I have something like seven blisters from the experience. I figure I will be limping for the next three days from the looks of things.

When I finally got in, he said to me with a puzzled look "I'm not sure why everyone always thinks that our offices are in Town Hall. You're not the first one." Huh.

Fuck you Google Maps. I say fuck you and my poor feet say fuck you, and just an all round fuck you for dicking people around. And I'm going back to Whereis.. which of course has the right address.

How hard is that? It's only just a major cosmopolitan area! You owe me a new pair of shoes Google Maps but if you gave them to me I would only take them to lob them at your head. /End rant.