'I'm not a racist, but'....

Ah my favourite words. Perhaps I take my role as defender for all minorities (or perhaps in my case, the next superpower minority) too seriously, but I take offense to anything followed by 'racist but'. It evokes massive feelings of rage and while I internally debate whether the imbecile who spoke the forbidden words is worth my wrath, numerous things cross my mind. Should I give them a Chinese burn? No, I have weak, weak arms. Should I smack them in the head? It would be funny, but I'm pretty sure I was raised not to hit people.

So the afore mentioned phrase is, in my experience, always said from the mouths of, I hate to say it, Australians. I hate that I am bagging my peeps again, but do people seriously think if they say that they're not racist, it will justify what's to follow from their mouth? My latest gripe was a comment about Asians. It's usually about 'us' anyway. God there is so many of us that you can pretty much shove 'em all under one, cheaply made umbrella. Sure, we're all the same. We usually do the same dumb things, are all good at maths and just want to study all the time while playing the violin and eating with those damn hard to use chopsticks. Now seriously, come on. Are Europeans all the same? I especially like the fact that people chose to bitch to me, out of everyone, because most people don't realise the girl with half slanty eyes and a fatter nose than most is HALF CHOPSTICK. Duh.

So back to the story. This dude I was sitting next to at dinner the other night started talking about 'the Asians'[insert horror music here]. I'm going to reenact the discussion conversational form so you get the full picture:

Him: 'You know Asians?'

Slanty girl: 'What all of them?'

Him: 'Nah, you know Chinese and Japanese'.

Slanty girl: 'Yeah what about them?'

Him: 'Did you ever notice that they all wear bike helmets backwards?'

Slanty girl: 'Um, no, I haven't'.

Him: 'They all do, can't they get it right?'

Seriously, what do you do with someone like this?

It's official

London and I are back together. After a few testing months, we are now back on track and stronger than ever. For some reason it happened when I was coming back from Spain. It’s a little absurd because I was returning to grey, cold, ugly weather after being in sunshine for 9 whole days. But Vanessa (I'm referring to my friend not my split personality) and I sat on the plane, making a list of all the things we wanted to do when we got back. And then I fell back in love again. It was almost beautiful.

The past weekend Megs and I went to Bestival, my first proper English festival. Boy, was it everything an English festival should be. Mud, rain, wind, camping and an incoherent Amy Winehouse. It was so much fun though. I’ve never seen that much mud before. Everyone looked like zombies trying to trudge through it in their wellies. On the Saturday of the festival, everyone got dressed up to the theme of 30 000 freaks under the sea. Megs and I went as drowned airlines hostesses. I’ve congratulated myself a little too much on this effort because usually I suck at fancy dress. Cassie can back me up on this for the years of 2001-2006 (except for the time I did the vampire costume). I also reignited my love for toasties over the weekend and now they are my lunch of choice for the next week. Melted cheese goodness.

Work is a lot better too. I’ve now actually done something worthwhile. By worthwhile, I of course don’t mean for the good of mankind, but more something that I can actually put in my book. It’s only taken a year and a half. The only problem with this new ‘enthusiastic’ Vanessa is that it’s sucking the life out of me. I used to be able to go to the gym after work and now make a time to catch up with friends. Now, I can’t remember the last time that happened. This is the price you pay for being on the radar. The blip is now a faint ringing in my ear. Kind of like that annoying buzz that people who have to sleep with the tv on get.