Give Me Wood

Life lesson no. 34

2011-07-13T18:56:00.000+01:00

Everyone is fucking nuts.

Growing up, I thought everyone was pretty much the same as I was with the exception of fat and weird Luke Berch, Annabelle James who smelt like piss and Bradley Jones who was the Mormon. When I got older, I decided 10% of the population were 'weird' and the rest were what I considered 'normal'. Then, after realising not everyone liked talking about poo as much as I did, were not freaked out by people touching their elbows and didn't mind feet touching their pillows, it dawned on me that I should probably move over to the minority.

However, after 6 weeks in France and meeting such a broad range of people from all walks of life, I've decided that everyone is delightfully weird in varying degrees. Some people, for instance, only eat with one type of cutlery and freak out if you give them another, others input the number of lengths they've swum in their ten metre pool and then plot it by day, temperature and weather condition. Some find the combination of full moon and humid weather messes up their Shakra which they proceed to tell you about over and over and over again.

There's the saying that there's always someone younger and prettier than you (or is it older and uglier?) but what I'm proud to report back is that there's always someone fucking weirder than you and surely that's a more comforting thought?

Same same but different

2011-06-12T10:06:00.002+01:00

It's crazy how you can go from one life to another and you feel no change. Where was the waking up in a different place, a different bed and not know where I was? WHERE IS THE FANFARE AND FIREWORKS BRAIN?! Despite it only being two weeks, living in France, in the countryside, with cows, it feels completely normal. Sure, I've always had breakfast in the Chateau kitchen, gone into stranger's rooms and made their beds, gone for afternoon bike rides through rolling green pastures dotted with grazing cows. I know I used to live in London, I used to have a job, sit on the tube for two hours a day, go to meetings where fuckwits told me unsolvable problems were my creative challenge. I remember falling asleep to the sound of tramps throwing bottles at one another, but my new reality has shoved that all aside.

So this makes me wonder, just how much can you fuck around with your life and your brain will just fool you into think it's completely normal?

Me: I'm through with being a woman. I'm going to be a man now.

Brain: I mean, you're going to have to change all your bank account details etc but OK, sounds fun, let's do it!

Me: From tomorrow onwards I am going to write poetry, develop a phobia of jackets and will only answer to the name Shaniqua.

Brain: Shaniqua is a shit name, but I could work with it if you decided to make it ghetto spoken word?

The possibilities are endless!

The end

2011-05-30T10:11:00.002+01:00

I can't actually believe it but the time has come again to pack up and say goodbye. I'm not entirely sure where the last four years have gone but they been the best of my life thus far. It's hard to explain without sounding like a gigantic knob, but London has helped me turn into the person I was supposed to be and for that, I'm incredibly thankful. I fucking love this city, it gives as much as you're willing to take. I'm going to miss it and the people I've met along the way but I know I'll be back, so that helps make leaving ok.

As is the way with life, as one things ends, another begins and you can't really be too sad when you're about to bum around the world for the next 5 or so months.

So here's to London and bumming.

Always close but never quite close enough

2011-04-24T09:15:00.002+01:00

I've always prided myself on the fact that despite it being 13 years since I left high school, I've always been able to remember a basic amount of French. And it's taken me far dammit. I've used this to smash down language barriers throughout my travels; haggling in Morocco, finding my way on the streets of Paris, communicating with wayward bus drivers in Spain, conversing with randoms in a park in Tokyo. And sure, it was never perfect. I don't know my numbers between 40-99, so haggling involved me protesting something was too expensive but never being able to name a price and upon asking for directions, I could never remember left from right, but still, I COMMUNICATED.

Recently, my French wall of pride has crumbled slightly. The other night I revealed to a friend who speaks fluent French that despite my poor 'vocabulaire' I could get around places, like shops for example, with relative ease. To demonstrate my grasp of the language, I even said my standard shop phrase to her; 'je regarde', which I thought meant, 'I'm just looking'. After she recovered from what I soon realised wasn't admiration, I found out I'd been walking around saying 'I look' like a broken robot: I look, I look, I look. Embarrassing but not as embarrassing as what I found out last night.

As part of my French phrase repertoire, I often crack out one of my favourite, most useful phrases; 'can you repeat that more slowly please'? After my mother, fluent in French, almost fell off her chair and started hyperventilating from laughing too hard, she pointed out that I'd been saying, 'can you repeat that more softly please'.

I've been making the people of France speak more quietly for years now.

Wegetables

2011-04-21T21:43:00.003+01:00

Wegetables. That's what my dad says because he can't pronounce his V's. That means I'm Wanessa and apparently I look wery much like a wegetarian. Well, he doesn't think that but a lot of other people do. Without a word of a lie, I'm asked once a month if I'm a vegetarian. Do I have an air of carrot about me? Do I look like a meat hater? Do I look anemic? I've asked all these questions but no one can explain the reason for asking. Apparently, I just look like one. But what does that even mean? If I was going to generalise, I'd say the person doing wide, interpretive dancing down the street wearing tie dyed fisherman pants, smelling like chickpeas and hairier than a Yeti would most likely be a vegetarian. Sure, I'm on the yellow looking side and maybe that makes people think I love corn but I'm a proud meat eater. I've eaten marrow and goddamn it, I order my steaks medium rare.

I'm not a fucking wegetarian ok?

This is how I feel today

2011-04-13T13:42:00.002+01:00

Here marks the inclusion of imagery in this blog. I'm so 2011.

Goodbye dorms, it was fun, really

2011-04-11T21:06:00.004+01:00

The other week I was defending my choice of hostel accommodation when travelling. I stated meeting people and the low price as the two main reasons for me being an almost 30 year old hostel devotee. I was questioned as to whether I might be too old to be still doing the hostel thing. I didn't think so. I'm Australian, I have a backpack, I'm somewhat free spirited. Sure, I earn enough money to stay in a hotel, but why splash out on a nice room when all you do is sleep there? So I was feeling pleased with my argument until the one fateful night in Paris a couple of weeks ago.

My woman Skinner took me to Paris for an amazing pre-birthday treat. We had roughly 35 hours in the city and we weren't going to waste a second except for the nine times we got lost trying to find our hostel and the hours spent walking down every side street in the Marais looking for a particular tea shop we'd found two years ago. Our hostel room was standard for Paris, actually, I'd almost say above standard. We were sharing with two others. The first was a Eastern European mute with a laptop and Blackberry (backpackers are totally flush these days) and an American woman in her late fifties. For the sake of the story I'm going to call her Peggy. Let's take a moment to focus some kind of suppressed anger towards her.

Excellent.

Now Peggy had an encyclopedia worth of random bits of paper about the city. She had way more than me and that's saying something. But that's not why we hate her. Peggy seemed fairly harmless until darkness hit. She and the mute were already asleep when we got back from dinner. We were very quiet as we got into our bunks but it wouldn't have made a difference if we'd come in with a kazoo parade because Peggy the Freight Train was already well underway her cross country trip into hell right underneath me. Now, I have to explain that I was very tired due to lack of sleep. Skinner was worse as she had jet lag to deal with too. I consulted with Skinner as to what I should do. She suggested shaking the bed. I did, nothing happened. Then something unthinkable happened. Skinner fell asleep and I was left with the piercing torture of Peggy's snores. I shook the bed at ten minute intervals for two hours. She'd stop for about 2 minutes but the pressure of trying to sleep in those 2 minutes was too much for my frayed nerves and she'd start back up again. After a particularly hard shake, Peggy woke up. I begged her to stop snoring. Peggy looked at me blankly and went to the toilet. When she came out, I begged her again in a desperate whisper to stop snoring and asked her to sleep on her side. Again, she ignored me but she did go to sleep on her side and finally, I went to sleep.

Then next morning Peggy slammed the door on her way out at about 7am. I gather she didn't take to me but I don't care, I had a moment of realisation. So as a result, I've graduated from dorm rooms.

Turns out I kept Skinner awake with all my huffing, puffing and bed shaking. Clearly she has a very good pretend to be sleeping face. It's almost like method acting I think. Clearly I don't have the talent or patience for that.

I think we all learnt something from Peggy.

Paris was awesome though.

More age does not equate to a surprise skill

2011-03-22T23:04:00.002Z

So I've just tried my hand at sewing again. Turns out 15 more years of life experience ain't worth shit because I still suck at it as much as I did in the glory* days or perhaps more accurately, the days when I hadn't quite grown into my nose (this is another story). It's funny when you find yourself having weird life flashbacks, I guess that's when you realise you're definitely getting old. I had moments tonight when I found myself back in Mrs Coates' Textiles and Design class cutting crookedly, sewing crookedly and generally being useless. I'd like to think that my subconscious was trying to sabotage the fact Mrs Coates had bullied me into making 3/4 shorts (my idea – it was cool, it was the 90s afterall) with a matching waistcoat! What the fuck?! Was she trying to get me beaten up?

I would like to report I do have something to show for tonight – a kind of crooked (expected), newly shortened dress with slate coloured thread because I couldn't be bothered changing the bobbin on the sewing machine.

You can never progress out of laziness nor does skill develop with time, that's a fact.

*LIAR, I was fugly!

Food shopping hell

2011-02-12T15:32:00.001Z

I remember the days when I thought going to the supermarket in my CAR, wheeling the trolley around the UNCROWDED aisles of Adelaide, having a conversation with the checkout dude/chick while THEY PACKED MY BAGS and then hopping back in my CAR to drive home was a drag. Oh, how I miss those days. How wrong I was to take this miracle for granted, for no one knows pure food shopping EVIL until they've come with me.

Weekend food shopping makes me never want to leave my house again. Weekend after weekend of food shopping makes L and I swear we'll never do it again. Yet we go back for more because we're suckers and because home delivery is for special occasions. Well, you know what, life is a special occasion and we're ruining ours with this weekly rage. You're probably thinking I'm over reacting but I'm really not. Our local shopping centre is probably the most ethnically diverse in the world. While this makes the place interesting and great for going out to eat, it also means we've got the most ethnically diverse walkers in the world. Just getting to the entrance of the supermarket means having to dodge the Asian shufflers (slow), Caribbean strutters (slow), Polish wanders (slow), Turkish grannies (extremely slow), Kurdish young families (no self awareness and slow) amongst the various teenage mums with their 3 snotty kids. Then, once you get in the supermarket, it's pretty much at full capacity. Everyone blocks the aisles with their trolleys. No one lets you through and when they do, you'll get glared at like you're in their way. After you've dodged various future criminals, you have the pleasure of lining up for an obscene amount of time, largely due to the fact you always choose the lane where the person two in front is arguing over the price of a £1 bag of frozen potato gems. When you get to the checkout, the girl there will most probably ignore you because your presence is a massive inconvenience while she's trying to flirt with Deshawn over at the next till.

However getting home is probably the most pleasurable. Between the two of you, you'll have a whole weeks worth of food that you're carrying in backpacks and also in bags. Because no one else has a car, everyone is waiting at the same bus stop trying to get on the same buses as you are. If you keep a hold of your bags, you'll lose all feeling in your hands. If you put them down on the pavement, some lady will run over them with her wheelie bag while trying to get in front of you in the line for the bus or some little shit will reverse into your eggs with their bike. When you finally get on the bus, it'll be packed and you won't be able to hold on because some fat kid whose parents don't bother teaching him manners will lean against the pole so your fingers can't wrap around it. Or, you'll have some crazy ass lady kissing her teeth at you because she wants you to move. The trouble is, there's no space to go anywhere. This however, is not her problem and she will continue to mutter under her breath until you get off. For ten hellish minutes, you'll be stuck in the doorway, teeth kisser one way, fat kid the other and from behind, someone's bag in your back. When the doors open, they do so inwards, so if you put your bags down, they get squashed by the doors if they're not picked up in time. You'll end up getting off and on the bus four times because of these fucking doors. Then you'll get home and swear you'll never do that shit again and write a blog entry to remember how bad it was.

Post 1

2011-01-28T20:59:00.001Z

I can’t begin to describe how much I hate coming up with names of things. I have no idea how I’m going to be able to name my child. My one and only goldfish had a weekly name because I couldn’t make my mind up. Although, most of my problem is not indecision, it’s lack of skill. Unfortunately, coming up with names for things is something I have to do on a weekly basis. During the naming process I develop some weird thesaurus-y tourettes where I just start yelling out random words or alliterations (they’re always an easy win: Terror Train, Slaughter on the Streets). To me, the whole thing is just as a pointless exercise as spending copious amounts of time trying to choose wrapping paper: both will inevitably thrown in the bin.

I just don’t understand why people don’t like the minimalistic approach of naming things like ‘Idea 1’ or, if they want more detail, ‘The idea that involves some kind of talking panda’.

On another note, I’ve been neglecting my blog for the last couple of months. I’m severely unmotivated at the moment. Nothing I go to write seems interesting to me let alone anyone else anymore. Cynicism and apathy has truly taken over. Maybe I’ll snap out of it, I hope I will, but maybe it’s time for something new.

Snow guns

2011-01-01T15:34:00.002Z

Adrenalin is the only explanation for the story I'm about to tell you. Well, that or my 2.5 kilo weights are doing way more than I thought. You know those moments when you have these blazing realisations like 'I don't know how to make fire' or 'how do you spear a fish'? Well, I realised the first time we got the car stuck in the snow while on holiday in the Cotswolds that I am so city. I have no idea how cars get out of snow. I have no idea which way wheels are supposed to be spun. And while trying to dig a wheel out of the snow with a spade for midgets, I realised I didn't really know the right snow shoveling technique either. However, I also realised none of this matters when you're in the heat of the moment. Somehow, your body just knows what to do. So picture two city kids in the middle of a dark, snowy country road. We have missed our turn off because the stupid iphone GPS blob is about 5 minutes delayed and those fold out maps are so 90's. Luke decides to do a three point turn in the middle of the road. Bad idea as the car gets stuck in the snow on a slightly downward incline on the side of the road. I decide to get out and push seeing as though I don't have my midget shovel with me. As I'm doing a rather pathetic push with the wheels spraying snow in my face, I notice the headlights of an oncoming car in the distance. Luke sees it too. He begins to doubt my strength and asks whether I know how to reverse the car. I am indignant. The stupidity of this question (as I have been driving since I was 16 and he knows this) combined with the car in the distance awakens something animalistic and hulk-like inside me. So I grunt and start pushing the car out of the snow like a fucking workhorse ploughing frozen potato fields in Communist Russia. The car is free and the three point turn is complete. It is an understatement to say I was pleased with myself.

Welcome to 2011.

Awkward work moment no. 6,899

2010-12-03T11:03:00.001Z

On Wednesday night after some 'organised fun' I was standing around a man meat circle with each of the various species trying to outdo their bowling (yes, bowling) scores. Losers. Anyway, after practically beating their chests and grunting, I decided to make a joke. Now, I admit, it wasn't my funniest but it was a kind of mix of sarcasm and a joke, you know, easily pass-off-able but worthy of at least a ‘ha’. So, after the last score was grunted I then said:

‘Why don’t we just all get our cocks out?’

[INSERT 15 SECONDS OF SILENCE AND AWKWARDNESS]

It occurred to me during the canyon of conversation killer silence I had made several mistakes. The first was to assume the Neanderthals had realised they were competing in a macho bowling score showdown. They had not, in fact, amongst the circle this was probably considered ‘conversation’. The second mistake was to not quantify my joke. The third was not to laugh after the delivery to encourage a sympathetic response. I really need to work on my reaction times. Or my jokes.

Work Walk

2010-11-23T13:44:00.000Z

Five minutes ago, as I walked to the toilet, it occurred to me that I was walking really oddly. As I thought about it some more and suffered various walking flashbacks, I realised: I have a work walk. AND IT’S WEIRD. Imagine, if you care to, a really upright body, swingy arms and then power walking technique legs. I don’t understand how this has come about, I don’t walk like this in normal life, at least, I don’t think I do. Or do I? It’s like my body is trying to exude some kind of exterior professionalism to make up for my day to day lack of pizzazz. Or perhaps it’s to absorb some of the impact of the wooden flooring thus helping to prevent whiplash of the poor pervs turning around at the sound of female footsteps, hoping for a hot account handler and instead getting ROBOT WOMAN.

Must find new job in a carpeted place.

A theory

2010-11-07T22:20:00.003Z

I have a theory that I'm actually five years younger than I really am. Perhaps my mother got confused and it wasn't really 1981 when I was born. Perhaps she got knocked in the head while peeling a potato (she likes potatoes) and lost a couple of years. Or perhaps it was 1986 while she was peeling the potato and WHAM, got hit and then thought it was 1981. All I can say is that something isn't right. I am stunted.

Do you ever speak to someone, giggle when they say something like 'large box' and then realise they are a. an adult and b. younger than you? I constantly feel like a child and I don't know when this will ever stop. Adults know stuff. They know what certain trees are, how to get stains out of things and know about bank loans. I don't think my child is ever going to say to me 'mummy, can you name all of the actors from Beverly Hills 90210?' (the original version) and then look at me with that child-like wonder when I have answered his or her question successfully despite it being twenty years since I watched the show.

My friends are having or have already had kids and it makes me feel weird. Not weird in a bad way, more weird in a detatched way. Sure, it's geographical, I guess it's also partly because when I think about them, I think of them as teenagers. I think of how my mum would get worried about me getting in the car with them and now they're mothers themselves. It must be strange for mothers to see their children have children. I think it's more in a HA way than a 'my baby has had a baby way'. Because really, it's a cycle of payback. Whatever shit you gave to your parents, your children will quadruple it. I guess part of the weirdness is also because I left my friends in a certain way and I remember them in a certain way. It's strange because you put memories of people in boxes in your brain, but of course, life moves at an amazing speed and nothing ever stays the same. But that, of course, is not such a bad thing.

So in conclusion, I am stunted but this has been a pattern throughout my life. By the time I turned 18 and 21 the season of parties had long gone and by the time I could get my licence, I had missed the swatting up of road signs at lunchtime. Therefore, the ways of adulthood will come but not just yet. Thank fuck because I'd hate to have to buy booties over necessities like Mexican wrestling masks.

A realisation. Of what, I'm not sure.

2010-11-01T19:36:00.002Z

Tonight I was trying to insert a rather large lemon up my chicken's ass. It took so much effort that I actually grunted and had to use both my body weight as well as the wall to get that sucker in.

This is how I imagine childbirth to be. Except obviously reversed.

Modern times

2010-10-29T10:06:00.001+01:00

This is how modern shit works: make friends on the internet and then do this

Awkward conversation with an authority figure no. 57

2010-10-27T13:04:00.002+01:00

I am playing art director seeing as though DWad is on holidays.

Yesterday, as I was checking an ad, I realised that the copy flowed over the dude's crotch. Being the subtle rose I am, I went to the designer to get this fixed using the words 'the copy is on his cock'. Being the polite Englishman, he too had noticed it but had chosen not to say anything. So together, we moved it around so the word 'download' wasn't right on top of his knob.

Onto the awkward bit.

I had to show the ad to the creative director who is pretty much like a dad. A kind dad who would probably refer to his penis as 'my winkle' or 'my wife's best friend' – that's if he'd even talk about it at all. As he was looking over it, he looked at the copy which was now resting delicately between an arm and the penis and mentioned it was quite close to his arm. Now, at this point, my brain did set an alarm off to try and handle this in a ladylike manner. However, because I was trying so hard and I had realised I had taken slightly too long to answer I said, rather loudly,

"It's like that because THE COPY WAS ON HIS COCK!!!!"

The trials of an artist

2010-10-25T10:13:00.000+01:00

I recognise I have annoying traits. Sometimes I find my face annoying, so I feel for the people who have to look at it everyday. Apparently before I eat, I make a tutututut noise with my mouth ¬– this is no doubt in anticipation of lunch deliciousness the work canteen/Tesco offers. Then, after the afore mentioned lunch, I do another tutututut noise. This is probably my brain and mouth working in harmony, thinking about the chocolate I am going to eat at about 2:30.

But this isn’t all about me. Let’s talk about other annoying people. Like the woman in my drawing class yesterday who ‘mmmmmed’ at everything the tutor said. AND I MEAN EVERYTHING.

“I’m blind in one eye” = mmmmmmm
“Just loosen up your arm” = mmmmmmm
“Let’s do the roll call” = mmmmmmm

It was like she was trying to kill me. Then, I had to deal with the girl next to me who was squeaking her charcoal against the paper. Seriously, people should have more consideration for people (freaks) whose mouth waters and body shudders at such sounds.

And a final question to you all, if you were called Melinda, why in the hell would you prefer to be called Mindy?

Hot or not

2010-10-16T17:27:00.002+01:00

Apparently I'm not a early adopter. When I say apparently, there's no real room for ambiguity, so let me start that again.

I'm not an early adopter.

I don't have an iphone. I don't even have a cool phone. I have a freebie that turns off all the time. Actually, I don't even have a phone contract.
I only got into pointy shoes 5 years after they were cool.
I bitched about skinny jeans for a year before filling my drawer full of them.
I refused to use predictive text until 2008 or was it 2009?
AND I STILL LOVE HOTMAIL.

I have been abused by player haters for my continued usage of this little blue wonder. Oh, I've been battered with words like 'intuitive, user friendly, accessible' and more hurtful ones like 'loser' but they're just empty promises and cutting words that do not cut me. Hotmail is da shit. It's aesthetically pleasing, it's easy to use and it happens to have all of my emails from the past 11 years.

It has suddenly occurred to me that people outside the pioneering world of advertising knows what the fuck an early adopter is. Nor do they probably care.

Oh god. I'm hotmail using, jargon dropping wanker.

Home

2010-09-30T15:37:00.003+01:00

I think I've talked about this before, but sometimes I find myself confusing life in Australia with life in London. Sometimes I think about a biscuit or a shop and I won't be able to remember which country it was in.

It's hard to describe, but I remember for a good year of living in London, I'd always talk about Australia as being home. I'd talk about things back home, life back home, biscuits back home. I'd long for a pasty or a bottle of Solo. I'd actually physically miss these things. And then one day, home changed. I'd be returning from a holiday and suddenly, I couldn't wait to be home in London.

I've always thought it was a bad thing, a sad thing, to be a person whose home was a part of two countries, or even three or four. I always thought they felt misplaced, not quite belonging anywhere; a bit here, a bit there. I always thought I wouldn't want that to be me. But now, somehow, it is me. And I think it's ok.

A potential skill

2010-09-26T21:49:00.003+01:00

I think I could be a human sniffer dog.

Now, before you all go trying to Google this as a potential career change for me (thanks for your support, it means a lot), there isn't such a thing. But if there was, I'd totally be leashing myself up trying to find missing children and bad smells in cars. Honestly, I have a very keen, some might say acute, sense of smell. I only wish I could put it to good use. For the skeptics out there, I'll list some of the things I have smelt before others or as a lone smeller. Before I start, let me just preface it by saying some smells might seem everyday/trivial/hey, I've smelt that before, but I'll repeat it for you again, 'smelt before others'.

* Specific butterscotch feet smell
* Burning pan handle
* Match burning off poo
* Bad smelling jeans
* Shoes off under the table
* Scalp/unwashed hair
* Fake tan users
* Sometimes my own snot (too gross?)

Skilled, right?

Knobs

2010-09-24T12:35:00.000+01:00

I’m always reluctant to discuss work colleagues on this blog. But then again, there was The Penis and Angry Little Man, who I felt if I hadn’t mentioned them, I’d be doing you, my readers, a disservice. So I find myself once more with this quandary. I have battled and the need to share has won again. So here we go.

I am surrounded by knobs.

Honestly, I am like a moth to their knob flame. Due to my low tolerance of people, I had to check with Partner D to see if I was being harsh. He had quite rightly not informed me of their knobage upon my return from holiday incase it tarnish my view of them. Turns out they are knobs. Big ones. Big, brass, posh, brown nosing knobs. I applaud people with enough of a blindly optimistic love of advertising to have the desire to climb the ladder, but for the love of shelf wobblers, be subtle about it. Please, I have a highly sensitive advertising gag reflex.

Let me recount yesterday’s conversation with them.

Scene: I have just got into work. It’s been raining and I have an umbrella in my hand. It’s 9:30 am, official creative start time.

Me: Hi
Knobs: Hi, is it raining outside?
Me: Yep
Knobs: That’s what you get for being late.

WHAT. THE. FUCK. This would be the third time the time police have mentioned what time I get in.

Knobs.

Deep fried balls

2010-09-17T21:27:00.003+01:00

Hello everyone,

It's me. I'm back from Italy, slightly pudgier and sporting rather weird tan marks where I decided to cleverly wipe my legs with sunscreen, kind of in a 'I've just washed my hands after going to the toilet' way.

It's always hard talking about a holiday after it has happened. Naturally people ask how it was. My conversations usually go like this:

'How was your holiday?'

'Yeah it was good thanks?' (this is the point where I make a note that they may or may not want me to expand on this)

So let's pretend you're interested in my holiday and I'll pretend like I'm good at building a cohesive and interesting story in my head that can then be filtered down and out of my mouth.

Rome is one of those places that absolutely drips with history. Around every corner, even under every footpath, history smacks you in the face or is waiting to smack you in the face if they ever get around to excavating more of it. If Paris were a woman, she would be the girl next door, if Rome were a woman, she would be a dirty blonde that probably wasn't wearing any undies.

Naples is intimidating at first. But after the initial paranoia that everyone is a pickpocket, it's got one hell of a personality. Sure, it's not as pretty as its neighbours but you come to realise that it's the slightly fat guy who has a great personality that you learn to love and who bizarrely has a rather large shoe collection on every street corner.

And then there's Pompeii, my childhood dream. I've nerdily been wanting to go there since 1992 after doing a talk where I was encouraged by my mother to dress up in Roman garb and bring a vile of sulphur for everyone to smell for dramatic effect. Truthfully, I'm lucky I didn't get beaten up for being such a brown noser. Regardless of my lack of 90's cool that I'm still waiting for, Pompeii was amazing. I prepared myself to be disappointed but I didn't have to worry about facing such lows because it was nothing but a historical high. Seriously, how can you not be thrilled by walking through a city preserved for thousands of years? And it had a brothel! You could choose your sexual positions by pointing to a picture above the door - genius! I inhaled history that day. INHALED IT. Dreams were made.

Sorrento's highlight was the locally caught fish I ate for dinner, seaside, around the corner from all the tourists.

Capri was ruined by a little something I like to call God's Piss (I just made that up actually) otherwise called rain. The good thing to come out of Capri was a fantastic in room picnic with marinated aubergine and getting to lesson 45 of French with Michel Thomas.

Sicily was not quite what I expected. But if you want to eat some amazing pizza and risotto balls, go to Chefalu on the north coast. It's a cute town with a 7/10 beach, burning sunsets and great food.

Can I tell I'm getting bored of typing?

Second wind.

Holidays are great in the fact that you want to eat everything in sight. Is 1030am too early for gelati? Hell no, have two. Holidays are not so great that after 12 days of pastries for breakfast, even the thought of custard filling only gets half an ooh. But having said, I'm definitely not complaining. Deep fried risotto balls so yummy that they stop you talking for a good two minutes. And Sicilian pizza is mind blowing - especially when it's for breakfast. Equally as delicious are crunchy filo pastry parcels filled with orange zest and ricotta.

Tired now.

Ciao.

Paris

2010-09-01T17:32:00.001+01:00

I have muchos newsos so I’m going to feed it in as slowly as the storyline of Clark and Lois’ romance on The New Adventures of Superman.

First off, I went to Paris on the weekend.

I love Paris. I wish my mother had forced me to speak French as soon as I left the womb. It would have made me a much cuter child or at least deflected attention from the bald patch and boy looks if I was running around saying things like ‘oui maman, c’est jambon’. But unfortunately, she chose to converse with me in English and each time I go to France, my high school French gets worse and worse. Trying to dredge up lessons from 11+ years ago makes my brain feel like a sausage dog trying to walk up stairs for the first time.

I guess what I love about the city is just the feeling of oozy decadence. It’s ridiculous, rude, beautiful and proud. Walking on the white stone paths of the Luxembourg Gardens makes me feel grand. Eating a falafel in the Marais fills a hole of hunger like you wouldn’t believe. Trying to choose a cake in Laduree is almost impossible. But perhaps the most wonderful thing about it is that I can go and experience all these amazing things at the drop of a hat. I’m lucky, I know I am. For all the grey skies, rainy days and cold winters I complain about, it’s all worth it for a weekend in Paris.

Dripping

2010-08-17T12:20:00.003+01:00

Yesterday, I likened the loss of another year of youth like the slow draining of Halal meat. Of course, I recognise the over dramatising of this inevitable situation. It’s just a birthday and I’m just another piece of aging meat. But you know, no biggie. I’ll just be over there, hanging upside down, dripping, ready to be devoured by mankind.

Sorry.

As a sign of my new found maturity (I think I might be finding it this year) I have managed to complete most things on my list. Sure, my financial awareness is still low and I’ve failed on the one dream I have (to get an article published), but hell, at least I’ve managed to make sushi.

The list for next year might perhaps be grander, more worldy and wise. It might include things like ‘clean venetian blinds’ or ‘learn correct use of apostrophes’. It might even include climbing some sort of mountain. Note, during that last sentence, I just had a brilliant, mature, go-getter thought! I’ve decided to make the list 30 things to do before 30 and goddamn it, I’m going to tick off every fucking one.

To aging and blessed meat!

Sausage swapping

2010-08-15T21:47:00.003+01:00

I held hands with a man last night whose fingers were like uncooked sausages.

I also held hands with a man wearing a spotty neck kerchief and whose name was probably Marc.

And finally, I also held hands with a man, who, if he ever managed to have sex with someone, would afterwards stain a dozen white roses in droplets of his blood and then stand outside that someone's bedroom window pulling off each petal and licking them. Or something to that effect.

Swing dancing classes are as equally fun as they are disturbing. It's the single freak man's dream. Not only do they get to touch a real life woman, they get to touch a roomful of WOMEN. It's the ultimate excursion from porn. For someone who doesn't like being touched by strangers, let alone petal licking freaks, I had to make a conscious effort not to do 'my face'. For those who haven't seen this afore mentioned 'face', it can only be described as what your own face would look like if a stranger took a shit on your shoe, but a lot less animated. So I guess it would be, more accurately, deadpan shit on your shoe.

But back to the lessons.

The whole swing dance thing is almost literally swinging. You can go to these lessons alone or with a partner, it doesn't really matter because you end up swapping. A lot. Good for singles, good for first time women touchers, not good for those who when faced with raw sausage hands wants to vomit. With each new partner, it's such an intimate position and situation that you don't know where to look. You can't look into their eyes because that's just excruciating (especially if they're counting at you 'one, two, rock step'), so you both look at the floor, or a shoulder, anywhere to avoid that awkward moment of eye contact that inevitably happens. And then it begins again with the next call of a partner swap. But it's not all bad, it's actually quite fun, especially when you get back to the person whose hands you'd much prefer to be holding. Oh and being able to wash your hands after. Twice.

Snoozing stars

2010-08-08T23:20:00.002+01:00

I was pretty sure my half an hour Planetarium visit this weekend was going to be the cliff notes version of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Everything (while this is a VERY interesting book, my retention rate is about 1 - err, neurons or something?). Anyway, I thought my brain might go all spongy and I'd be able to report back and tell you everything about the universe etc.

Turns out the Planetarium seats are VERY comfortable.

So much so, after noting that the whole reclining back and shooting through the night's stars was very cool, I suddenly found myself extremely sleepy. I tried blinking a lot. Moving my head around. Wiggling. Doing large, wide eyes to stop drooping.

It didn't work. I fell asleep with my mouth open as we learnt about dwarf stars and what planets we could see in that night's sky.

So disappointing. I guess I can report an astronomer with a west country lisp talking you through space is VERY soothing.

Double fister of tag team hell

2010-07-22T18:28:00.002+01:00

fhjkshdfjkhewuinsdjknjkdnfjkdnfjknvd

Thanks,
Hx

AHRHGHGHHGHGHGHGHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Why do you nice people try and kill me with your abbreviated names and plentiful kisses?

Can you:

1. Type your name in full (unless your name is Fannyjalitousia, then I'll understand the cropping)
2. Don't kiss me when you don't know me and knowing me doesn't count if your role in life is giving me work
3. Just please, please, STOP

That is all.

Now

2010-07-18T23:03:00.004+01:00

Sometimes, I find it amazing that from a sea of nobodies, one day, you find your somebody.

It could have been anyone, from anywhere, yet at that point in time, you chose them and they chose you.

And then suddenly, somehow, they become a part of you. To the point where you can't think of a time when they didn't exist with you. Everything before seems like a series of jagged steps, simply there to lead you to what is real now. Completely intertwined in your being; your life, your breath at night, even your choice of dinner, they become an extension of you.

And so this is what happens when you take two nobodies, unsuspecting and unknowing, that one day, they will become eachother's somebodies.

Going offline with mackerel

2010-07-05T22:27:00.005+01:00

I was in a meeting today where buzz words were shot from this one man's mouth like spittle from an old folks home.

For the first 15 minutes of the meeting I was completely lost on what the fuck he was talking about. He showed numerous charts that I forced myself to read in the hope that I could understand why I was there and being subjected to watching my life slip away. Sadly, nothing registered in the mature side of my brain, so I instead busied myself pretending we were all fish living in the deep sea, communicating through warbles and waiting for some plankton to drift into our mouths. When I become bored of that, I tried to listen again. And boy, what a treat that was. Spotting a post-it pad on the table, I began to take notes. Readers, I'm sorry for my fish fantasy, who knows what kind of gold I missed.

But in order of delivery, here are my notes:

'We need a visual mnemonic" (I had to look up the definition as I could only recite the Keanu Reeves movie with this name)

"We have brand schizophrenia" (HA!)

"Communication stimulous" (I'm thinking some kind of Powerpoint presentation gang bang here)

"We need proof of brand life" (I'm losing MY life here)

"On a macro level" (I wrote 'mackerel' in the meeting but I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking fish)

"Let's complete the loop here" (If you say so cowboy)

"We want to create linear experiences" (Jesus)

"Make it granular" (One teaspoon or two?)

And finally, my favourite:

"Let's say we have four animals. Let's club one and call it three"

GAAAAAAAAH.

God that tickled me. What a dick. That tops the time I was made to write 'def con one' on a client/agency communication piece for a client who quite smartly never read his email and needed a 'trigger' word for emergencies.

My funny bone is pissing itself at the moment.

An awkward conversation

2010-07-03T23:40:00.003+01:00

Today I told someone I was wearing a nappy and I had indeed pissed myself.

But let's put this in context first.

I had written an article about a photography event that I was planning to do over the weekend. As a result, I had gotten free entry for my group. In the article, I had written about my excitement about running around East London photography answers to clues. I had described my excitement the type that makes you 'want to pee your pants'. Like most things I write or say, as soon as they've left my brain, it's like they never happened.

So today, I introduced myself to the organiser of the event. He held his arms open to hug me in greeting. I obliged awkwardly as embracing strangers is probably my 1007th least favourite thing to do. But then he kissed my cheek instead, so the hug at the end which I was originally going in for became a weird tack on, making me wonder if that was even the original intention. Anyway, he was very odd and strange people make me stranger. It's like a reaction; I turbo gush weird shit out my mouth as humanly possible.

Get a cup, or maybe a tank, because it's coming.

After the event, the organiser called out to me. He wanted 'feedback'. Now, after introducing myself, I kind of figured that my communication with him was over and a wave goodbye would suffice. But no. He asked me if 'that thing had happened'. I thought he was referencing me putting a hit on the other teams so we could win (this was something that came from my mouth in a panic following the kisshug). But no, it was about my article. Let's have a replay:

HIm: So did you piss yourself?

Me: Yeah, I did actually....

But I was wearing a nappy...

Him: You Australians are so prepared.

Me: Yeah, I have to be, I have a loose bladder. It used to dribble down my legs. That's of course, until I started on the nappies.

It came way too easily. It always does.

A story of what could have been

2010-07-01T13:59:00.001+01:00

I’m having a lot of trouble holding my head up at the moment. This is thanks to a combination of things: lugging my laptop around everyday, indulging in two pillows at night, hunching over my desk and probably having a large around of brains to carrying in my head.

So last night, in the depths of pain, I went into a Chinese ‘herbal medicine establishment’ to get a pressure point massage for my neck. I had my friend explain in Chinese that my neck was sore and needed some sorting out. She even told them to use some special ointment to ‘close the points’ off or something like that. It was even organized that I would see ‘the doctor’ there. I felt optimistic, cocooned in the triumph of defying the language barrier that would have normally resulted in me getting an ear massage instead.

My friend went downstairs for her massage and I sat there, waiting for the doctor to come. Around me were golden waving cats and boxes of what I’m pretty sure were boob enlarging potions. A girl wearing a short dress appeared at the door, gesturing for me to follow her. So I did. Holding my head up with my hand like an African tribal woman who has just taken off her neck bangles. She led me to another ‘establishment’ and told me to go downstairs. At this point I was slightly worried that I was about to get whisked off into some kind of black market whore trading. For a second I wondered how much they’d sell me for considering that two months shy of 29, I’d probably be regarded as withered goods. As I got downstairs, the dulled light that can only be associated with $2 sucky sucky greeted me. To my left was a young girl leaning against a doorframe. “Oh fuck”, I thought as I saw she was wearing a black and white striped dress and platform shoes. This was all it took for me to be totally convinced I was in a brothel. Suddenly, it crossed my mind that maybe they thought I was a lesbian and ‘sore neck’ was a Chinese code word for ‘girl on girl’ action. I walked into ‘my room’ and half expected a tripod, leather school girl outfits and pink handcuffs. Clearly I have an overactive imagination. What was definitely lacking was any sign of the kind, elderly Chinese herbal guru I was expecting. Instead, waiting for me was another young Chinese girl wearing a short dress and platform shoes.

I got on the table and hoped for the best. To her credit she had strong hands, although I’m not entirely sure what rubbing my bum had to do with my neck problems. During the few moments of pain inflicting downtime, I, err, might have also given her the impression that I was a TV star. I was trying to explain advertising but got a better reaction when I said TV. Despite not getting sold or penetrated by an angry Chinese lesbian, my neck is better although movement is restricted. All in all, I feel like a better half Chinese person for the experience.

Two things that will probably turn into more

2010-06-21T21:46:00.002+01:00

Partner Dan and I were taken out to lunch the other week by the creative directors of the place we are working.

PD is in charge of conversation. I chip in when I'm not daydreaming or when I think it's worth opening my mouth. Unfortunately, on this occasion when I chose to partake in conversation, it resulted in something pretty much word for word to this:

Scene: a pizza place. A pizza is placed down in front of each of the involved people: PD, me, CD 1 and CD 2. As the last pizza is being placed down in front of CD 2, the kind of shy one, I say:

"Bloody hell, you've got a small one!"

Thinking sometimes helps, yet never happens.

Today, I was in a meeting presenting some work. I was sitting next to one of those alien like conference phone contraptions. It started ringing as the 'set up' was being done, so I cleverly worked out how to stop the noise; I hung up on them. I looked around the room for approval. I saw props in their faces, smiles, admiration for sorting this problem out so promptly. High five freelance girl, they thought. I had done well. I mentally congratulated myself. Ten seconds later, the phone started ringing again. Persistent bugger, I thought, and I got ready to press the magic button again. The dude who was 'setting up' took one swift move to answer the phone, almost putting a rip in his bone (I know) coloured trousers. Apparently it was the announcement that the head marketing president whom we were waiting for was waiting patiently in reception.

One day I will be impressive. Mark my words bitches.

Penis Update

2010-06-16T21:45:00.002+01:00

I have been inundated with requests (two) for an update on Penis.

Yesterday afternoon, Penis was up to his old tricks. Partner Dan's usually good natured demeanor was rattled when he slammed* his pen down and said:

'You alwight there?'

No, PD doesn't have a speech impediment (although debatable) but I wanted to get his Englishness across for my international (5 including mum) readers.

Penis replied:

'I'm just trying to steal some ideas'

Argh, he's such a dick muncher!! Dan has now tried doing the same to him, this has unfortunately bombed, resulting in enforced Dan and Penis conversation about Penis' boring work. Sucker (Ha! Sucker).

While we're on the subject, I was working quite intently this afternoon, you know, saving the world etc, when I heard this noise:

'Mumble ggrrrraaah, grahhhhh, thesfghkldjfds, grahhhhhhhh, grrrraaaahh mumble.'

I looked around. I looked behind. I looked in front. And there it was again. That noise.

'Mumble ggrrrraaah, grahhhhh, thesfghkldjfds, grahhhhhhhh, grrrraaaahh mumble.'

I looked around. I looked behind. I looked in front. I looked to my left. Penis was talking to me.

I imagine this is what alien communication will be like if a. they exist b. defy light year travel

I wished he'd learn all 'chit chat' is done through Partner Dan. We're like good cop/silent cop.

* huge exaggeration

A tribute

2010-06-13T16:40:00.003+01:00

I thought it was about time I dedicated a few words to the people who wait at the bus stop outside our house.

A few words of guidance.

Some helpful hints.

Food for thought.

I understand it's probably too much for people to look around (preferably between the hours of midnight and 6am, Mon-Sun) and see there are houses surrounding them. I understand that what they have to say is probably very important at the time. Repeating 'do ya know who I am'? for ten minutes at the top of your voice definitely gets the message across. Because, yes, I fucking know who you are; an illiterate pain in the ass. And sure, if you're a tramp, there's probably no better way to discard your bottles of £2 cider other than to smash them on the ground. Or, if you're feeling super friendly, throw each other against the bin after. Finally, I'd like to say to Redmond and his two friends who were conversing at 5:30am this morning, I hope you resolved your beef because I didn't need to sleep, really, a good three hours on the weekend is sufficient.

To the people who did a blues jam when we first moved in, you can come back. You were pleasant, albeit 1 am on a Sunday night was a little late. Screaming children, tramps, Redmond and illiterate people without voice control should move to the next bus stop.

Thank you

Just a thought

2010-06-10T15:14:00.001+01:00

Does singing to yourself make you appear friendlier? Or just a dick who sings to themselves?

His name is Penis

2010-06-08T22:50:00.003+01:00

As I embark on my 5th week of freelance, I am stopping to take a moment to think of the lack of penises I've met along the way. All but one penis, with whom I am currently sitting on the same table.

For the sake of continuity, let's just call him Penis.

Now we, as in me and my work partner, met Penis on our first day at our new gig. He seemed ok, but he was a big talker - a lot of talk to say not much. And a starer. Both of these attributes tire me.

For the first three days, we were away from Penis. Life was good. You know, quiet. Now, on day six, we are both tired of the Penis with his talking and staring. But why this dislike you may ask? Well, firstly, he's nosey. Secondly, he has an annoying voice. Thirdly, he has one of those jobs that he's clearly made up himself. Fourthly, he whinges about working hard. Welcome to advertising d-wad.

Today, Partner Dan (I'm not sure where this name has come from but I'm feeling kind of Western) was scamping. As I was image searching (sorry for the boring detail), I noticed Penis doing his usual peering. I kept my eyes straight except to check whether Partner Dan had clocked Penis. PD was scamping very intently, refusing to look up, which was unusual, as PD will usually find any excuse to be entertained by anything else other than work. After a good THREE minutes of staring without results, Penis went back to his work.

Me to PD [whispering]: Did you...

PD: Yes..

Enough was said. We continued working silently, in unity, to defer any entry Penis might have into a conversation.

Penis defied. Take that Penis!

Wrinkly love

2010-06-06T21:46:00.003+01:00

I was looking at a couple on the tube the other day. They were married, in their late fifties, trying to navigate their way around the Central Line. I think one of them might have been wearing a bum bag which, by the way, while I can see the practical benefits it is still unforgivable unless you are a carnie/pikie (like how I'm catering for my audiences?). She, was a little thick around the waist with a crazy, crazy, boof of hair and he, thicker, less hair with a large serving of grey. At first, it made me wonder what they were like at 28, which then led me to wonder how they saw each other - whether it was of each other now or, of each other young.

Aging is a peculiar thing. Naturally, none of us really look forward to it. Shallowly, it's kind of cruel. Emotionally hard and sad to grasp yet mortally, totally understandable. Truthfully, I'm not sure how well I'm going to take aging seeing as though the prospect of 30 is giving me tri-monthly freak outs and raised veins and loose skin makes me have to shut my eyes and go to my happy place. But all of that aside, when you age with someone, you have a mirror to your own change. It must be a strange yet comforting experience to grow old with your partner and similarly, your friends. Every wrinkle of yours will be matched by theirs, every grey, every bag, every added inch to the waist you once had. But with every gravity defying year also comes another series of moments shared. And that, is a beautiful thought.

So that takes me back to my original question, when you've spent the good part of 20, 30, 40, 50 years with someone, when you look into the eyes that haven't change, but everything around them has, which version of them do you see?

Full of none of the right stuff

2010-05-30T22:21:00.004+01:00

Sometimes I get worried, genuinely worried, I don't know enough stuff. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've tried to fill in the many gaps but no matter how much I try (and honestly, these tries are probably rather half hearted) I can't retain information.

Ask me a famous person's baby name and I'll tell you. Ask me the about some of the most insignificant moments of my life and I'll recite them perfectly. Ask me me a Dean Cain fact and I'll bore you for hours.

But I can't work out percentages. I don't know what most big words mean. I don't know plant types, dog types or even religious types. I don't know how long cooked meat should be left in a fridge and I ashamedly can't remember the finer details of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. How can I possibly ever have children when I have the most useless information to pass onto them?

"Mummy, tell me about the Cold War"

"How about we ask Google?"

FOR FUCK'S SAKE, I CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHERE INVERTED COMMAS GO. AND NOW I'M HAVING A MENTAL BLANK, ARE THEY CALLED INVERTED COMMAS OR QUOTATIONS?!

My brain is a murky pond of plankton, and not much else. By my age, I'm supposed to know more. I know I am.

I even tried consulting Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything. It was really interesting. I wanted to retain everything I read so badly. I read about how the universe was created and about atoms and neutrons but fuck, the plankton is infiltrating my brain's best intensions and I think perhaps neutrons might belong in your brain and not in the stratosphere.

Oh god. I'm confused. I think I need to lay down.

Innies and outies

2010-05-29T18:47:00.005+01:00

Large groups of people make me shrivel back into myself like an old man's penis.

One of two things happen. I either say nothing at all or what does manage to come out of my mouth makes people look at me like I've just wet myself. Before you start thinking I'm a complete social retard, I'm not. Sometimes I'm actually ok, but as a general life rule, I just don't do small talk well. And in the instances I'm under performing, the following happens.

Let's pretend I'm in a scenario where I'm running around holding up alphabet letters while being filmed. I'm with a big group of people who seem to say funny quips straight away rather than thinking of them half an hour later. These people are 'extraverted'. Now people who are loud and have 'high levels of outer excitement' make me sleepy. And the bouncier they get, the more unenthusiastic I become. It's like I have to balance out the situation. Most of the time, I end up having to use my back up energy sources for fake laughter. Then I have to remember to keep my lips from curling into bitch face in between the good humored ha ha's. This leaves me running at -24 and needing a nap.

Now let's move to the second scenario when I'm shriveling out of my penis and going into saggy old man's balls scenario (I believe either one of the two happens when you get older, please correct me if I'm wrong) i.e small talk. Now, I've mentioned this problem a few times, but I have a new scenario I thought I'd share.

I recently had a job interview where my mouth decided to take the mic. Usually when this happens I have absolutely no idea what's going to come out.

Important man: So, er, how was your weekend?

Me: I bought an iron [oh god, I think I was supposed to talk about films or something]

Ha. I haven't ironed in four years. Ha. But I have a pair of 'fun pants' that need ironing so I had to give in. Ha. [brain, abort]

Yeah and do you know you can get an iron from Argos for £3? Ha, I can't believe I waited this long. Ha ha ha [abort, abort]

So now I'm an ironer, ha.

[abort signal accepted]

I think it went well.

Stripes, arrows and roots

2010-05-22T17:33:00.003+01:00

I have nothing of interest to write about, so instead, I'm just going to write a story, straight from my brain, un-edited and see what comes out.

Here it goes:

Once lived a loser mouse called David-Peter-Steve. He was given three first names because his mother, Sue, couldn't decide which one she liked better. David-Peter-Steve was a loser because when they were handing out life labels to the new borns, Sue was too busy eating her jelly to go and get a good one. So while David-Peter-Steve could have been a 'winner' or even 'smack bang on average', he was stuck with being a loser for life. But being a loser was ok. He was pretty good at it. Along with his life label he got a list of instructions on how to be a loser. He went through his first couple of years sticking close to the list, but recently, he had gotten creative. David-Peter-Steve's favourite loser activity was clicking his paws. It made the same noise as a human finger click and he clicked everywhere he went. In fact, there wasn't a single second of the day where he wouldn't finger click. Another day, he kept a leaf of spinach in between his teeth and inserted his finger up his nose where it stayed breakfast, lunch and dinner. And another day, David-Peter-Steve yelled 'car' every time a car went past on the highway where he lived.

Yes, David-Peter-Steve was a loser.

David-Peter-Steve's best friend was a 'winner'. His name was Number 1. Now Number 1 had been very lucky. His mother had been first in line on his day of birth, forgoing the free maternity ward jelly. So Number 1 breezed through life. One day, while David-Peter-Steve and Number 1 were out, David-Peter-Steve, mid paw click, found a life label on the road. It said 'A-Ok'.

...to be continued, or not.

Bunting update: Two letters sewn, chances of me finishing it are slim.

Today

2010-05-10T23:09:00.002+01:00

I used my brain. It hurt and the stuff that came from it won't change the world. In fact, it will probably do more harm than good, but lets not dwell on that (perhaps I will elaborate on this at a later date). The brain usage was great, it really was.

MY BRAIN WORKS!

P.S I'm currently creating some bunting, I know, very out of character, so I thought I'd give you an update of my progress. I have 10 flags* to sew on, and have 8 more to go. I'm so womanly, really I am.

*Cut out complete with letters also cut out and sewed on

Newness

2010-05-09T22:35:00.002+01:00

Friday marked the end of something which pretty much started bang on three years ago.

My new life in London started all in one go. Pretty much straight away, I got a job, a house and well, a life. All the elements transitioned so seamlessly that I didn't really notice that this 'everything' was going on in a foreign place. Whether it was actually seamlessness or ambivalence, who really knows. But since then, some parts have changed, but the constant has always been my job. It has represented a massive chunk of my time here; both good and bad, and has shaped my experiences and perhaps who I've become as a person in a lot of ways that I probably couldn't even begin to explain.

Now, newness is here and again, the transitions are happening so seamlessly that the ambivalence has once again set in. Is change supposed to feel a certain way? Am I supposed to feel satisfied, relieved or even excited? I recognise none of these things, I feel as robotic as my earlier sentence sounded. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to the future, but not in the anticipatory, I'm about to pee my pants way of an upcoming holiday or, I don't know, if I was about to bathe in Belgium chips with ketchup and mayo. I guess I thought the end of my sometimes vein popping (insert your own hateful thing here) job would feel different, but it doesn't.

Clearly, I'm dead inside and the only thing keeping my heart beating is the promise of tomorrow's breakfast.

Wish me luck for tomorrow. Oh wait, I don't care.

I bought an iron

2010-05-03T17:35:00.002+01:00

I know.

I know.

Frankly, I feel a little disappointed in myself. I mean, I've gone four whole years without ironing. Four. I've hung clothes in the bathroom while I've showered (doesn't work as well as you think), I've shook things, I've even tried sitting on my clothes - pulling them to make them straight (this doesn't work either).

I guess on the other hand, it's a turning point in my maturity. People who are 28 on the cusp of 29 should really iron their clothes, right?

Right?

Thank you little German lady

2010-04-30T18:31:00.002+01:00

This is a story of timing. Timing so beautiful, it deserves sonnets, birds and shiny haired Chinese children playing the violin.

Now, we all avoid people. My personal technique is the stare through (ST). First timers, please, please, don't try it out on an important avoid because it can go wrong. The ST is my most used avoidance technique, mostly because it comes quite naturally. There are two ways I perform the ST. The first is when I haven't seen the person because I don't have my glasses on (this is err, why it comes naturally). The second is when I incorporate my double take of the noted person with one long ST. I gradually make my face become more fixated and animated upon a certain object, as if yes, I'm trying to read that street sign across the road. Now the ST only works if there's a mutual avoidance understanding (MAU). However, more often than not, it's only a one sided understanding and you end up having to talk to the avoided, usually about what they did/are going to do on the weekend. This is where it all goes wrong so you must prepare for a solid ST performance.

Sorry, that was way longer than expected.

So back to timing and the Chinese children: cue birds.

This morning, I was walking to work. I was at the crucial point of the journey where MAU's are often had or are broken. Twelve minutes from my destination I saw a lady in her fifties looking at a map. Inexplicably, I was drawn to her which resulted in my very uncharacteristic and unprompted helpfulness, asking her if she needed help getting somewhere. Sure enough, she needed the Millennium Bridge which I very enthusiastically showed her with large arm movements. I left, feeling pleased with my deed. I was so very pleased with myself, that I then decided it was likely I was going to soon be run over by a car before being able to brag about my Jesus like behaviour. So while still congratulating myself yet looking both ways while crossing the road my eyes were drawn to a head, a known head, let's just call this person Carpet Face. Even without my glasses, I knew it was a head I should avoid. If I had not stopped to help the little German lady, I would have bumped smack bang into Carpet Face with whom I do not have a MAU.

I learn lessons and then pass them on. Seriously, I'm like a guru.

Grandad fantasy dirtified

2010-04-24T19:02:00.005+01:00

Imagine me, walking to work. The sun is shining and I'm feeling generous with my positivity; like in a I could probably hug puppies and pat toddlers on the head kind of way. I have my headphones on which I did think were cool and if I'm honest, a little street, up until a day ago when L asked me if I had stolen them from the plane.

So I'm powering away when I see four little boys running over the pavement, trying not to step on the cracks. 'Oh how sweet', I think as I am pretty much high after four straight days of English sunshine. Then I spot their 60 year old (give or take), grandad, ambling behind the little monkeys. I decide he looks like a good old sport, and probably even whittles some soldiers out of wood in his spare time while whistling old show tunes.

I begin to think about how kind it is that he's accompanying them to school. I imagine him telling the boys stories from his youth, most probably by some kind of fireplace and him slipping them chocolates before dinner time. I'm totally caught up in this wholesome fantasy until I walk past him and he slurs 'hell-oo sexy' in the most dirty, I need to go home and wash myself kind of way.

Sleazy fucker.

Rap

2010-04-22T13:02:00.000+01:00

I’m procrastinating, so I’m going to write some kind of rap instead. I’m not going to delete anything so the following is rap via a stream of consciousness.

Here it goes:

Yo, yo, I’ll tell y’all what I know,
Don’t go chasin’ peeps without a bow
Run little dawg, I’m coming after yo
Be scared, but don’t stoop too low

Low, low, how low can you throw
Skim the fields with one swoop yo
Low, low, how low can you throw
Skim the fields with one swoop yo

I go through bins, I leave scraps on my chin
But I’ll tell y’all somethin’, this is how I win
I won’t pay no tax, I let da man swallow my sin
And now I got more to leave to my kin

Low, low, how low can you throw
Skim the fields with one swoop yo
Low, low, how low can you throw
Skim the fields with one swoop yo

That's enough, I'm going to have lunch now.

Moments of realisation: number 76

2010-04-21T10:56:00.002+01:00

I wasn’t meant to act.

I wasn’t meant to lose my inhibitions amongst a bunch of strangers in Finsbury Town Hall.

I wasn’t meant to pick up imaginary flowers and pretend to smell them.

But this is ok, because now I know, right?

Missing out

2010-04-18T22:07:00.002+01:00

Numerous exciting things have happened to me in the past week. Actually, two, but still, it's enough to write about.

Firstly, I finally resigned. Let me emphasise on the word finally. After a much anticipated build up of about a year and four months to be exact, it ended up being one of those things that could be filed under 'the biggest let down ever'. It was fine, you know, I could easily describe it as pleasant. I guess I wanted to feel some kind of post resignation satisfaction. I don't know, like a great weight had been lifted off my burnt out shoulders. But there was nothing. Perhaps it's because I'm dead inside. Clearly, being so icy makes it hard to determine these things called feelings.

Hold, there's a pang of excitement. 3 MORE WEEKS. Yep, there it was - excitement. The inquisitive ones may ask, what are you going to do when you find yourself unemployed in three weeks time? Finally fulfill my dream of being a garbo? Perhaps read to sick puppies while they paw gratefully at me, touched by my soothing voice? Spend more time familiarising myself with the bible? No. No. And no. I shall freelance. Lets take a moment to think about the word 'free' for a moment. Stop now, I have more exciting news: we got an electric toothbrush yesterday and I really have to tell you about it.

Firstly, it's amazing.The toothbrush cleans my teeth in a way that I didn't think was possible. It's like a professional clean, everytime. Honestly, it's fantastic. So much so it's in the top five things I own. Shall I list them? Ok, in no particular order:

The electric toothbrush
The bookshelf
My laptop
Dim sum steamers
The free mirror we picked up off the side of the road

So it started to make me wonder what else I'd been missing out on for all these years. What other contraptions, hobbies, people or things have I deprived myself of due to the stubborn nature of not wanting to replace the old with the new? For years I resisted the electric toothbrush and for what? Plaque ridden teeth? Well no more. Give me new things and I'll try them all. For the better I'll add. Go on, throw them at me and I'll try them like a teething baby.

Nothing says end of holiday like a Korean poo cleaning AND drying toilet

2010-04-08T20:33:00.002+01:00

So I've decided you haven't lived until you've sat on a toilet and had a cold pistol of water shoot up your ass. Or have had the ability to then dry it with some kind of in built butt hairdryer. If you have yet to experience this, I suggest you calmly shut down your computer and then get yourself on the next plane to Seoul.

In other news I'm back in London. I almost cried on the tube ride back from Heathrow. That's until I remembered it would be totally pathetic and I'd lose all credibility as a girlfriend with no heart. That's right, I eat babies for an afternoon snack. But I digress. Australia was everything I wanted it to be. Although I guess the problem with belonging to two countries is, the longer you spend in one, the more detatched you feel from the other.

As you'd expect, everything moves on without you. It was great to see my family and friends and for the most part, time and distance makes no difference. Laughing at farts is without borders, but it became even more apparent how different my life is now to most of my friends back home. I'm not saying either mine or theirs is necessarily better, rather, they're just different. Luckily, for the most part, it felt like it was only the other week I last saw them.

It's a little strange to see how your life could have panned out. I could be a home owner. A gardener. I could own a BBQ. I could have kids or a dog. Sure, the me in my parallel life would have been happy. But thanks to a strange kind of distance created hindsight or is it foresight(?), I'm pretty happy where I am now with my mortgage free, kid free and sprinkler system free life.

But Australia, it was bloody good to see you.

Waiting

2010-03-09T12:46:00.002Z

I'm bored.

My legs are jiggling uncontrollably like an impatient Chinese man.

I'm annoying everyone with my happiness.

I even tidied my desk.

I'm contemplating the risk of eating another banana.

And I think I've outdone myself with my packing. Not only is it light and minimalistic but it's organised too. I have morphed into my mother with full force. Hand sanitiser? Yes. Spare plastic bags? Fuck yes - take three. I've even applied three coats of organisation to my nails. The first is an undercoat. Then two layers of grey. Then a final coat to seal it so my nails will be able to endure 3.5 weeks of hardcore fun. Shit, that's 4 coats of organisation. Arghh. Why can't I ever be a proper half Chinese person and add up correctly in my head?

4 hours til I can go to the airport.

7 days

2010-03-02T17:20:00.002Z

This time, this exact time in a week, I’ll be packing my things up (by packing up, I mean shoving my laptop somewhere) and leaving grey behind for three and a half weeks. Do you hear me people? Three and a half weeks! This calls for more exclamation marks!!!!!

It’s strange, mostly, I don’t think of my other home much. And by that, I don’t mean the people, it’s more the physical nature. I don’t think about the roads, the trees or the shops. And of course, I don’t need to think of these things, because everyday life is in London, but as the days draw closer, they’re appearing again. I’m suddenly having flashes of ‘home’. I’m remembering street names, shops, foods, I’m even thinking about how I’d get from the city to the beach and where I’d park. It’s a strange mix of comfort and excitement.

And for the first time, I’m showing my home to someone else. Being over here has changed how I perceive Australia and Australians. Instead of being proud, at times it has made me cringe, made me embarrassed and made me ashamed. Of course, it’s not all bad. I know it’s not. I guess I want L to see the best part of my other home, because I know how great it is. I want him to see it how I left it, not how Aussies abroad ruined it.

But the most important thing is, I'm coming home. I can feel sun on me. I can hear the crickets at sunset and the smell of eucalyptus. I'm walking slower already and smiling at strangers (actually, not yet, but I might). I'm coming home and I can't wait.

Incompetent voice projection

2010-02-21T22:28:00.004Z

You know how every so often you have moments of self affirmation? I often have them about aspects of my personality that I have forgotten or perhaps chosen to ignore. For example, sometimes I forget I'm bossy. But, whenever that happens, I'm quickly brought back to reality when I have a tourette's like moments. Such incidents have included other people doing the following (and this is by no means an exhaustive list): continuous pulling apart of Blu-Tac, slow walking, fast walking, cooking in wrong pans, bags on tables and so on.

I have recently started classes at a new type of gym. By 'new type' it's not really a gym, more an establishment that holds a variety of interesting classes. Don't worry, there's a point to this. The point is, I recently had a moment when I remembered I'm not a class participator. So everyone can relate to this, I've prepared a list of non participating examples for various stages of life. Yes, all are from my life except the last. I don't know anyone called Lorraine.

School: never really asked questions. Probably because I wasn't listening and was too busy trying to draw the perfect Superman symbol (see previous posts re. Dean Cain).

Uni: never participated in discussions. Probably because I was in shock (for three years) that after having gone to an all girls high school that the only boys to look at were mature age Trekkies.

Work: only ask questions if I'm in a challenging and perceptive mood. This depends on how much sleep I've had and my corresponding intelligence levels. If other people prolong meetings by asking too many questions, I WILL glare at them.

Retirement: you go to your watercolour class, but you spend limited time asking the teacher how to draw the perfect vase. You roll your eyes at Lorraine who hogs all the teachers time asking banal questions about circles.

So my recent re-realisation is that I have a quiet voice that doesn't project in gym/group like situations. When the instructor asks if everyone's warm, I will answer, but in a voice like the smallest doll in the toy pile, well, that's if dolls could fucking talk. I don't know why, but I can't get loud enough. And this is the one time in my life when I'm quite enthusiastic about something yet I can't muster enough volume to make myself be heard. I remember in another class, our instructor used to make us count down our squats. I was never that person you could hear. He'd even come up to me and I'd do this weak as shit, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - pathetic. But it's not just in gyms I can't make myself heard. Put me in a loud pub and half an hour into talking, I'll have lost my voice.

After having given it some thought, both medical and philosophical, I think I have half a genetic reason as to why I'm poorly equipped in the vocal department. I remember learning when I was 12 that Asians have small lungs, so knowing me, I got the small lungs as well as the short eyelashes. Oh and slow legs. At least I am good at squatting.

Unnecessary high fiving

2010-02-15T16:49:00.004Z

Now, let me just start by saying, I like the odd high five. But it should only be done occasionally. Like once every three months and only if something really good has happened. For instance, if you’ve finally mastered juggling or if you’ve been learning how to tie nautical knots and can do a double loop bowline with your eyes closed.

I am exposed to a high fiver. There are many problems with this. The first is she does it too hard. She leaves a stinging sensation on my left hand. She is muscley and doesn’t know her own strength. Secondly, she makes me high five things I don't believe are warranted. I get to work late again on your job? High five. Let's make logo take over the entire page? High five. It gives off the impression we are ‘all on the same page’ but in reality, I'm reading 'What's my poo telling you' and she's half way through 'Eat, Pray, Love'.

Now, I like the girl, so I go along with the slapping, but I really want her to stop it or at least make the slap softer. I guess I could just completely miss her hand one day and then she might feel awkward or sorry for me and NEVER DO IT AGAIN.

Good idea?

People who end their emails with an initial

2010-02-09T17:23:00.002Z

So, like most things in my life, I started off in awe of this new thing I'd learned. It was in my first job and my kind of boss was called Sara. She used to sign off all her emails saying 'thanks, S'. I thought it was so, so clever. So working girl. What was this innovative and quick way of signing off emails? As someone with seven letters to type, I was blown away with this new world that working had opened my eyes to. However, I never thought I could adopt it as a practice of my own. Sure, I was even called 'V' as a nickname so I was pretty much entitled to it, but I couldn't, for I decided it was as uncomfortable fit as me suddenly calling people 'sweetie'.

In my second job, I learned the sign off 'cheers'. Cheers? I'd never heard of it as an email ending. It was so casual, yet friendly. So new age. Fuck 'regards' I thought, 'cheers' is the new way forward and it was, until I realised it was stupid.

So my new life rules are:

I will accept email endings with an initial if you have a first letter that ends in 'ee' so G, B, D etc. However, if you are an S, H, A etc, and use the afore mentioned letters as an ending to your correspondence with me, I will roll my eyes and internally ridicule you. If you choose to ignore my personal and, of course, ridiculous wrath, simply take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror and then repeat your prohibited initial fifty times.

A conversation with the 14 year old me

2010-02-01T21:41:00.003Z

The follow imaginary conversation will feature me now (MN) and me then (MT).

(MN): Yo, V dog (you may think this is a classic old person getting into the young person vibe but it's not. I was heavily into R&B from 14-16 and I would have appreciated the lingo from someone as cool as myself at age 28)

(MT): Hey.

(MN): Listen, I just wanted to let you know a few things; you will get a boyfriend one day. Oh and you'll grow into your nose.

(MT): Really? Thanks, you know how much I hate this honker. Will I ever marry Dean Cain?

(MN): Dean Cain will grow into a fat old man with moobs. You will outgrow your obsession in about three years. In another ten years you will be embarrassed when your work colleagues learn of your teenage fantasy and put a picture of him wobbling out of the water on your desk filed under 'celebrity has beens'.

(MT): No way. I'll always love Dean (draws a superman symbol on her homework)

(MN): Whatever, so I'm going to tell you some more insightful things.

(MT): Yeah, like what? What am I going to do for a job? Am I going to be, like, successful? God, by 28. I'm probably going to be married, have a house. Oh my god, maybe have a baby!!

(MN): Erm. The success thing is somewhat debatable. The rest, well, let's just say no to all the above but you will have gone on some amazing holidays and done some really cool things.

(MT): Oooooooh, like what! Hang out with famous people?!

(MN): Umm, no. I can't think of all of them right off the top of my head, oh wait, like live in London?

(MT): London, no way, I want to live in America. I might meet Dean Cain or Jonathon Taylor Thomas. Someone might discover me in a mall.

(MN): Stop fucking talking about Dean Cain and trust me, you'll lose this America obsession. Oh, here's something. People will still be telling you to smile more in 14 years time. How's that for annoying?

(MT): OHMYGOD. I HATE people telling me that. I'm daydreaming, why don't they realise?

(MN): Because people are dumb. Hey listen, I have to go.

(MT): Why, are you going out clubbing or something?

(MN): Err, something like that. Although a more accurate description would be going to bed.

(MT): God you're old. Man, if I was allowed to, I'd go to the R&B clubs EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

(MN): That's because you don't know any better. Goodbye and please, stop wearing those baggy jeans, you're going to go to France with mum soon and some American girls are going to laugh at you. You'll then leave them in France in embarrassment when you could have saved you some room in your suitcase. Oh and don't let mum buy you that leather hat in Florence because Stephen will tell you you look like you belong in a gay pride march.

(MT): Um, ok thanks. I just wanted to say:

I'LL LOVE DEAN CAIN FOREVA

Realisation

2010-01-26T19:07:00.002Z

It hit me this morning. I didn't know an English person until I moved over here.

Is that weird?

Not that this is remotely on the same subject, but today on Oxford St, there was a guy trying to convert people to becoming atheist. As I laughed in agreement, a guy came up and said, seeing as though you find this funny, how about becoming a Muslim? Errr, I didn't know the two came hand in hand, but apparently it's the 2nd most popular religion. As I was walking back to the tube, I saw the atheist and Muslim guy walking together. It was some kind of religious tag team. I felt confused yet applauded their idea in my head.

After that, I zipped up my chin because it was so cold. It hurt and now I have a zip mark.

In the final bit of excitement for today, I saw a girl on the tube who looked like a tiger! A tiger! She had a constellation of dark freckles across her face and the bluest eyes imaginable. Luckily I had my glasses on so I could stare at her in focus.

I think that's it.

Ode to grey

2010-01-24T21:42:00.002Z

I'd like to dedicate a post to a major colour in my life;

Grey.

Everyday, I am greeted with your presence. In fact, living in this country, there isn't a day goes by when I don't see some shade of you. And here I am, worried about my impending holiday to Australia. Worried, of all things about the weather. I keep forgetting I'm about to come back to a country that doesn't go, at maximum, a week without blue sky. Here, we could go two weeks, perhaps even three, without looking up and seeing an hint of pale blue relief to the otherwise gloominess up above.

And it's starting to kill me slowly.

Kind of like when someone is tapping their pen in a two hour meeting. Sure, you can deal with it for about 15 minutes, busying yourself with eyeing the biscuits (pre credit crunch) or thinking about lunch. But then, it becomes all you can think about, making you want to claw your way across the table, rip it out of their hand and starting tapping them with it in the middle of their forehead. I would just like to point out that in 2009, I would have said 'rip it out of their hand and use it to stab them in the eye' but I am trying to be less violent in my work fantasies in 2010.

So back to the weather. I remember Yoel once said (and excuse me Yoel for paraphrasing) some of the greatest bands, e.g Radiohead, could only come from the UK because of the weather. Yoel, you were so right. I'd like to take a moment to address Radiohead and say, I finally understand and you're forgiven. You (the band) have no other choice for producing such wrist slitting music because it's FUCKING DEPRESSING seeing nothing but grey for an extended period of time.

Argh, grey, get out of my life.

I know, I know. I have winter blues. But it's making me want to crawl out of my skin. I feel impatient. It's turning all that I love about this place into resentment for the constant darkness and gloom. It's probably because I know I have sun coming.

6 weeks.

6 weeks.

It can't come soon enough.

When you want cake, but you can't work out what kind of cake you want

2010-01-16T12:19:00.002Z

So I'm in a cake shop, let's for arguments sake call it 'Life'. I'm looking around. There are many delights before my eyes. Pain au chocolat. Oui. Scones with clotted cream and homemade strawberry jam. Two please. Pastries. Cheesecake. Banana bread. Raspberry and chocolate muffins. Bigger than your head jam biscuits. It's amazing. And then the worst thing hits. I can't decide what I want. I look around for ages. I annoy the shopkeeper (me) and then leave the store empty handed, hungry and perhaps a little over stimulated by the whole experience.

My mum worked for 27 years in the same job, at the same school. She didn't complain and as far as I know, she was happy and didn't want anything else because she always made the best of what she had. And then there's dad. He's done the same thing for the best part of 40 years, give or take some entrepreneurial moments that none of us can quite work out. But their generation committed. They chose that one thing and made it work. And then came us. We flit from one thing to another, believing, from fuck knows where, that we're entitled. Entitled to everything. And that's why I think so many of us are lost. We've grown up believing that the world is ours. And sure, it is, but when you've got the notion of choice, it's really hard to settle on one thing.

When I started at my first job, I was the office co-ordinator. Which is just a bullshit way to say receptionist. I hated it. I lasted 6 weeks because a. I dislike answering phones and b. I hated being perceived as being at 'the bottom'. So I quit that job and went to another, one I thought was more worthy of a university graduate. I believed after 3 years of a joke of a degree, I was entitled to more than being a lacky. Yes, you have to start somewhere, but exactly where was questionable to the 21 year old me.

So now, again, 7 years later, I, like many of my friends, are thinking we're entitled to more. But it's in a less selfish way than when we started out. We know there's something better out there for us but we don't know what. We don't want to start over, but we want more. We've spent longer than our parents ever got to, running around life, blindfolded, trying to work out who we are and what we want. And in many ways, that's a good thing. However, when you begin to work yourself out, and your oyster of a world begins to get smaller, you really want to make sure you're filling it with the right things. And that's hard.

Snot and social fishing

2010-01-10T18:45:00.002Z

You know when you get sick and you can't remember what it was like to be well? You wish for the day you can breathe out of your nose. You swear you will never take a clear nose for granted. You wake up with a film of saliva around your teeth and if you're really lucky, your lip stuck to your top tooth. You sweat out of one armpit, you leak out of your left eye and make a mountain of tissues that makes even your loved one feel repulsed. You'd even prefer to go to [insert shithouse job] work than feel like this. And then, as life goes, you get better, the snot lessens, you go back to solid food, can get to sleep without waiting for that pop of air that lets you breathe for the night and you forget your promises.

But lets all take a moment to appreciate our good health.

Done? Ok, let's continue.

I was at a house party last night. I've decided I quite enjoy saying weird things and gauging people's reactions. It's like social fishing with a quicker return. It's not really intentional, as I can't quite manage my filter at the best of times, but it's nice to establish what level you're at with people immediately. So last night, I was talking this dude who smelt a bit like a very mature farmhouse cheddar. He had a mouthful of teeth and a full head of peppered hair. I think his name was Lou but I always forget to listen to people's names. Like most gents with peppered hair, he had very dark eyebrows and eyes. Think Steve Martin. At approximately the three minute mark of the conversation, I told him that I had a dream where I pissed all over my face. To me, saying this is normal. To others, it's weird and unsettling. I get their point, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but if I had a choice between talking about the weather or piss, I'd choose piss any day. In the end, it was a successful dip in the water, he enjoyed it, we all laughed and there was a bit of fun banter to follow.

And then he left the party pretty much straight away...

2009: I saw, I ate, I undid my top button, then ate more

2009-12-31T16:36:00.004Z

You know, it's impossible to replicate a happy memory, to remember a certain feeling or relive the moment you first experience something. And sometimes, this makes me sad. I'll never again experience Paris for the first time, or eat my first cheesecake. But whenever I think this I take a moment to mentally bitch slap myself because the beauty of life is you can continually build on these moments and memories. So much so, you overflow your mind with happiness, take everything for granted and then have to re bitch slap yourself as a reminder to be thankful for the great life you have.

And what a great one I have.

London, as trying as it is sometimes, will only give as much as you're prepared to take. The city is like one of those friends who is great fun, amazing, bright and clever. But you have to make an effort with London, and as long as that's ok with you, it's everything you could ever want.

It's been another year away from family and friends and another year of making the logo bigger and making my copy sound 'more fun'. But then again, it's been another year of amazing trips away, mind blowing food and fun stuff. So as I sit here, on New Year's Eve, on my rather comfy £40 sofa, slow cooked pork in the oven and listening to the Concerto for violin, oboe and strings in D minor, I'm exactly where I want to be and I couldn't be more content.

Happy New Year.

PS

2009-12-27T21:08:00.001Z

That was not a dig at LP, more an observation of t-shirt usage based on him and other males.

Thank you.

PPS He did not make me write this.

One time dirtiness

2009-12-27T20:44:00.002Z

So there's something I don't understand about men.

Why can they wear a pair of jeans numerous times, some may say too many times, within a two week washing period, yet wear a t-shirt once and have to wash it?

Now I understand the issues. There are the pits. Yes, they produce man stench.

However!

You, men, are NOT going out, spearing animals and dragging them home on your backs. Nor are you jogging, in a sauna or in one of those humid plant conservatories while wearing your (insert special own man t-shirt here). You are not and I repeat, not, doing enough to produce a sweat and therefore a pongy enough smell to warrant a one wear t-shirt wash.

Why is it that you'll happily have a sweaty bum, fart and god knows what else in your jeans and not wash them after one wear? The lower region holds far more blows that your pits, yet your clothes are not evenly compensated and I want answers.

I'm waiting...

People who make me work

2009-12-22T16:41:00.005Z

I don't enjoy working at the best of times. I resist having to do it as I have a naturally lazy and difficult nature, so when it's Christmastime and I'm trying to wind down, I really don't appreciate people coming up to me asking me to do things or starting sentences with 'what are you up to?' or 'can you just...'. How about just getting out of my face?

Our last day of work is tomorrow. Everyone knows that no work will be done either today or tomorrow. It's COMMON KNOWLEDGE you stubborn spreadsheet wielding mules! It's one of those unwritten rules, like being able to lick your ice cream bowl at home but not at a restaurant.

I've spent the best part of the day transferring movies to my hard drive. Oh, and I played the Wii this morning. At the moment I'm doing my last transfer and then I'm out of here. See? This is me getting into the spirit of things.

Leave me alone advertising go getters. I will not let you and your 'heeeeys' or 'what are you doing for Crimbo?' prefaces get me to cave in and do any work. And don't come and sit on my desk, it doesn't make you friendlier.

And finally, anyone who says 'Crimbo' should probably be shot with some kind of sparkly decoration.

People who make me feel sleepy

2009-12-17T11:00:00.002Z

There are a few things that make me sleepy and they are as follows:

1. Being in a food court with that tiresome background chatter

2. Watching movies with the lights off (standard)

3. Work meetings (standard)

4. Boring people

I often wonder, do boring people know they're boring?

I mean, fat people know they're overweight, Chinese people know they're Chinese and so on. But boring people, do they know they are the corduroy of conversations? Man, there's nothing worse than getting stuck with a one way conversationer in social situations. You know the ones that make you fire incessant questions at them to keep the darkness of awkward silence from descending? And then to make matters worse, they make you scrape the barrel, you know, REALLY scrape, and dig out the turd of all conversation life support systems like:

* What do you do?

* What does a (insert boring job in here) do?

* Where do you live?

* Do you like it?

Pause...........wait for them to ask you something.....nothing.......insert desperate question generator thinking music

* Sooo, where did you get (insert clothing item if it's a girl) from?

Now, these people could just be really self involved rather than boring, but I'm pretty sure these two personality defects come hand in hand.

When I'm in a social situation I'm lazy. I either position myself sitting down somewhere, like a table or couch or right by the food table if there is one. Either way, I find it hard to leave my original seat. So this leaves me with problems when faced with the enemy. Yes, I could retreat, but I'm not a stander and I prefer to be using the cushion of my arse, after all, that's what it's there for.

Now, I don't know about any of you, but my normal boring person conversation ALWAYS pans out like this.

I start by testing the water. I throw out some questions and then see what I get back. If there's nothing substantial, I keep trying like a moth trying to commit suicide and reach into the afore mentioned turd barrel. Then, I end up saying weird things. You know, just really strange things, usually about poo, solely for my own amusement. Then they freak out, make an excuse and move on and I get to keep my seat.

Greener grass? Or perhaps it's just astro turf.

2009-12-06T23:40:00.002Z

I'm back and breathing again having emerged from yet another dark period of my working life. The day after a pitch is over, I still feel delicate. On edge. Ready to snap at the next person who dares make me work. Inevitably, after that happens I have post snap guilt and write an email apology. Then, the day after that, due to my useless short term memory, I forget the stress, the weekends thinking of (insert useless consumer brand) and how I can possibly 'connect' with (insert target audience) in a 'unique' and 'interesting' way.

Sigh. I'm like an advertising goldfish.

Ugh, I hate goldfish.

They make me feel sick with their bulging little eyes and the poo that hangs out of their bums while they swim around. It's just not right. I often get weird sick reactions (e.g my mouth filling with saliva) towards things I have been ok with for a good 25 years. I have a list (please note this is subject to change and by no means definitive):

* Goldfish
* Pasties (I think I'm over this one though)
* Nail files
* Feet on pillows
* Unwashed new items (e.g plates, saucepans etc)

Sorry, went a bit off track there. The original thought behind this post was about job envy. When I describe my job, it sounds cool. Think of ideas. Go and get coffee. Surf the net. Write some copy. Sometimes even try (and I use this term very loosely) and draw up ideas. Play table tennis. I guess the grass greener stuff is similar to the years I spent wishing I was a blonde. Finally, when I found a hairdresser greedy enough to take my money, I became the blonde of my dreams. The grass was not greener as my hair ended up feeling like dead grass in the midst of an Australian drought.

Lesson learned: don't dye black hair blonde and perhaps appreciate your job where you get paid to 'think' and 'write' a little more.

Alone

2009-11-11T21:52:00.004Z

For the first time in god knows how long, I'm home alone. I can hardly believe it. In almost three years in living in London, this will probably be the first time it has ever happened. How bizarre is that? There are no housemates to be heard, nothing but me and my soup (homemade vegetable by the way) boiling on the stove. It's not bad, not good, just strange.

When I first moved out of home seven years ago, I lived by myself. Looking back, it was kind of a ballsy thing to do. Let's take a moment to pat the 21 year old Vanessa on the back. Ok, back to the story. The thing is, I loved living on my own. I would definitely put it in the box labeled 'good decisions I've made'. I think the ability to live by yourself and enjoy your own company is one of those important life skills schools threaten to give you, but never do. Home Economics? Yea, I make gingerbread houses all the time. Algebra? Yep, I often check the trajectory of the ball while playing table tennis. Actually, for that last sentence to be accurate I would have had to understand algebra first before applying it to ball sports.

Since my first stint, I've lived with various people, again, another great life skill. For someone who is as intolerant as me, I got to practice restraint and emotional internalisation. Both fine life lessons. Sure, when one of your housemates is pissing you off, sticking your finger up to the wall with the door closed is both a mature and effective way to deal with the situation.

So now, here, at home alone in London, it's a bit strange. We have no tv and I have no book I want to read. I've made soup and entertained the thought of making some biscuits. So I write in my blog and this is good, perhaps I'll even write a story, but it won't stop that slight lingering feeling of loneliness and tiny feeling of homesickness that I've felt all day. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it sucks. Today was another day of work, of gloves, a cold nose, of talking to my friends and family on the internet rather than in person and another birthday I missed. My only two friends in the city aren't here and if it was any other day, I wouldn't even be bothered by any of this. It's just one of those days I guess. Listening to Ben Lee's more depressing stuff probably isn't helping either.

It is nice having time alone, just strange when you haven't had it in a while.

New wood

2009-11-07T22:15:00.002Z

For all of you (like how I've made it seem like I have a stampede of readers?) who receive email updates/subscribe to bloglines etc, go onto my site to check me out. Changes courtesy of LP.

28 things to do before 29

2009-11-07T21:13:00.004Z

Yeah, I'm about three months late..

1. Go to Chagford
2. Make some new friends
3. Have a dinner party
4. Make more plans
5. Read the news more often
6. File my life better
7. Visit Australia with Luke
8. Stop buying shit books on Amazon
9. Get a new job
10. Make really good curry from scratch
11. Get an article printed
12. Do a course
13. Be more financially aware
14. Visit Teresa in Italy
15. Eat at more top restaurants in London
16. Try and do something from Time Out once a fortnight
17. Make more of an effort in general
18. Go to the Cotswolds
19. Visit Rani in the Dam
20. Read more
21. Throw as I go
22. Find some glasses that suit me and maybe wear them more often
23. Better document things I do in London and on my travels
24. Stop over eating
25. Make sushi
26. Try and find a new talent
27. Go to more talks
28. Re read my work and be more disciplined

Me, right now

2009-11-06T13:55:00.002Z

I'm a bus person.
I'm someone who gets free furniture off the web.
I'm embracing the constant urge to put things away.
I'm a bed maker (well, only once).
I'm a bulk buyer.
I'm a leader in lunch preparation.

I love my new place, although it still feels like I'm on holiday. It's shiny and clean, although I'm not sure how long that will last. It doesn't have that lived in feeling yet, but it will. Probably when I stop putting my clothes back on the hangers. Yeah, the novelty will wear off soon. I give myself a week.

You know, I have no idea how I accumulated so much stuff. I don't buy that many clothes, nor do I hoard. You'd think I would have learned my lesson after packing up in Adelaide and then again in London. But no. I've had to throw away numerous bags of shit as well as infiltrate Luke's storage section, and by section, I mean the 1/4 space I left for him under the bed. Never again I have sworn to myself. I will throw something out to every new dress I buy. I will stay away from the shops and never accept free books or shoes. I will stay strong and minimalistic. Roar.

This weekend I can't wait to do some exploring, there are local farmers markets, cute breakfast places and museums to see. I can't wait! Oh and fireworks on Saturday night at Victoria Park for Guy Fawkes. I might even bake something, yes, I am a stranger walking in slanty eyes' body. Having said that, I uncharacteristically sewed on some buttons on the weekend. Rest assured, I have not been entirely taken over by an alien force as my key traits of laziness and cutting corners still exist. To explain, I had been wearing jackets with an average of three missing buttons for the past year. I bought a sewing kit 11 months ago. In my fit of domestication, I decided to sew a green button on with blue thread and because I couldn't find any spares, ripping off buttons from the jacket sleeves to replace the missing ones on the front. Not quite Martha Stewart. Maybe more like Martha when she was in jail.

Perspective smack down

2009-10-21T15:51:00.003+01:00

Every now and then, something smacks you with a little reality check. A little something the dictionary likes to call perspective.

This morning, having come from a 70 hour working week, working on Saturday and an all nighter on Monday, I started flicking through the photos of a friend who was in the second week in of her year long trip around the world. At this point I was feeling both jealous and resentful. I'm pretty sure I did some out loud sighs too. Then I read an email about this guy who I knew from Adelaide had died from cancer. He wasn't a friend, just someone I knew years ago, but still, for anyone to die before their time, and especially at 27 is so unfair.

We all know about seizing the day and living everyday like it's your last. But this isn't realistic. You can't be afraid of death. You can't go and sky dive everyday or tell your boss to go fuck themselves. While you can embrace life to the best of your ability, fun needs to be funded. So, of course, you need to find a balance. Doing nothing but work all week definitely isn't. It's easy to get wrapped up in life, in work and ourselves. However, it's easy to make sure you do fun things and don't waste your life in front of the TV or something else just as time wasting. But like anything, it's about making an effort. But not the fake smile kind of effort, more like the effort that makes you think after, man, I'm so glad I did that.

So get out, take a walk, see a friend you haven't seen in a while, draw something, bake a cake, pick up the phone, plan a holiday, do something, anything, whatever the effort, it'll be worth it.

Sorry if this was really preachy.

Amen.

Forgive me, I've been busy

2009-10-14T17:20:00.001+01:00

I’ve been busy trying to balance the stuff I love doing with the stuff I hate.

I’ve been trying to think of a way out of 9-5. An out to meetings, selling and being told I’m not chirpy enough.

I’ve been looking for a flat, for a new place and a new start with my best buddy.

I’ve been trying to be more tolerant to bullshit, but end up ranting regardless. Maybe even more than usual.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Everything is good. It’s great in fact. It’s just when you finally work out what you want out of life, it’s frustrating that getting it seems so far from reach. But enough about that. Let’s talk about the warehouse conversion that Luke and I are moving into.

It’s beautiful. You know when you walk in somewhere and you just know it’s for you? Well, it was exactly like that. I was almost afraid to say I liked it in case it was way out of our price range. But it wasn’t and now it’s ours. It’s got an amazing kitchen and I can’t wait to use the oven, it’s so big and shiny! It’s been great living in my big house with my four, sometimes five housemates, but it’s time for something new. It’s time to make the trip across the river. Straight up and then a little to the right. It’s time to embrace the bus and listen to da yoof’s hip hop blaring from the backseat rather than having my face in someone’s armpit on the Northern Line. I simply can’t wait.

The funny part about moving East London is the fact that it’s cool. And Luke and I aren’t really cool. We’re kind of on the far outskirts of cool. Actually, I might be a bit farther out than him. For all of you unfamiliar with East London, it’s the home of the over sized specs, hats, tights, baggy blazers, shoes with no socks and guys with floppy, half shaved hair. It’s a place where outrageous is encouraged, if not expected. But having said that, you also have those who appear effortlessly cool, but without a doubt spent about three hours tweaking their high waisted jeans before leaving the house. And then again, you have the people who are actually just fucking cool.

I must go. It’s 530pm and I have a long night of work ahead of me.

I'm worried about my brain

2009-09-20T22:20:00.004+01:00

This was my dream last night..

It's my wedding day. I'm about to go downstairs to the reception and I'm in a bedroom checking my makeup in a compact mirror. At this point in my dream, I'm having loud and preoccupying thoughts about how my lips and cheeks look like they've been raped by the 80's. I then resign myself to the fact that I am looking hideous and go downstairs to the reception, very aware that I am, indeed, Barack Obama's daughter. Sadly, daddy isn't downstairs, nor is my husband. There are, however, rows upon rows of table tennis tables for all the guests, none of whom I seem to know. At this point in my dream, my brain decides to reveal to me that they're all from country Australia. I decide to take five and look outside. They're children playing ring-a-rosy quite sweetly and for some reason they're dressed like various story characters. One is Snow White, another is Sherlock Holmes. Disturbingly, they have children's bodies and adult faces.

Flash forward. I'm now dead. For some reason, someone has decided to bury me in my bridesmaid dress from cousin Rebecca's wedding. However, being dead hasn't stopped me from being able to walk past my body with Luke, which is for some reason, on display Lenin style. Luke comments happily on what a realistic job they've done on me. Too bad dead me has turned into a clothes shop mannequin - one of the ones that have no distinguishable features and are all white and angular. I do, however, take a moment to think about how this means I now have GREAT cheekbones.

Flash forward. I'm working on the Governor of California's new electoral campaign. No, sadly not Arnie's, as I distinctly remember asking this in my dream - it was just some other guy. My dream ended on putting EVERYTHING to do with the campaign (including staplers and post-it notes) in a glass trophy case.

I don't even know what to do with this.

You know it's not a great day when you step in human poo

2009-09-15T22:25:00.004+01:00

There's something to be said about work toilets. Yeah, they're grimy, that's a given. Up until today, the girls of ground floor north had to put up with toilets that didn't flush and smelt like piss. The afore mentioned problems were easy enough to deal with. Ok, not ideal, but if you walked into the toilet and the seat was down, you knew it was a no go zone.

Today was different.

I walked into the toilet, turned around, went to hover (it's germy and I have good thigh muscles) and then looked down to see a brown smear on the ground. While I'm still hoping it was dirt (afterall, it did rain today), an email went around a couple of us, that included the words 'BEWARE, HUMAN SHIT, ON FLOOR, GROSS'.

Why do I have to deal with this? It's not a Tuesday problem. In fact, it's not even a Friday problem. It's a aim problem with people who should be toilet trained. I can't even work out how this happened.

I'm in a delicate state, and while writing this post, I've realised I've forgotten to tell some very important people of this matter. But then again, this is not the first time this has happened. Back in 2003, I was doing some extremely important outlet mall shopping in the US when I needed to go to the toilet mid way through deciding whether to purchase some denim knee high boots. Yes, you read correctly; denim, knee high - it was 2003 after all. Actually, you're right, there's no excuse. I went to the toilet which ended up being a ten minute walk into the middle of the car park. It was a tiny, lonesome cubicle which, let's just say, served as target practice for both numbered varieties.

Let's hope tomorrow is a better day.

Lately

2009-09-07T21:49:00.004+01:00

Last week, my life was about to change. I actually just deleted two paragraphs of pure work related ranting. I decided against it because a furious finger vomit was not what I originally had in mind for this post. Rather, I wanted my words to be about fullness, satisfaction and happiness. So here it is.

Last week, my life was about to change. There was a chance I was going to lose my job. The prospect of this made me feel both excited and slightly pukey. Thankfully, I still have it. As much as the place sometimes infuriates me and makes me want to stab myself in the eye, when I leave, I want it to be on my terms. Perhaps in the form of a sign painted in glitter and emoticons dotted around. Or maybe a happy dance, I haven't decided yet.

With the prospect of at least another couple of months of guaranteed pay, I'm feeling a strong urge to buy shit I don't need. The other day, to celebrate keeping a job I hate, I bought a t-shirt with two girls punching each other in the face. It was either that, or one saying 'We Both Love Soup'. In fact, I might still buy that one because honestly, it just tickles me.

On the weekend, one of my worst fears came true. Twice; I was pulled up to assist at a magic show. The first was a lot more traumatic than the second. It was in front of a packed room in the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Now, if you don't already know, I am rather slow witted. In fact, if I even think of remotely witty come back, it will be about three days later and probably on the toilet. This is why on stage audience participation scares me. The trick I assisted with (and by 'assisted' I mean thinking of a card not being sawed in half) was over pretty quickly and luckily, I didn't have to speak too much. However, my other worst fear came to life: the funny man's kiss on the cheek. Now, I've been to a lot of audience participation shows. I know what happens when they get a female up from the audience and the dude asks for a kiss on the cheek. It's the good old slide of the cheek so it's planted on her lips. I was so not going to fall for that shit. In fact, I was determined. So determined. After shaking my head furiously mouthing 'no way', I caved. I decided I was going to have to kiss him, but in the farthest place from his lips. I was ninja ready for any type of sudden head movement as I went in for my peck. The trouble was, his head and cheek stayed put. I kissed the magician on his bloody ear. It wasn't even a proper kiss either. I had an ulcer on the inside of my bottom my lip, so my lips refused to pout together for any kind of normal end product. The kiss ended up being a weird brush against his ear cartilage.

Smooth.

It's official. I have aged.

2009-08-23T18:31:00.003+01:00

Since the last post, I've been a bridesmaid, turned another year older, watched one of my best friends get splattered with bird shit, seen some comedy that makes you want to slit your wrists, ate at a Michelin star restaurant and got a fringe. So far 28, so good.

The Wedding was what I thought it would be. Well, the lead up was anyway. I'm not good/equipped with handling tears, especially when I deem them unwarranted. I'm not good with weird emotional freak outs either. I deal with them awkwardly, my reactions are totally forced, especially when I'm trying to be sympathetic. But it wasn't all bad. While I know that The Wedding wasn't what I'd ever want for myself, the whole marriage thing is actually beautiful, even underneath all the cheesy photos and colour coordination. I really enjoyed the Scottish ceilidh. I think I really like tradition because I come from a non traditional family. I feel a little sad that if I ever got married there wouldn't be any singing and dancing to Scottish anthems, nor would I be wearing red or adopting any of the Chinese traditions. Of course I could, if I really wanted to, but I don't know enough about either side for it to seem acceptable. I'd just feel like a culture sucking fraud.

So onto the new age, and with 28, comes a new list. I did most of what I wanted to achieve and this time around, I've got more time to get everything done. This year's list is going to be more thoughtful, because this is what happens when you're 28; you're wiser, more worldly yet you still laugh at poo jokes.

28. The manifesto.

2009-08-11T17:38:00.001+01:00

Floss more. She who flosses prevents gum disease (is this weird this was my first thought? No, eroding gums are gross).

Experiment with cooking. Soy sauce shouldn’t dominate my meals, I’ve probably tapped into my Asian-ness enough.

Grasp grammar. Honestly, it’s about time.

Glasses. Perhaps accurate vision will be deemed more important this year.

Try harder. If everything were easy you probably wouldn’t be writing a manifesto, right?

Don’t ever be lazy. You’re not at the moment, but it’s just a warning to the 28 year old you who may be feeling a little weary and less sprightly.

Be less dismissive of people. Maybe there’s something more to the people you don’t like. While they’re probably still dicks, at least try one more time?

Go out for breakfast more because you love it. You can order muesli every time if that’s what you wish – don’t listen to other people’s scorn.

Farewell thee well 27th year.

Reason 457 I am turning into my mother

2009-08-09T18:44:00.003+01:00

My mum has an uncanny knack of remember the smallest details of her childhood but when it comes to her, say, remembering which of her daughters is calling her on the phone, there are sometimes a few lapses. For example, every time I call her, the following conversation starter occurs:

Ring ring, ring ring...

Mum: 'Hello?'
Me: 'Hi Mum' (sometimes I mix it up with, hi mum, it's me)
Mum: pause......pause

[mum's train of thought] hmmmmmmm, now I spoke to Juliet the other day, Lisa on the weekend. Ah, this is the deeper voiced child, the one who insists on calling me at 730am when we've made no pre-arrangements to talk on the phone [train of thought breaks to remember if any arrangements to call were made that she may have forgotten].

Mum: pause

[mum's train of thought cont.] Yes, it's Vanessa, that one never makes arrangements.

Mum: 'Oh hello dear' (even though she says the same hello dear with all of us so she actually could have bought some time at the start while she worked out which one of us was calling).

Before I get an email from her telling me she knows which of us is which, the point I am making is that my long term memory is so much better than my short term one. Last night, Luke and I were playing the game where you sing the next line of a song. I sucked at all songs post 1996. But when TLC's Sumthin' Wicked This Way Comes I was totally channeling the late Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopez. The song I learned back in 1995 (in the peak of my R&B days) was obviously in some recess of my mind, just waiting for the day some neuron came by to pick it up to test its worth. It was probably sitting alongside the various bits of useless information my brain insists on carrying. For example, Left Eye died in a jeep accident. Of course, I don't need to remember this, yet I remember such facts over the more useful things like where full stops etc go after inverted quotes. Actually, I can't even remember whether they're called inverted quotes or commas.

Hmmmm.

In follow up to post 3.8.09

2009-08-06T10:11:00.003+01:00

Vic and I were loudly 'rated' by a gaggle of builders last night.

Filed under 'a large percentage of people in this world are idiots' and 'female meat meets femmo rant'.

Success

2009-08-05T22:39:00.002+01:00

Tonight, Vic and I were talking about how we measure success, and understandably, as we are not conjoined and share the same digestive system and heart, our measurements are about as different as metric and imperial. For some reason I negatively prefaced my idea of success with something along the lines of 'I may be a massive underachiever but...'and having reflected on this conversation 20 minutes later, it really bothered me that I did this because I am not one of those down on myself people.

But let's have a moment to psych me out. My idea and measurement of success has only recently taken a solid form. I spent a majority of my life comparing myself and the stage of life I was at to that of my sisters. Wrong, so wrong. I am not them and that's ok. So I had to change my definition of success. It has become clear since coming here that all I really want is to be happy, everyday, and if I am good at that, then I'm successful. But that seems a bit lame-o and to be honest, maybe happiness is not the end of my measuring tape (cms of course).

The problem is, I really like stuff in general. I really like doing a lot of things. I'd even go as far to say I love a lot of things. Take writing for instance, I love doing it. But then I don't do enough of it. I have a very short term memory, so while I really love doing things at the time, I completely forget that feeling and move onto something else and get pre occupied with that. I also love cooking but I do it in spurts. I love taking photos and most days I'll walk past things and mentally take a picture of it in my head, but I never carry my camera around. I also love doing bedroom art projects. I love going out for breakfast. I love reading. I love going to dance classes. I love random projects like deciding to write letters to people. But then I just stop. I can't stick to things and put my heart and soul into it. I can't dedicate my life to this one thing that I am passionate about and that bothers me. Almost everyone I know has some kind of thing they really strive for. Whether it's to be a mother, a writer, an artist, a successful business person or even someone who builds an amazing bridge, they have this thing that drives them. I want that. I want it for more than a project or two weeks of dance classes or a phase of making muesli.

You can't force these things and maybe I'll never find that one true passion to focus on. Or perhaps I've just summed up my love of stuff into 'happiness'. I once asked someone if I could put 'faffing' under my list of hobbies in my resume. Maybe it represents me perfectly but then again, it just doesn't seem enough.

Portugal

2009-07-20T14:52:00.001+01:00

I’m back with a slightly darker sheen, a newfound appreciation for tiles and have come great strides in being able to urinate in the sea. Portugal was great fun and I’m sad to be back. I hate how holidays always feel like a distant memory as soon as you return home.

But, shall we recap?

Have a cup of tea, I’ll be mum.

Porto was our first stop. Home of Port (the drinking kind not the harbour), we managed to have a taste of the local specialty when we stumbled across a one man run restaurant. This sort of madly run restaurant seems to be our thing when we travel. This time, the dude was neither obese or lazy eyed, but he was a little odd with his communal menu that he shared around the four tables and the brisk pulling up and down of the dumbwaiter that delivered the food and cleared the plates. We also found this beautiful bookstore with an amazing red stepped and wooden carved spiral staircase that followed floor to ceiling bookcases filled with years old books. Another highlight of Porto was the shower at the place we stayed at. It had three nozzles in one shower. One standard, another with six jets and then a rather large over the head one. It was truly amazing and the coverage would put sponge baths to shame (not that I’ve ever had one but I imagine they’d get in there). Finally, Porto is where I discovered my love for tiles. All the facades of the houses and churches in the old town are covered with the most exquisite tiles. I want my house to have beautiful Portuguese tiles on the outside, wooden shutters on the windows, wrought iron balconies and maybe leafless vines subtley growing and creeping up the walls from the front door. Oh, that would be lovely.

After Porto we headed to Lisbon where I completely fell in love with the city. It just had a great feel to it with the hilly cobbled paths and tram lines weaving webs throughout the city. It was here I ate my top five meal of all time. We found this little Argentinean café in the Bairro Alto district, sitting in between a break of white chunky steps and the second to last in line of little eateries with outside tables set underneath hanging fairy lights and roaming street musicians with playing guitars in the background. Luke had a steak and I had the fish and both were delicious. Oh the sauce, oh the baby potatoes rubbed happily in butter and sea salt. Oh the animals that were sacrificed so we could gorge happily and then want to vomit with fullness after.

Then, for the last part of our trip we headed further south to Lagos which again, was stunning, with its sparkling green and blue waters and craggy rocks sheltering the beaches. Luke discovered soft sand and I in turn discovered the joy of being able to wee in the sea. I’ve recounted this story a few times and have been met with a few looks of disapproval at my joy, so I won’t go into too much detail because not everyone likes wee, poo and midget stories as much as me. Now, up until a week ago, I was unable to wee in the sea. This was a problem for numerous reasons and something I really wanted to conquer. Now, although technically I haven’t weed in the sea while ‘swimming’, my ‘aim’ has been close to full water contact and as Luke said, baby steps. This may actually be on of those stories that results me getting an email saying it didn’t make sense. Please let me know if you want me to elaborate further.

Lagos also enabled me to practice my French. Ah, how the lessons of 1994-1998 have totally come in handy all these years later. We stayed with this slightly crazy French lady called Angela. I think she thought I could speak French better than I could. I understood most of what she was saying, but when it came to constructing sentences other than just saying ‘oui, oui’ over and over again, my mind failed me. Mum, you would have been somewhat proud of my comprehension but not so proud of my construction.

This post is long for your eyes but for me, I feel like I’ve missed large chunks from a never ending trail of fun and interesting things we saw, ate and experienced.

It was great and I hope you enjoyed my rather long postcard.

I need to go on holiday because

2009-07-07T11:42:00.003+01:00

I just had a meeting and used the following bullshit buzz phrases:

- 'We need to inject some more unique elements into this'
- 'We really need to dial up the be better aspect of that'
- 'That will be the hero headline, this is more just a creative wrapping'

Oh god.

Seriously, I need to go away to remember who I am.

I think Portugal is the place to do it. This time tomorrow, I'll be in Porto, injecting some custard tarts into my mouth.

In one weekend

2009-06-21T17:45:00.002+01:00

You can be having the time of your life
You can be reliving the worst time of your life
You can experience an overwhelming sense of relief
You can be broken
You can be hoping for a time when you feel normal again
You can be making mistakes you've made many time before
And you can be waiting for the day your skin doesn't itch anymore

How can one weekend bring such a varied outcome for myself and my friends? For some reason I had the chance to speak to most of my friends from around the world today and shit, I've never had such a variation of sad, happy and strange events retold to me. We're so wrapped up in our own lives that you completely forget that one of your friends could be having the best or the worst time of their life. Of course, you can't go around thinking that all the time, but when you do, it's an mix of a strange and interesting, which is pretty much guaranteed when it comes to thinking about life. Note: I just had a sleep in between those last two sentences, is that a bit weird?

My own wallowing this weekend has made me feel reflective on the things I don't appreciate enough. Of course, the day I get through a day without getting stupid welts all over me, I'll forget all this worthiness, but at the moment, I'm wheeling and dealing with myself like a crack addict looking for their next fix. So at the moment, I'm repeating to myself that I will never complain about going to work again if I get through 9-10pm tonight without a rash appearing. I just want to get better and this stupid reaction to be over. Stupid suspected Romania and it's stupid bugs. Stupid non Romanian things that could also be making me itchy. Stupid everything but I'll also even stop saying the word 'stupid' if they don't come up again. Yeah body? How does that sound?

It's funny that when something is wrong, all you can do is think of how appreciative you'll be of the day it all goes right again. I remember thinking back to having a really bad cold, and all I could think was; the night I can breathe again through my nostrils again will mark me appreciate every breath I take from that day on. Of course, I take every non snotted up breath for granted, but still, these promises we make to ourselves are sometimes hilarious.

Or maybe it's just me who does that?

I need to go and vacuum my room and put my boiled sheets back on my bed.

P.S For everyone who is finding out for the first time about these welts, I'm fine, I've just got a suspected allergic reaction that is impartial to a bit of 9pm action it seems. I've sought the appropriate medical advice and am non spready, just itchy within my own core of 'allergy' (I don't know where that last sentence came from).

Oh, Romania

2009-05-28T15:44:00.001+01:00

Romania. From now on, I won't be able to mention this country without and 'oh' before and a 'sigh' after. So where to start.

Ok.

A couple of months ago, Vic sent through the Romanian national anthem. I had a laugh to myself because all I heard was some angry, 15th century, hatchet wielding men singing/yelling from deep within their bellies which had probably just been filled with meat and cabbage. Having just returned from Romania, I can confirm that these men still exist. They are scary and most of them are taxi drivers.

Oh Romania (sigh). What a land of contradictions, stray dogs and ugly people with the strangest hair growth. When we arrived we couldn’t find the bus stop. There was no information desk, so we asked the 2nd most trusted people, the police, where we might find it. They helpfully informed Luke that the bus stop was 20kms down the road. Not so helpful when you know for a fact there is a bus stop at the airport. So, we decided to catch a taxi. Not so helpful when the taxi driver is trying to charge you about £30 to go 10km down the road. We haggled, and then agreed on a price. After a 10 minute drive into the city, with tunes blaring from the radio that resembled my old keyboard’s demo mode, we stopped at the train station where the driver proceed to demand more money. In fact, he decided the price we had agreed on was actually per person. He just forgot to tell us. Ah, the hilarity. We ended up chucking the money at him and the legging it out of the cab. It was truly a great start to the country.

Then came the train station. As a general rule, most vagrants hang out at train and bus stations. Accepted. But seriously, when you’ve just been ripped off by a fat fuck of a taxi driver and then find yourself walking through gypsy children sniffing aerosol cans, stray dogs with patches of fur missing and generally unpleasant and scary looking men just to get through the front doors, there’s only one thing to do: head to Mc Donald’s. Those sweet golden arches provided the McFlurry and post mix Cokes to will us onto the next 6 hours of our journey; to Transylvania.

The beauty of the Carpathian mountains and the surrounding countryside was probably what made the trip. After another taxi ride from Brasov, through to Rasov and then Bran, we finally made it up the mountain into the Piatra Craiului National Park in Moeciu where our accommodation was. It was everything we needed it to be to start over with Romania. We stayed at a family farm, with about three generations of the family living and working there, including the 100 year old grandma who seemed to spent A LOT of time in the barn. There were cows and chickens as well as massive hay stack houses with pitch forks at the top, as well as homemade tables and chairs and old jars with wild flowers on all the tables. It was beautiful. We even arranged for a farm style breakfast that began with a glass of warm milk, straight from the udder. I really liked the idea of it, but when it came to the thick taste of fresh, frothy teat, it was a bit much. After breakfast, we walked down the mountain into Bran and had a look at the outside of Dracula’s castle. We didn’t go in as we heard that they had re decorated it Romanian style. We figured that probably included tearing up the floorboards and scattering rubbish around the interior, so we didn’t bother. We then meandered back up the mountain and had a traditional picnic halfway up that included cheese and pizza flavoured chip sandwiches, biscuits and many name games.

I think after our mountain time, we were all a bit reluctant to go back to Bucharest, but it wasn’t as bad as we were fearing. After waiting for our train which was almost an hour late, we got to our hostel successfully by avoiding all taxis. Our hostel was just near Cismigiu Park, which was lovely. It had rows of green benches with wrought iron backs and sides, where the old folks would gather to have a chit chat at dusk. There was also a space in the middle of the park for the local Romanian men to play a game that looked like Scrabble, but with number tiles and carpet on top of the table.

Most cities, even the most average, have beautiful old towns. It’s what saves the grime and the ugliness of the concrete. But, of course, because it was Romania, the old town was just as ugly as the rest of the city. There were no footpaths because they had all been dug up. They had been replaced with wooden slats that were so flimsy, the fat fuck of the taxi driver would definitely have fallen through. Surrounding the slats were piles, upon piles of rubbish, guarded by the manky dogs that roamed the city. Instead of the electrical wires being, I don’t know, underground or perhaps inside the electrical poles, they were just wrapped around the outside of the poles at least a hundred times over, with some even hanging down head height. As we continued to walked around, one thing became very obvious; these people like to get married. There were at least five wedding dress shops on every street, with the most hideous looking dresses imaginable. Think Borat’s mankini but with lace and a meringue bottom. Hot.

This entry is a lot longer than I intended, and I even skipped some stuff to try and save your eyes and attention span. I guess I’d like to wrap this up with, oh Romania (sigh). I’m glad I went and saw you. You were ugly, you had an old woman who kissed Vic’s cleavage with her gummy mouth and called me a Mongoloid. You had people with huge moles, the worst dress sense on the plant (red horizontal and pink vertical stripes in ONE outfit is TOO much) and hair spurting out of some weird places. You had people who would do anything to get ahead, people who crossed themselves upon going past every church, stray dogs and drunk gypsies stealing petunia’s from a restaurant. You were both weird and a little wonderful. I liked you and I hated you.

Stop my weirdness

2009-05-21T21:08:00.003+01:00

Do you ever only act weird around certain people? I do. There are people who bring out my weirdness, usually because I don't know what to say to them. They're mostly people in authority, like a couple of my bosses at work, where I say really inappropriate, random things to them.

Example one

Scene: At a random desk. It's one my new boss' first day and I decide to strike up a conversation with him which is totally not like me.

Me: Hi, I'm Vanessa, how are you going?
Him: Hi, I'm XXXX. How are you going?
Me: Good thanks, how are you?
Him: Good, how are you?
Me: Err, good thanks.

Example two

Scene: In the kitchen. It's day three for the afore mentioned boss. We're boiling water together. He's making a selfish tea round, I can't get away with that shit, so I'm on about four cups.

Me: Hi, how's it going?
Him: Oh yea, you know how it is when you start somewhere new.
Me: Yeah, you totally feel like a spare dick.
Him: Err, did you just say spare dick? (note this man is a WRITER)
Me: Um, yes, spare dick. You know, spare dick?
Him: No, no I don't.

Example three

Scene: In the kitchen. Again, the below conversation is with boss dude. Note to self, I really should check he isn't in the kitchen before I venture in there next. Again, we're making tea. Him, a selfish one, me, a morning round I, no doubt, did with a lot of fuss and claims of 'you're just asking me because I'm a woman'.

Him: Hi
Me: Hi (cautiously)
Him: Most Aussies don't drink tea.
Me: I know, I've assimilated.
Him: I don't drink it that much, I've just started getting into coffee.

(The conversation is going normally until this point where I launch into a passionate rant about how English people don't understand what good coffee is. This goes on for a full kettle boil. It is long and unnecessary, but once I get started on this topic, I have to finish).

Him: Err, yes. Well, instant coffee..
Me: DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THAT SHIT. It's soooo the equivalent of Melanie Griffiths 'finding her way' in the corporate world of Working Girl. HA HA HA HA.
Him: I was going to say I quite like it. Are you saying I'm like Melanie Griffiths?
Me: Oh. Yes. Well. Some of it's nice. And. Um. No. HA.

I should stop making tea.

Swine apparel

2009-05-16T23:19:00.002+01:00

There's some figure that if people actually actioned the ideas they had, persevered and learnt from their mistakes, the changes of being successful would be something like 1000 to 1. Think about the odds people play with the lottery and then compare that to a little hard work and some hard core, scary arse, putting yourself out there. Most of us are too scared or too lazy to actually do half the stuff we really want to do, but not Luke. However this turns out, I'm stupidly proud of him and completely admire him.

http://www.swineapparel.com

Update, 27 things

2009-05-12T11:21:00.002+01:00

1. Bake some biscuits - DONE: ANZACS, some choc chip ones and oat and apricot
2. Visit Turkey - DONE: note this changed to Iceland and this is ok cause it's my list
3. Own something expensive - Having trouble with this one
4. Go on a holiday with Luke - DONE: and to be continued
5. Read a classic - DONE: Catcher in the Rye, Farewell to Arms
6. Make a really good curry - Hmmm, need to get onto this
7. Go to the ballet - DONE: Swan Lake at the Royal Opera
8. See another play - DONE: The Frontline, but I will see another one
9. See Shakespeare at the Globe - HALF DONE: saw a play at the Globe but not a Shakey
10. Write some letters to people - DONE!
11. Go to the underground rebel bingo night - Do-able
12. Go to Chagford - The next three I will need to get onto
13. Visit the Lake District
14. Visit the Cotswolds
15. Eat in one of the best restaurants in London - Do-able
16. Do one of the country walks in my London book - Hmmm, can I do one in Brasov?
17. Do another bedroom art project - DONE
18. Try and see a deer at Richmond park - DONE
19. Have a summer picnic - DONE
20. Find out how hard it is to apply for a visa for the US - Do-able
21. Be a good bridesmaid - Getting there, will be doing a chunk this weekend
22. Go to Essex - DONE
23. Go to a quiz night - Do-able when Vic moves to Clapham
24. Try to (ha!) get better at drawing - Getting there, but never do-able
25. Enrol in a writing class - all booked, won't be able til until 28 things before 29
26. Try to get an article published in Frankie - being slack, must try harder
27. Do the Jack the Ripper tour (random last one, I know) - DONE

How is everyone going with theirs?

Neurons are cool

2009-05-07T17:58:00.001+01:00

Our minds are amazing, funny things. Last night, Luke and I went to a School of Life (www.theschooloflife.com) talk about memory and it was so surprisingly thought provoking. Man, I love being an adult. I totally embrace this stage in my evolution whereby comfortable shoes rule, on the odd occasion can say ‘shit’ in front of my mother (only occasionally as it still feels naughty), wear stockings with open toe shoes (not sure about this one but Vic has welcomed it into her life quite happily) and finally, go to something kind of nerdy and not be ridiculed about it.

So, for the first time in ages, I actually listened with the intent of retaining information. I even did it for a whole 90 mins, give or take a few mind wanders. It’s crazy how we remember things, or as we learnt, how we don’t. Our memory isn’t for what we may think. In fact, we can only hold up to five pieces of information at a time. It’s not built for long term retention. Thank god, because I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me. Interestingly, our memories are often shaped and re shaped each time we revisit them thanks to many things, including the change of environment. Even our mood, smells, even sounds can alter what and how we remember. So basically, every time we think back to a memory, we’re actually going back to the last time we thought of it, rather than the original event. How we work is seriously fascinating. Even how we experience déjà vu is intriguing. Our neurons shoot through the middle of our brain and along the way, pick up other contributing neurons to form a particular memory. In the case of déjà vu, the wrong neuron (the familiarity one) is picked up, making us think we’ve seen or done something before. As you can see, I could go on about this for at least another five paragraphs, but I won’t.

Yay learning!

I'm back

2009-05-05T10:48:00.002+01:00

Sorry I haven't written in a while.

I've had a really intense couple of weeks at work. My brain has felt constantly constipated, I've gone from no ideas, to plenty of ideas, to no ideas again. Sometimes I feel like screaming at people; 'this is just advertising' but it just ends up like those dreams when you're shouting and your mouth is moving but no one can hear a thing.

But now it's over, and I can breathe again. I can make plans that I can keep and no doubt I will forget the pain and frustration before it starts all over again.

On Saturday, Vic and Luke surprised me with a picnic in Richmond park because of the afore mentioned work beating. It was one of the most lovely, thoughtful and touching things anyone has ever done for me, let alone two of my favourite people in the world. You know when you want to express your gratitude but it just sounds so empty and trite when the words leave your mouth? I can't find the right words to use because anything that forms in my head seems so clumsy, but it was amazing and beautiful that they thought to do it. Saturday left me thinking about my other friends who aren't here to make me feel better in person but do with amazing Powerpoint presentations, music and photos as well as giant Fru-Choc balls that arrive on days when your face feels squashed with stress. Let's all take a moment to have a cyber hug in a field of daisies. Please make sure you're wearing white.

Oh, and I crossed off two things off my list on the weekend: a picnic in Richmond to see a deer and the Jack the Ripper tour! Woooo.

Beware of Icelandic roadside horses

2009-04-18T17:16:00.003+01:00

This is going to sound somewhat dumb, but sometimes I forget we live on a planet. I mean, who, apart from people working at NASA and planetariums, actually include Earth in their everyday thoughts? Err, let's see, milk, bread, do I look fat in this and ah, planet Earth? I don't think so.

Iceland made me remember why living on Earth is so amazing. Yes, life form is pretty cool but the Northern Lights, the Blue Lagoon, Geysirs? Fucking incredible. I'd forgotten what it was like to step outside to air that felt heavy with purity. It was so still there, so quiet. But don't let me lead you astray, Rekyiavik was far from paradise you might think. It had the dullness of the granite buildings of Aberdeen, the leftover depressing eastern block houses of Slovakia and the feeling of a black sheep nation from the rest of their luxurious Nordic neighbours. As soon as you went out into the country, it was like you were on another planet. There were no trees, no soil, only mounds of lava covered in moss. It was something else.

Amazingly, on the way to the hostel from the airport, on what was probably one of the longest bus rides of my life, we saw the Northern Lights. As I glanced out of the window, I noticed a green haze streaked across the sky. It wasn't what I was expecting, nor where I was expecting to see it, but it was wonderful nonetheless. And I guess the unexpectedness of it made it all the more special. We saw them again, a couple of nights later, on a planned tour that we booked in the hope of seeing them so late in the season. After waiting in the cold for about four hours and using up all the waiting games we could think of including 'what else could we be doing now', they finally appeared. There we were, two girls from Adelaide, standing in a valley where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet, looking at the most incredible dance of charged particles underneath a magnetic white haze. God, it's so hard to explain, but they appeared out of nowhere and literally moved across the sky. And then, almost as soon as they appeared, they were gone. The more I think about it, the more amazing it seems.

So on our nature day of waterfalls and Geysirs, I got bitten by an Icelandic horse. If only I could describe one properly to do the stupidly of this event justice. Ok, I've got it, they're like a bigger Shetland with a mullet. At the time, I was totally being at one with nature. I was even feeding the fucker properly. The one I started feeding first was totally digging me, we were bonding and it was even licking my fingers lovingly. Then the other manky one butted in, knocked my other bread roll and just as I thought I was getting more horse licking action, it bit me. Hard. Who gets bitten twice out of the two times they've been around a horse? And by a stupid one with a mullet? Me.

The Blue Lagoon was something else. If there ever was going to be a waiting place for Heaven, this would be it. It was smaller than I expected and the blueness of the algae gave the water a slight toxic look. But to swim in Cocoon-like, 30 degree, blue thermal water while the icy wind of the north pole is slashing your face was pretty freakin' cool. The Lagoon water was so clouded that I could only see my hands when they were just about to surface. By the sides of the Lagoon were wooden slits holding some kind of natural face mask that had the consistency of cottage cheese. It dried hard on your face and it was quite comical to see people wading around with these tribal like white faces. Because we liked it so much and also because we'd run out of things to do, we went a second time on the way to the airport. That day there was an incredible amount of fog over the water, so much so, Vic and I could have been the only ones there. The only thing ruining our toxic rebirth were the stupid Brits abroad with their lack of volume control thinking everyone wanted know where Dave was. Luckily he was in the really hot bit.

So, I'll wrap this up as it's pretty long, but it was such an interesting place. While I'll probably never go there again, I'm so glad I went.

Korean kareoke

2009-04-05T14:43:00.002+01:00

Luke and I had the most random and fun night on Friday. We were out in Soho and decided to go and get something to eat. By chance, we stopped outside a Korean restaurant. They people told us it was full but they'd be a table ready in 10 minutes. So we followed this guy up three flights of stairs to a small room above the second floor of the restaurant. In there was a skeleton of a large grill, a massive TV on the wall, tambourines on the table and two microphones with shower cap tops on them. The dude asked us if we wanted to watch TV, but we asked if we could sing kareoke instead. So we did. The guy even turned on the disco lights on for us. So while we waited for our table, we sang. No era was left unturned as we used probably the biggest remote in the world to badly belt our way through The Beatles, Queen and Bon Jovi. We actually had to send them away twice so we could finish our songs. It was so random, and so fun. And the food was excellent too. Our meals were garnished with the most amazingly sculptured exotic birds carved out of radishes. We even got these miniature paper towels that when poured with boiling water, turned into large hand wipes.

Now I am off to buy my second set of sheets. It's official. I am going to go flat sheetless every couple of weeks. I figure it's a good compromise. I can have an old school set and then one 'edgy' set. Wooooooooooooo.

Paris

2009-03-31T12:18:00.002+01:00

I’m spoiled. Really spoiled. Who, with the exception of business people, Eurostar drivers and err, passport control, gets to go to Paris five times in their life? Me! That's who! It’s ok, I realise how lucky I am. So much so, I was giving thanks like a nun getting laid for the first time on my way back this morning. It went something like ‘blah blah thanks be to me who gets to pop over to Paris when some people have never left their city’. Then, my thanks was over, because really, it was a little vomit worthy and frankly, I was boring myself. So instead I had a snooze with my head in a weird position which left me feeling wonky for the rest of the day.

My weekend in Paris was fantastic. I love that no matter how many times you go somewhere, it’s always somehow different. This time it was different in a kind of random way. I’ll start from the beginning.

Food. So much pressure to eat the right thing. We even consulted the likes of Time Out and The Guardian for guidance. Consulted in vain might I add. All that printing of options, discussing and marking on maps was for nothing but a bit of deep fried duck and a fat, lazy eyed pirate. Perhaps more detail is needed. Let me set the scene briefly: 12 hours of walking, getting lost maybe four times (mostly my fault), rain, non reading of gallery opening times and a free Starbucks cappuccino. And back to the story. It was about 1030 at night, somewhere past the Bastille and we were in the middle of walking the long way to get there. My legs were heavy, toes slightly blistered by my Assassin shoes and I was close to giving up. It got to the point that if the next street wasn’t the right one, we were going to turn back. But as luck had it, the next street was what we were after. And can I add, the street set up the randomness that turned out to be the night. It was probably the only restaurant on the street/motorway and it was next door to an iron clad police station.

‘Les Dingues’ was a one man show. I think the maitre-de/barman/chef/waiter/DJ’s name might have been Pascale. At least, that’s what he’s going to be called for the sake of this story. So, Pascale was on the morbid side of obese, kind of looked like the fat guy from Lost and held his curly locks back with a headband – because, you know, for a man who looked like he suffered from the meat sweats, hygiene would have been a top priority. He was the kind of dude that made babies cry, dogs bark and old ladies clutch their handbags. He scared us into eating everything on our plates without a single threat. But he was that type of man. Throughout the meal, we felt like uninvited guests, as it seemed like everyone (4 people) there knew Pascale. Some guy was even getting up every two minutes to change the tunes playing from the computer on the bar. Then, a party of five, a dog and some random guy on his own came in and started a party. Old Pascal was LOVING it. He was smoking at the bar as he poured drinks and wandered in and out of the kitchen, no doubt to scratch his arse. The highlight would definitely have been after we’d finished our mains and I spotted a mouse run over the plates. Pesky food standards. So after, we made a hasty exit amid a floury of ‘tres bien’ and ‘super’ compliments about our meal and left feeling kind of disturbed and sick from a plate of what was essentially meat grizzle and burnt frozen wedges. God it was random.

Wow, that ended up being longer than I intended. If you want to keep on reading, there’s more.

We also went to Versailles. The day had gone quite well so far because we hadn’t got lost. It went a little downhill when we somehow joined an Italian 50+ tour group as soon as we got through the gates. We realised too late and backed away slowly after getting some weird looks as the nonnas knew we were misplaced before we did. As we laughed our way down to the ground floor at the silliness of it all, we stopped in our tracks as another group of 50+’s were grouped at the bottom of the stairs. They were listening very intently and quietly as old people do and seemed unamused at us interrupting what was no doubt a very interesting spiel. The only way to escape was to walk down the stairs, past the guide and through the crowd. It was like we were celebrities, except of course we weren’t and it was kind of embarrassing.

The final thing, which may not be the last, but I’ve had a mental blank, were some markets we visited near the Sacre Coeur. Note, when Time Out says ‘must see’ and ‘prepare yourself’ they are both lying and telling the truth. It was like stepping out into ghetto sales hell. Imagine some of the most gangster looking hoodies mixed with local tramps, then add every piece of crap you've even thrown away. Voila! You’ve got yourself a market. The funniest bit was walking around the corner from the main market and seeing rows of mini stalls the homeless had set up. Used towel? Sure, someone would definitely up for that. One shoe? Discarded socks? The perfect gift for all! It was hilarious.

Add a shit load of cheese, wine, crepes, pastries and a boy, and that was Paris.

Old habits die slowly

2009-03-22T20:51:00.003Z

I grew up a flat sheet girl.

So, as I contemplate buying my second set of sheets (I know. Commitment to the max), I'm wondering whether I should take the plunge and skip the whole flat sheet thing. I'm mean, it's not as if I do hotel corners when I make my bed. What am I saying? I haven't made my bed in the morning since the early 90's let alone do any fancy folding.

I guess I feel like it's a bit of a grown up thing not having a flat sheet. It's kind of like when I have ice cream for dinner or before my 'real' dinner if I'm feeling really crazy. It's sadly satisfying and makes me feel like I'm defying the rules of my childhood. Wait, it's bigger than that, I'm rebelling against societies rules! I squash rules with a spoon.

When I think about it, which is perhaps too much, it's a little sad knowing I might not have a flat sheet anymore. It reminds me of my childhood, of my mum tucking me in and it's really handy in the morning when you have a bright room. I know it's completely ridiculous and I've spent way too much of my time and Skinner's time discussing this, but it feels like it represents something more than an added layer between me and my duvet(UK readers)/doona (OZ) - like what I did there? It's like the one last thing of my childhood will go when I get rid of it.

Again, I'd like to reiterate that I know this post is ridiculous. Perhaps I should have a little think about how and what I'd like people to think of me being pressing 'publish post'. Hmmmm......

Back to my woes:

I tried the whole duvet only thing last week. It was mostly out of laziness because my sheet had ended up on the floor and I couldn't be bothered pulling it up. It was ok. My legs felt joyously free, but I felt a lack of security that only a Doberman or a flat sheet can bring.

I decided to go ahead with this mature move in the bedding department today. Strange foresight that usually never appears when I need it to came over me and I looked online to see if the cover I wanted was in stock before going all the way to the shop. It was not. So now I am still a flat sheet girl in a one set world.

Time, timing and the what if of it

2009-03-21T21:15:00.004Z

I'm sure everyone has thought about timing more than once in their life, but last night, Luke and I were talking about it, and I was trying to remember all the significant times in my life that I had consciously made a decision that had led me down a certain path. I mean, we make decisions everyday that have an impact in some way or another on our life, but I'm talking about the times I kind of stopped and went, shit, this is going to make a difference. I think maybe the first was when mum gave me the choice to go overseas with her. I use the word 'choice' loosely, as Mum threatened to put me in boarding school if I didn't go. Whether she would have followed through with it, I'm not sure. I suspect it was a clever piece of reverse psychology. Sure, the me of 27 wants to go back and kick the TLC listening girl of 1996, yet to grow into her nose and who harbored fantasies of one day marrying Dean Cain. But when you're fourteen, the thought of missing one weekend, let alone eight in a row, of going into the mall and trying to make eye contact with the guy with green eyes was devastating. In the end I went, bribed with Euro Disney (I know, I hate Disney), had the most eye opening and wonderful time of my life and missed nothing.

I guess the first real decision I ever made was to go to university. I think the second was to apply for a job in advertising. The third, to go travelling and the fourth, to move to London. I know I've made a lot of decisions between then which have no doubt made an impact on my life in ways I've seen and have yet to see, but I think they would be my biggest ones so far. Four major life decisions in ten years. Is that a lot? Or a little? Hindsight brings the impact of those decisions to life, so I guess more will reveal themselves when they're ready.

Stupid words

2009-03-12T23:19:00.003Z

I've been doing some integrating. So much so, it's become part of my vernacular. So much so, I've been whipping them out in meetings. Like 'let's just crack on shall we?'. Recently, I've been whacking this phrase out onto the meeting table like it's chamber pot contents being thrown out of windows in 1800's London. Err, not sure why I've gone all Oliver on you, but let's move on. Oh, the use of 'crack on' was so tempting yet too obvious.

So, I'd like to dissect the stupidity of this phrase in two sections.

Section 1:

Let's just crack on

Am I baking?
Am I smashing wood with my forehead?
Am I at a Greek wedding?

No, no, no. So stop saying it you silly girl. Be your own person, don't let these bullshit blue sky phrases seep in and poison your mind.

Section 2:

Shall we?

As much as my mum would like my use of 'shall' in a sentence, I'm neither polite nor a resident of a castle so I don't need to include this in my vocabulary.

That is it.

Bad, gross and a bit weird

2009-03-09T12:37:00.001Z

Over the last month or so, I’ve developed this really disgusting habit of pulling the mascara off my eyelashes.

It’s disgusting for the following reasons:

1. It’s disgusting
2. I have Asian eyelashes which I’m pretty sure I’ve moaned about a past post. Because they’re few and far between, I can’t be wasting them on habits such as these.
3. It is annoying people, I’m like a pen clicking or knuckle cracking person. And I don’t want to be.

I must stop but it’s so satisfying pulling out those pesky clumps of mascara. It’s all the most satisfying when I don’t get an eyelash too. Now, don’t stress, I don’t have some weird phobia thingy when I’m going to be eyelash-less and hiding away in an attic hissing at shadows with my pink ringed, unprotected, eyes. I just need to stop my three go a day habit. I. Just. Need. To. Stop. It.

Do you know why this has happened? It’s the advertising that fooled me into buying this stupid 500 billion times thickening mascara. I choose to blame everything on advertising. Everything.

It has come to my attention

2009-03-09T10:05:00.002Z

That my last post may have needed some context.

So here it is...

http://www.futureme.org

Future me

2009-03-08T18:26:00.002Z

Last year, I decided to send myself an email in the future. You know, just to make sure that the future me was staying on track with what the past me wanted.

Monday, November 10, 2008 was like any other day. I probably, actually, correct that, most definitely, had Sainsbury's Fruit and Nut Muesli with yoghurt and banana for breakfast. And, because I just really enjoy checking what I was doing at various points in the previous year, I've even checked my diary to see exactly what I was up to. So, let's go back four months. The week before this fateful Monday, Skinner had left, I had caught up with Jaz, wondered why it had been so long since we last caught up, and as it worked out, it was the last time I saw him before he left. On the Saturday, I had met Vic and gone to the National Portrait Gallery. There, I had rushed up to this unsuspecting girl thinking it was Vic, and had made some highly amusing and witty comment about a fat Victorian lady to her. The girl who looked nothing like Vic but for those who choose to walk around blind like myself, it was quite an easy mistake to make. Let's face it, short bobbed, black fringed hair is very similar to medium length brown hair. Afterward, if memory serves me correctly, we went and had afternoon tea at the cute place in Soho Skinner introduced me to. On the Sunday, I went to Lisa's for her belated birthday lunch and most likely stuffed myself silly.

And now we go back to Monday. I think it had just hit me that Skinner had gone, I was feeling really sad, knowing that the next year was going to be tough without most of my friends who, up until then, had been sharing my London adventure with me. I think I just wanted to remind myself of how I wanted to be in the upcoming year. And you know what, there's definitely something to be said about timing.

Vanessa of November 10, 2008 wanted Vanessa of March 7, 2009 to know:

I hope you're making the most of every opportunity that comes your way and that you're happy.

Yea, it's a little lame-o, but past me would definitely be happy with future me. It couldn't have come on a better day.

Monday, parliament day

2009-03-06T17:31:00.003Z

I completely forgot to talk about my amazing visit to Parliament on Monday night. To cut a long, and only amusing story for, say, two people, short, Luke and I went to the House of Commons for a tour and special seats at question time. Not only did we chat local issues with his local MP (obviously I had a lot of thoughtful and insightful points to offer), but we also got our own private tour complete with really interesting, and no, I'm not being sarcastic, historical anecdotes. It was one of the most random, surprising and interesting things I've done in London. I spent a lot of our MP conversation thinking about saying something regarding Australian politics such as, 'oh, I believe our political system is based on that of the English one' because derr, it is, but as I opened my mouth I had a moment of panic when I thought I was wrong. So I closed it. Plus I couldn't remember what we called our House of Representatives, which, with hindsight, I now realise, is called the House of Representatives. We also went into the family room, met a dude who campaigned for Obama and got really cool security tags. Now I know what I'll look like if I ever rob a bank and then escape via a train station where they capture me on CCTV.

It was just really kind of inspiring to meet someone who was actually really passionate about making a difference. Of course, it hasn't really rubbed off on me as being some kind of Joan of Arc is only a thought rather than a reality, but still, it was great. Question time was a err, dull, but it was bizarre seeing an MP in that green room (can't remember it's official name) with his feet up on the middle table you see on TV.

Things are looking up

2009-03-03T21:29:00.003Z

Because I actually have things to write about other than nonsensical musings about the oil man voices in my head.

I have so much fun stuff planned over the next couple of months I actually had 1988 night before Christmas excitement on Sunday night. So much so, I couldn't sleep. I've got comedy shows, Swan Lake, Paris and the latest additions of Iceland for Easter and Romania for May bank holiday.

March is definitely the new January. This year is about doing what feels right. It's about lists, about being being better at life, about trying and being a winner.

The fun-maker is back.