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Hello? Hello?

Life lesson no. 34

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goodbye dorms, it was fun, really

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Awkward conversation with an authority figure no. 57

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

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

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.