The World According To Me

Hey kids, just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water…..along comes another inane post about…well…nothing….

Things have been altogether boring of late. I have been on a week long spree of cleaning my house, making sure I don't neglect the little things, like Mr Sheen-ing the skirting boards and such. Which is great. Only now I am finding it increasingly difficult to be lazy, as I don't officially have anything to procrastinate about. I am actually entitled to spend a lot of time sitting on my arse because I don't have anything better to do. Living without the constant nagging guilt of an armchair overflowing with ironing and dusty venetians is quite strange really.

I need a hobby.

Last weekend I said goodbye to another of my closest friends, who has moved to Perth to be an amazingly high-paid kick-arse family lawyer. Oh so many tears. The number of people in my immediate vicinity that I actually want to spend prolonged amounts of time with is rapidly diminishing, and this does make me sad.

I also saw one of my little sisters do her debutante ball last Friday. It's such a strange event, these girls get frocked up and dance and….it's weird. She looked beautiful though, so grown up, and I was very proud of her.

Last Saturday morning I came out into the kitchen to find Agnes standing over her latest 'present'. She has brought me such a present once before, in the form of a bird, which was awful and I'd hoped she wouldn't do it again. At least this time it wasn't a bird, at first I thought it was a possum until I saw the long, unmistakable tail of a big, fuck-off rat. I swore and hyperventilated for a bit before going to get the dustpan and brush to take it outside. It seems I wasn't quick enough however, because by the time I'd located the dustpan, Esme had taken all credit for the situation and was dragging the wretched thing around the house. It was almost as big as she was, I still can't work out how she picked it up in her mouth. When I went near her she would hiss at me so I finally worked out to distract her with food while I manoeuvred the rat into the dustpan without touching it with my hands and took it out to the wheelie bin at arms length, muttering and dry-retching.

Sometimes I hate being a single woman. If I had a bloke I could have made him remove the offending rat and then when he was done he could mow the lawn or something. Then I think of how much I cherish my independence and enjoy my own company right now and I think I can handle a tiny (massive) rat.

It's to find out that your recent paramour has another life being married with a baby!

Thanks, MySpace, love your work. I always knew there was more to you than being a grooming place for kiddy-fiddlers.

The past week has been weird. I've had a visit to the doctor, massive amounts of work-related stress, painful dental work, hangovers and that swagger you can only get from spending a lot of time in bed feeling like a gorgeous object of desire.

I haven't heard about The Job yet and despite it being 3 weeks since the closing date I'm not overly worried. Cest la vie. I wrote an absolutely kickarse application, my referees are impressive and if I don't even get an interview I am quite content in the fact that I gave it a good crack. Maybe Perth right now isn't meant to be? How much can you push things before you mess with destiny? If you don't push enough or even simply sit back and let life happen around you, is that still your fate?

It's only been three weeks. It is a government department, after all.

This is a photo I took the other night of Lucy and Esme sitting next to me on the couch. Lucy wasn't particularly pleased that she had to share her prime spot next to me, but she coped, as we all have to.

And then Esme spots a fly, and goes into killer mode; would you check out the focus and determination;

Thursday I finally got my much-anticipated haircut. I collapsed into the chair after work and announced to my lovely hairdresser that I needed the Works Burger of hairdressing. 3 hours later he was finished and I am a changed woman with swingy shiny hair with not a hint of grey. Hurrah!

Friday morning I was up early, bathed Lucy and took her to mum's place on the way to Melbourne. Mum was (understandably) very nervous about looking after her (Lucy is a jumper, and then a runner, and mum's fences aren't very high). I reminded her that I had looked after her daughter for three days last week without incident and that it can't be that hard to look after my child-substitute for one night. Kept on my way to the big city, had a dream run through with traffic and was at BFF & BFFGF's house by 2pm. Drinking commenced shortly thereafter. By 6pm I was entirely smashed, along with everyone else. There were seven of us and we all caught a cab into the city. The driver was very friendly and affable and as we were wrecked, we decided the best thing to do would be to call his cab company to let his managers know what a great driver he was. We did that for most of the way from Carnegie to the CBD. He should have about 75 gold stars next to his name by now. In the city we met up with more friends who were still to catch up with our level of inebriation and headed to Trades Hall. More drinks consumed in the bar there, before hearing into the Tardis for THE SHOW.

All I can say about THE SHOW is that I am really proud of her. She was on fire, it was piss funny and so together and picked on me and also BFF when he dropped his empty beer cup. It was a tiny, tiny venue and such an incident could not go unnoticed. Given that BFF is her brother she ripped into him and it was tres amusing. More drinks in the Trades Hall bar afterwards and we then headed to Stalactites for some food. I discovered saganaki and now my world is a much better place. How could I have possibly lived for 25 years without discovering there was a dish made completely of cheese? Thank goodness they put our group upstairs out of sight from anyone else as we were terribly behaved, singing and carrying on and generally being spankers. We then crawled on to one of my favourite city pubs, the Exford. Oh Exford, how I love thee, with your dingy surrounds and questionable punters. They were having some sort of mini comedy fest of their own, but only two out of the five comedians were in any way mirth inducing. It was a difficult venue, at 1am on a Saturday morning, with no-one really interested in listening, especially to those who weren't funny. I met one of the guys after his little set as he was a friend of a friend, and he seemed a bit sad about the whole situation. When he was going he even thanked me for laughing. Hmmmm. It must be a tough gig. By this stage I was beyond comfortably drunk and switched to glasses of water (!) which is definitely a sign that I am getting old. Then we went home, and I passed out under the comfort of my doona prior to the frozen pizza exiting the oven.

Saturday morning we had a big greasy breakfast and I went to the cheapo shop next to the cafe and purchased myself my very first nudie-girl ashtray. Not that I smoke inside at my house, but I have always wanted one and for a whole dollar I was damn well going to get it. Then began the long hungover drive home. I wanted to go to the Diana Ferrari factory outlet on the way to see if I could get some bargainacious shoes for my big hoofers. Score! Two pairs. Then I went to the handbag place next door because my wallet has been broken for oh, four months now….score! New Jag wallet and new Jag handbag (handbag was unplanned) for $20 each. Goddamn I love Melbourne sometimes.

Picked up Lucy on the way home and slept very, very soundly that night. Sunday and Monday were spent being domesticated and watching DVD's ('Little Miss Sunshine' - am I the only person who hadn't seen that movie? I loved it. And I purchased 'Garden State' very cheaply also, which I loved already). I was just getting into the swing of things when it was rudely time to come back to work this morning. And now we're up to date.

Bad stuff - when eating my greasy breakfast on Saturday morning I chomped down on a piece of grilled tomato (grilled tomato - possibly softest breakfast food possible aside from eggs) and cracked a tooth. A molar, right up the back of my mouth on the bottom. And then on Sunday morning some more cracked off, leaving me with a sharp piece which is currently cutting my tongue to shreds and leaving me with a slight speech impediment. Fucking charming. I have had to make an appointment with the dentist for Thursday and am not looking forward to it. Booooooo.

My little sister has gone home after her two-day visit. My animals are sad, especially Lucy who by the second morning had learned to wake her "Aunty Dell" with a big kiss. Yes, I'm sad. But Lucy's sadder, and I take comfort in that. It was a little bit nice having someone else in the house, I came home from work yesterday and all my washing had been done, hung out, bought in and folded. My kitchen floor and the floor of the sunroom were swept. A little less on my list o' things to do.

I am gearing up for the long weekend. Most notably on Thursday night I have a long overdue appointment with my hairdresser. Thank the sweet Lord for that. I haven't had my mop attended to for nigh on 4 months, because I am a broken and poor woman and also because I have been caring a little less about the mess on my head. The layers have grown out, the colour has grown out and I am left with what is ostensibly a curly long triangle of tresses with blaring grey hairs peeking out rudely. I am very much looking forward to having a lot less volume and a nice shiny colour, then I can spend Friday through to Monday swishing and admiring my cut in the mirror and marvel at being able to get a brush through it. Whilst I'm on the subject, what the fuck is up with grey hair? I started going grey at the tender age of 23 after the dramas that occurred with Operation Boob Reduction, it has been put down to my body going into shock when I haemorrhaged, but still. Why are the grey hairs always like a brillo pad? Why can't they grow and sit nicely like the other normal hairs, not drawing attention to themselves and just waiting to be dyed as opposed to being ridiculously thick and wiry and pokey up? Boooo to grey hair.

Now, has everyone made arrangements to go to this show? Good, I knew I could rely on you people. See you there on Friday. There'll probably only be 6 audience members so it'll be nice and cosy and we can chat afterwards.

Operation Get Off My Fat Arse hasn't really gone anywhere, I'm ashamed to admit. Apart from the 32 minutes of netball I played on Monday night I really have done fuck all. Those 32 minutes were tough though, I had to completely relearn how to catch, move, pass and shoot all over again. I joked with my team-mates that my pre-season training had comprised solely of reaching for the remote, and sadly this is not far from the truth. Must do better.

Also having been enjoying Wilfred very much. The most clever show I have seen in a long time.

First game of the 2007 mixed netball season for the mighty SOS last night (Yay!).

We lost (boooooo).

By 5 (semi-Boooooo).

We've been put up two whole divisions (Boooooo).

My little sister played (Yay!).

I had to play on a girl who was as tall as me (Booooo).

She was much, much better than me (ultra-Booooooo).

I shot some goals (Yay!).

But missed heaps of others (Boooooo).

I got cross with myself (Meh).

So I started to play more aggressively (Yay!).

Then kept getting called up for contact (Booooo).

Then my opponent went up for a particularly vigorous rebound and landed on my leg (Booooooo).

It hurt (mega-Boooooo).

And has left a BIG bruise (Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo).

So my sister and I had junk food for dinner to make ourselves feel better about our loss and my injury (Yay!).

After my self-indulgent Friday night sook session where I Did Not Go On A Date and instead stayed home trying to emulate Bridget Jones, but stoned (think pyjama's, big glasses of wine, cigarettes and dvd's), I got off my couch and brushed my hair and headed down to Melbourne on Saturday for a(another) housewarming party, of BFF and BFFGF.

Fun!

I got to catch up with old friends, and made new ones. This was exciting. I drank a lot and talked to people with interesting names and jobs and views. Also BFF tried to marry me off to a handsome boy whilst thinking I could not hear him. He has such terrible ideas when he's pissed. It was embarrassing. The handsome boy handled it well but suggested marriage at this early stage was not a great idea considering he hadn't been introduced to me. So BFF introduced me to him and I had to pretend I hadn't just heard everything they'd just said about me. Then the handsome boy and I talked and that was nice, however the party ended without me becoming engaged.

Sigh.

Yesterday the drive home was epic, with much traffic in the city and having to detour to my mum's place to pick up my sister who has come to stay with me for a few days. Why does everything seem to take so much longer and be so much more difficult when you're hungover?

This morning I am struggling. The post-feeling sick part of my hangover has set in, the part where my brain starts seeking revenge for me fucking it up with booze. Ugggh.