Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A week in the life of... WARNING: OFFENSIVE PHOTO

Ok. So, this might piss some people off. These people all have on thing in common - they live in Brisbane. My dearly beloved Brisbane friends, I have done a shitty thing. I have spent the last week in Noosa without telling any of you. I'm sorry, but I had to. Here's why: I only had a week to spare. My Brother and his family were visiting from overseas, and my sister Snowy and the bub came up too. On top of all that, I had about thirty boxes of crap I had to go through for Mum, as she was fed up with storing it, and rightly so. That took up precious hours of family time, and to be honest I just did not have a day spare that I could use to go to Brisbane. I know, shitty friend. But, for those of you that will forgive me, I will make it a longer trip next time so that we can party.
Ok, that outta the way, prepare to be assaulted by my tale, it begins with QANTAS...
Firstly, why do they only employ ugly, surly old bitches? Is it a prerequisite to be a crabby middle-aged curmudgeon? Do they give them an intensive two-day course on how to give terrible customer service? Alright, so I was feeling slightly seedy on the morning we left Adelaide. I bought a coffee. It went like this:
'Caramelatte please.'
'Cafe latte?'
'Caramelatte.'
'Cafe latte?'
'No, a caramelatte.'
'yes but made from a cafe latte?'
*sigh* 'sure.'
so I got my cafelattewithashotofcaramel and was surprised at how good it was, despite the lack of brain activity in the woman who made it. I went to the gate with it. I greeted the ancient slapper with a cheery 'how're you going?'
She (no kidding) looked me up and down like I was wearing ripped lingerie and ten inch heels and snapped 'is that coffee?'
'yes.'
'You can't take that on board.'
Well, I pride myself on being polite, but when someone is needlessly rude to me, I fire up. I glared at her, then walked over to the bin, and stood beside it, slowly sipping and savouring the caramelatte. Bear in mind, we were nearly last boarding, cos I hate lining up like a sheep. This makes Kat very nervous, she would rather line up for half an hour than just wait til last and walk straight to our seats. So there was I, enjoying my coffee, looking at the tv that sits above the bin, and I could feel them looking at me. Kat was more imploring than the walking corpse, she was just plain seething. I looked back at them. Kat motioned for me to hurry up. I said 'I'm not hurrying, they'll still be lining up on the aerobridge and I'm not wasting this coffee.'
The hostess with the mostest was turning slightly red and was tapping her foot. 'Well, you have to come through now, because I already scanned you' she hissed. Bullshit. Like there's a timer at the plane that beeps if you board after a time of two minutes has elapsed. Bitch. But Kat was in agony so I opened the bin flap and pitched the coffee in with all my strength. I strode back to Ozzy Ozborne and stood in front of her. She was clearly flustered (as well as being stupid and ugly) and scanned my pass again. The machine had a hissy fit and I felt deep joy that she had screwed up and was embarassed. She handed me my pass. I snatched it off her as vindictively as I possibly could, and stormed off down the ramp without so much as a backward glance. She said something after me and I ignored her. I felt I had won, and I didn't have to see her again, cos she was ground crew, right? Wrong. I didn't order any food in the plane in case she might spit in it.
Ok skip forward to our arrival at my Brother's place. It's nestled in the bush at Pomona and is so bloody full of serenity, you could choke on it. Present were my Bro and his awesome Scottish wife, two sets of good mates of theirs (all cool characters), my Ma, me, Kat, Snowy, the Bohdster (nephew) and my other niece and nephew. They are teenagers and I think there is something wrong with them. I say this because they are not like normal teens. Get this - they are not surly, not at all. They somehow not only want to spend time with their family, but they really fit right in too. At one point (make sure you are sitting down here) Snowy started doing the dishes after dinner, and my seventeen year old nephew said to her 'let me do this, you go and sit down and relax.'
WHATWHATWHAAAAAAAAAT???????:??????????
The cutest thing is that when we got there, he had organised a treasure hunt for us to do, with clues leading from one spot to the next! This might make him sound a lil fruity, but he's so cool! He plays bass in a band, and is heaps popular! I dunno how I got so lucky with my family. In spite of the coolness though, he does have a lil weakness - fear of heights. This made Monday interesting.
Monday we climbed the Story Bridge. It was all kinds of awesome. Before I recount the tale, let me share what happened when I asked Kat if she wanted to do it. I had been texting my Brother, he was asking if we were in:
'Kat, whaddaya reckon about a hundred bucks to climb a big bridge in Brisbane?'
'Sounds like a pretty good deal...'
*Inner monologue* wow, that was easy.
So, it wasn't until days before our trip and I was fretting about money that it all came out:
'Shit, and we still have to pay a hundred bucks for that bridge climb!'
'What?'
'The bridge climb? Please don't tell me you don't remember me asking you.'
'I remember, but I thought they were paying you! You mean we both have to go, and pay a hundred each?'
'Wait a minute, you though someone would pay me a hundred bucks to climb a bridge?'
'Yes.'
'Why would I do that?'
'I don't know! You do all sorts of dumb shit for money!'
No wonder she has been so easy to convince!
Bear in mind, the only thing I have ever been payed for that wasn't a normal job was when I got a flu shot, once.
So, although I offered her a way out, she decided to go ahead and climb. There were six of us. My Brother, his mate, my Niece and Nephew, Kat and I. Kat and my nephew are scared of heights. They were fretting, Rainman style as we set off. We had to wear harnesses, which was fine, and headsets, which was fine also, if only the tour guide would have stopped making lame jokes. You're in charge of our safety, mate, we're already your friends. You don't have to try so hard. Nobody laughed at your joke about crossing the bridge by pogo stick the first time, no need for a second, is there?
The view was magnificent, and I managed to placate kat enough to enjoy it just a little. Sadly, we couldn't take cameras, so I don't have any pics yet, but rest assured, in each one, Kat's face is a stone mask of disapproval, and mine is that of a grinning fool. I loved every second, and so did my niece, which is surprising, cos she used to be scared of everything when she was a bairn (Ive been reading Irvine Welsh), and my bro loved it too, but that's not surprising, cos he's game to try anything.
On Wednesday, we went to Eumundi Markets, which, if you aren't familiar with them are iconic to the area. They used to be tiny when I was a kid, I can remember Mum and Dad taking us, and we used to get little paper bags of warm Macadamia nuts and sometimes a toy. Once I got a tiny doll, it's face was porcelain but it's body was all stitches. I loved it but lost it somewhere.
These days, it's mammoth. Well, Mammoth for Eumundi. Snowy was super excited, I was moderately excited, which drained away when I saw the generic stalls and high prices. There's a new section down the back that I don't like. There's never anything there that interestes me - except for one stall selling little illustrations from old children's books. I was looking for approximately seven seconds when the woman came over and launched into an explanation of what they were, despite the fact that it was glaringly obvious to anyone with eyes and a brain stem. I became irritated, I hate people pushing things on to me. I walked away, but Snowy stayed, and I could see the woman busy with someone else, so I came back. She clearly had a thing for me, cos she reappeared at my side, as if by some sort of annoying magic. 'You're an Alice fan!' she gushed.
I looked at her. 'What do you mean?' Alice Cooper? In Chains?
'Alice in wonderland! The little girl, the lion!' She was referring to my tattoo. Firstly, there is no lion in Alice in Wonderland. Secondly, SOD OFF!
I looked some more at a tiny pic of Winnie the Pooh, too fat to squeeze through a door. I put it down to think about it. She approached me AGAIN, 'Oh, you're not getting the fat pooh?'
I waited until she spoke to someone else and snuck away, but I know she saw me go, I could feel her eyes burning into the back of my skull.
After the market, we all sent to the pub for lunch. It was there that my beautiful baby Nephew had his first ice cream. Behold his ridiculous cuteness:
He waved it round like a microphone and got hardly any in his mouth.
Thursday was our 'Christmas day'. We have an early Christmas for the family members present about every second year, when my Bro is back from o/s. Thankfully these days we do a secret Santa, with a limit of $50, which is ace cos we have a big family. We still get the kids presents though. We did that in the morning, and I got a cool necklace from my Sis. I was surprised actually, cos I'm really hard to buy jewellery for, and she nailed it. Usually I'm happy with a bit of string with some beads, I don't go fo a lot of bling. When my Brother and the gang arrived, this is what awaited them:


I was not aware that anything this cute existed. Poor lil bugger was so good about it and we were all taking pics and cooing and gaaing and then when we took it off, he was sweltering!
So, at Mum's, there is her house, and then a lil bunk house down the back. We stayed there. This was good in some ways. bad in others. Good when the bub woke at 5am, bad when I needed to pee in the night. The first night, I made the trek back to the house, thinking of zombies and dodging cane toads the whole time. Yeah, that wore thin. After that, army style outside the bunkhouse, for no. 1s only though. Anyway, Friday morning I woke up and could see three roos outside. They were about 50m away and I thought aww. Later as I was coming back to the bunk house, I saw a plover. I thought to myself 'plover' in a most menacing manner, cos I hate them with a firery passion, them with their stupid hunched over walk and pathetic cry... as I was glaring at it, I hadn't realised that I'd strolled over to the three roos, which were now in Mum's garden. Embarassingly, I let out a little 'argh' but they didn't move, just stared at me in that stern way. I crept closer and got a pic:


I wan't scared, cos they weren't big and I went on and told Mum. We all thought nothing of it until I was in the shed a half an hour later, trying to finish those boxes I mentioned. The op shop has never been so lucky as the day all my stuff goes there. I was ruthless.
So caught up was I in going through the boxes that I didn't notice Snowy leave, scream and run back. She just stood there, eyes like dinner plates, panting.
'What happened?'
*speechless*
'Did you see a spider?'
*shakes head*
Mum helps: 'snake? Roo?'
*nods*
'Roo?'
*nods and goes into Rainman mode* 'Itwasreallybig,reallybig,rightinfrontame'
Naturally, as in all crises, I began to laugh. 'He won't hurt ya!'
Then I found out how close she got. She's been walking with her head down and at the point where his foot came into her vision, she stopped, raised her head and was visage à visage with him! She about shit herself and rightly so! Then Mum tried to calm her down and send her back up another way, and suddenly she ran back again, Rainman all over: 'There'soneatthetopofthepath!thetopofthepath!Mumsentmetothepath!' Turns out there cheeky buggers had gone right up to the actual house! Well, by this time, there was no hope for me, and I chuckled my way through the next two boxes.
To put this in context - these boxes were about a lifetime of stuff excluding things I have accumulated here in SA these last 5 years. I found precious loved toys like:

and books like the first one I ever was given, when I was 5,

and my favourite pillowslip from when I was little (yes I am that weird), even though I hate horses:



But I think the winner of the day was this:

Yes, you're looking at it correctly, it has a massive wang. I had been hoping I still had this 'little' guy! This came from my trip to the UK in 2002. Mitchi and I went to visit Snowy and Dean, who were living in London at the time. One night, we went to a multi-level club called On Anon, in Picadilly Circus. They were having half price drinks. Silly me went and drank three cocktails and a whole bottle of red wine. A little later, while I was politely vomiting into my hands on my way outside, it occured to me that I may have had to much to drink - maybe. One of Snowy's friends followed me (her name was Kuldeep but I kept getting confused and calling her Cool Water) to help out. She said 'you need some air, let's go for a walk to Soho.' I said 'ungh.' Cool Water took me to a porn shop owned by her friends. I asked if I could use their toilet. They said yes. When I opened the door in a hurry, I had a fraction of a second to notice that the toilet was also the cleaning cupboard before I spewed all over a vacuun cleaner. It was one of those upright ones, that sort of look like R2D2? I cleaned it as best I could but can remember that there was still chunks and dribbles caught in nooks and crannies. I returned to the front of the store and did not tell them of the fiasco. They seemed to like me. Probably not after they next went to the toilet though. They gave me that little pink rabbit. I asked for a girl one with a vagina but they only had ones with whopping great dongs. I thanked them nonetheless and got the hell outta there. So, that rabbit was the prize find in my sortings.
On the way home from the week away, we had a 6 hour stop over in Sydney (thanks tiger air, you incompetent stupid heads) So we met my great mate TJ in the city and he showed us around. It was awesome to see him, as we seldom are abe to catch up. Coupla nice pubs, coupla nice beers, a very bad rendition of Don't Stop Believing in the mall by some band and a walk in the park. Cheers, Sydney for the weather n all. Just a quick side note, it's TJ's birthday today. Happy Birthday mate, I wish I was there to celebrate with you, drinking cheap claret from emptied jam jars.
Back at the airport and after waiting for Tiger to pull their heads out of their asses we were finally through. The family in front of us had really tested my patience - the father didn't speak english and quite obviously (to any sane person with even a microbe of common sense) had way too much luggage for any airline, ESPECIALLY one as retarded as tiger. Among his mountain of cases was an esky, taped up. He flew into a rage when his wife translated that he couldn't take it, and he ripped it off the conveyor. The tape around it broke and it dropped on hie foot. he raged more. Then he set himself up on the floor right there and began whipping things out of it - clothes, teatowels etc. Just when I was about to pass out from anger, the next counter became free.
On our way to the gate, Kat stopped at a Newsagent's. I trolled for magazines. 'Whoah! Looka this!' I called to Kitty and showed her the mag I had found. The very handsome and buff dude in the front had his jocks pulled indecently down, you could see pubes and the top of his Johnson! I looked inside and the first pic I saw was a black man wearing nothing but a top hat! I mean, it was a very nice hat, and his hand was cupping the business, but it was like, almost porn! Then I realised. Gay mag. That's not porn, it's artsy.
By the time we got home, we were flat out exhausted. We were syanding by the carousel, which was going but there were only 2 bags on it. One was a suitcase and the other appearred to be a toiletries bag. So deep was the level of our fatigue, that we found this hilariously funny - like tiger was so stingy that they made some poor bugger check this in or something. And around it went, all by it's little lonesome self.
So, that was our trip. This has been a massive post, so I'm gunna end abruptly here, with my favourite comment of the trip.
Snowy: 'Robyn, are you wearing a push up bra?'
Me: 'No. I'm not wearing a bra.'
Snowy: *evil stares*
Til next time!
Tx

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

I love learning but I hate studying

I promised myself I would blog every week. Then it changed to fortnightly. Then I started honours, and like the time I had five straight shots of black sambuca, it hits you all at once. I was bragging about how I had it all under control... hm.
Councidentally, around the same time that I started to quietly pop and fizz inside with panic, I began what I like to call 'the headache month'. I never didn't have a headache, just varying degrees of it - from 'hm, I don't think I can watch another episode of Mad Men, I have a headache' to 'take this note to my Mother and tell her I love her... oh and there's a watch up my ass'. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore and my very good friend the lovely Vaderella told me about her miracle healer, so I went.
Sideline Interjection - BK is amazing. Dw If you don't understand this, I'll explain later.
So. Off to the healer man. Get this - two days before I went, I was complaining to Kat about my left hip and the right side of my upper jaw. I'm not sure if she was listening cos the tv was on, but I remember telling her and being baffled at why they would hurt, I had been doing nothing but assignments. When I went to see him, he asked me through to his examination area thing and stood about 2.5 to 3 metres away from me and looked me up and down once (not in a creepy way). He says:
'Well, your hip's out,' and pointed to my left hip.
I said 'uh, that's a bit weird, it has been hurting of late...'
He walked up to me as he said 'it's throwing you whole body off. let me guess, it really hurts here... but not here.' He poked my left bicep and I (no joke) yelped in pain, poked the right, nothing. After a couple more comparisons, he touched the left side of my jaw, nothing, touched the right, BAM. Weird, huh? All that from looking at me (not creepily). He did some things to my spine, there were pops and cracks and all of a sudden I felt looser (not in a sexual way). He told me it might be a couple days until it settled in. Lo and behold, two days later I woke up without a headache for the first time in a month. Chiropractice (did I get that right) is gold. Thanks Vader.
Now, I've missed out on some things owing to these headaches, the most notable - several assignment deadlines. Luckily I have amazing tutors and they have been very understanding. Regardless of posture or glasses, it's kinda impossible to stare at a computer screen for hours on end when your head is crumbling like so many eroding beaches. Another thing I missed was several chances to dress up. A Mighty Boosh party, our league end of season party and Halloween (I didn't even go out that wknd, just wrote and wrote). I didn't dress up for any of them. One thing I was adamant that I wouldn't miss was the dress up skating birthday party of my lil mate Diggity. He turned thirteen. This kid is all kinds of awesome. He makes shirts for all the derby girls and he decorated my new helmet. He comes to bouts dressed in a top hat and eye stripe, just like me, and he skates like the wind. So, he had a thriller dress up party. Since I was still busy with uni work, I thought of a costume that I wouldn't have to spend any money on or time either. Here it is.



To accompany this, I took a hockey stick with the blade covered in blood, like it slit my throat. Turns out that particular brand of fake blood looks really cool, but is very, very sticky. Every time I looked down, my neck stuck to itself and as the night wore on it got worse, and started to really hurt when I separated it. Nonetheless, I think I looked pretty gory. The party was heaps of fun, although I felt weird skating in quads and hockey gear. It's kinda like when you see someone in a really cool outfit, skinny jeans and stuff and then you look down and they're wearing sneakers. It's just not right.
After the party we were hungry and decided on KFC. Caddy and I chatted and agreed on the KFC we would go to. The only problem with that discussion is that although I was making eye contact and nodding, I wasn't listening to her and I went to the wrong KFC. After I got us to the right KFC, they were closed. We went to the door and it said open til 11pm and it was just after ten. We spoke through the glass at the chick and told her they had to let us in cos the door said 11. She did. Then the manager was like 'no! we're closed!' and we said 'what? It's not eleven!' This went on for a minute (bear in mind we were all still in Costume, I felt like a peewee hockey player whose parents dress them prior to arrival at the rink) until they told us we had to go through drive through. We (lied and) told them we didn't have a car, I don't know why, we were just riled up I guess. They said we could walk through. We said 'well ok, but you should put that info on the door, it's false advertising.' On our way out we spotted the smaller print that said 'drive thru only after 10pm'. Bunch of douches, that's us.
The next day I spent writing and awaiting a call from my hairdresser, who takes the word 'cool' to a fifth dimension that only dogs can hear. Coincidentally, just as I finished, she text me and said I could come round. I was tired of my hair already after only three months, I never did anything with it, just got up every morning and put a hat on. Also, it's so thick that my scalp is starved for air so I decided it was time for a change - a whopping great change. This is the result:


Just kidding, that's not me, this is:


Hahahahahaha ok enough tricks, this time it's really me:

That's a quiff in the middle there! I will say that I love my new hair - I love to be different to everyone else. Also, it's easy to style, versatile and cool for summer. What I will also say is that it is not popular amongst my peers so far. I calculate that only about five percent of people that I know who have seen it, like it. I can tell because they see me, look for a second then pretend they don't even notice and they say nothing, or perhaps they say 'ohhh... you have a haircut...' and either walk away or change the subject. I'm not stupid. I know it's not for everyone. But it is hair - the very nature of which (unless you're Peter Garrett) is to grow, so I'm not stuck with a mohawk forever, it's just a bit of fun for now. When you look in the mirror, do you say (via inner monologue of course) 'I sure am an individual... bit of a dork but an individual nonetheless. I stand out in a crowd and like to live life on the edge! Go me!' OR is it more like this - 'I have long hair. It can go in a pony or stay down. I am reliable and fear change. People seem to like me because I am polite, and I'm rarely late.' ?
Anyway, although largely uneventful, that has been my month. Now I can go back to fortnightly.
Sweet! You stay classy, interwebs!
Tx
P.S. BK is my tallest friend and she complains every blog post that I never mention her awesomeness. She beats me at The Day Of Poo app but once I punched her in her glasses and smashed them to smithereens. They were not on her face at the time.