penelope´s perpetual search for public conveniences

Failing beautifully

2012-01-26T19:23:00.000-08:00

I recently tried to repel someone by telling them my bursary stats mark. Which got me thinking about failures, because 16%, scaled up to 36% is a quite spectacular failure and one I am quite proud of.

A failure I am not proud of involved today's luncheon - I went out with my workmate to purchase $11 salads and then walk for another 10 minutes so we could sniff the candles in Myer, for we are corporate bitches and that's what we do. While standing in Myer purchasing stuff, the bottom of the paper bag holding my container of pricey and delicious salad ripped and my pricey and delicious salad fell to the floor. Now I have no doubt that Myer has very clean floors but my mother did not raise me to eat smoked salmon off tiles so I had to sort of smush it all back into the remains of the bag, give the oily mess to a sales assistant and then go back to the salad shop and buy another one.

Which makes this a $22 salad and while it's good - it's not that good. Needs capers.

Possibly updating when tired is a bad idea but you've come this far, read on, you poor mofo

2011-12-12T00:24:00.000-08:00

Right. Long time, no babbling of the Penelope variety. Forgive me, tiny reading dancers. My home 'puter is entering its teens and I think might have hit the emo stage. Consequently, in revenge for me making it into a desktop (it was an accident, I swear) it is finally taking revenge and now refusing to access the wonderful world of the internets. Basically, it's sulking. If it could, it would be painting its nails black.

So I have my work laptop - which in turn doesn't like me blogging. Probably it senses I should be editing instead. So I've had to steal someone else's magical nerd box to publish this. Please appreciate the lengths I go to to tell you sweet nothings.

Obviously some sort of round up of the past however many weeks is required. I know how you all pine to know the smallest detail of my magnificent life.

In short - went home. Ate a lot. Stayed with many, many people. Will now make a list and grade them.

Hazel - I didn't actually stay at Hazel's exactly, but she did let me use her shower and her iron and gave me cider in the few hours between flying into Auckland and having to go to someone's birthday party. And she gave me a bottle of wine. So far, so good. Hazel has made a flying start - what if it goes downhill from here?

James - In the approximately 11 hours that I spent at James' house I was impressed with the comfiness of his couch. It was also long enough for a Penelope. Extra point for the novelty toilet seat. And for offering me his last tea bag. However, points knocked off for the fact that he left his house at 7am or some such nonsense, and thus did not actually make me a cup of tea with that last tea bag. I refused to make myself a cup of tea and rolled on to the next place.

Brandon - Well, he gets a million points for doing my hair and offering a home to Nic and myself for two nights. And so many more points for suggesting that while we wait for the peroxide to set, we watch Game of Thrones and eat Rashuns. Best hairdresser ever.

Morgan - Has a view out over the bay and Wellington airport. Which means that while I have to work, I do have a better view than usual. However, and this will no doubt seem petty - I keep looking at the bloody view instead of reading reports. Points might have been taken off but then I found the chocolate cake.

Sara - She has kittens! And made Nic and I bacon sandwiches. But then did convince us to watch some programme about fat gypsies at Christmas that involved some weddings.

Jody - She has a cat! And made us fabulous pasta. And might have also watched a rerun of that gypsy programme. It did not improve but, of course, I could not look away.

Robin - Dad has an insane cat. And a magic fridge that is always full of food and booze. And my teddy bear. And a garage full of my stuff that I really ought to do something about but let's face facts, I won't. So many extra points for producing penguins at his work - want a pet one. Daddy says no. Points deducted. Consider stealing one but think customs might make this difficult.

Gloria - Which means Fleetwood Mac and breakfast made for me as if I was 7 and not 33. And many, many cups of tea and feet up with Arthur Ransome. Downside - she was moving and I had to offer to help.

Harriet and her family's bach - I can't blame Ratty for the rain, so shall congratulate her on putting a roof over my head. And the comfortable sofa. And the massive cooked breakfasts. But -that rain. And the local pub that didn't do cocktails (look, I'm a Sydney wanker now, I demand Flirtinis).

Hayden - Homekill venison. Small child and massive dog. Small child throws plate through glass coffee table. Small child falls out of high chair. Small child is utterly adorable and shows me his toy chainsaw and pretends to chop my arm off. Consider stealing him but think Hayden might make this difficult.

Fi - I also can't blame Fi for the quakes. And while I like to think I'm hip with the quakes, it turns out that I do still find them a bit scary in a city with a bit of a rep for big, nasty, killer quakes. However, Fi has a cat that won't get out of bed for a quake that's less than a 6, which is rather spectacular. And she took me shopping, let me work and best of all, let me treat her house as my own. Possibly she regrets that. I'm not very tidy.

While home I also attempted 'networking'. I am not a good networker. The reason I carry business cards in my wallet is so I can put them in bowls in bars to win stuff. I now have several other people's business cards that I must remember to put somewhere else so I don't accidentally put their cards into bar competitions instead of mine. However, it was an enjoyable few hours but I think maybe that was the wine. Which I need to make polite conversation.

Met my editor in Auckland, the lovely Hazel who lets me blog on the website she works for. She shows no signs of regretting this which leads me to conclude that possibly she's a heavy drug user. However, I have now been to her apartment and I swear, she looks clean.

Dripping hot

2011-11-14T17:09:00.001-08:00

It's bad sign when you rock up to your 8pm hot yoga session and they announce they're not bothering to turn on the heat because it's already so hot outside that the studio's already at the correct temperature. Actually, over the correct temperature.

Sadness

2011-10-22T21:48:00.000-07:00

It's taken me a few months but I've just finished smashing season 7 of the West Wing, which I saw off with fellow fan Karen and far too much cheese and not much wine because concentration is required for all the witty banter. Sweet baby Jesus I will miss it. It's as bad as the obsession Oren and I had with Battlestar. Possibly worse because I watched most of this by myself and therefore went on binges that resulted in my flatmates calling the show my porn - because I'd closet myself in my room for hours and emerge announcing that I loved them all and would lick most of them.

So I need new porn. It's probably going to be Game of Thrones.

However, a reason to leave the house on the weekends has emerged, and that is summer, complete with the Manly girls in their dresses so, so, so very short and their high, high heels they cannot walk in properly but instead adopt a bizarre, pigeon-toed clomp for. Some of the best entertainment around.

Give me a P

2011-09-28T20:52:00.000-07:00

A P party in Sydney is quite different to one in NZ, which I imagine is illegal and much less fun. However, a P party over here is also fraught with difficulty, namely, what the phuck to go as? I refuse to hire costumes because it's lame. You can hire parts of costumes, yes, but not the whole thing. That means you're lazy. It also means you can't fall over, trash it, lose part of it or give it away.

For this particular party I dismissed the obvious, going as myself, realised my bank account said I couldn't purchase much in the way of accessories and then realised that with ten of us going, we could probably manage a posse of something. Pirates, as it transpired. Which, I grant you, could sound a bit old hat, a bit so 1998. So we had to throw in another P. Pregnant for the ladies, proctology for the chaps. Because we just happen to have a suitable amount of small cushions and vet rectal gloves lying around the house. A smear of marmite for the gloves, an extra plump to the pillows and we were off. Accompanied by the usual German porn star. There's always one.

As always at such parties there are the people who cannot think outside the square and the women who feel the need to wear as little as possible. I'm sure you could add pirates to that, except we were all up the duff and wearing tights to support said ... duff? So the usual assortment of playboy bunnies, prostitutes, police officers and so on. What became alarmingly apparent quite early on was that apparently a posse of pregant or proctologist pirates was just a few too many p words for the average punter. Consequently most just assumed that we were in fact pregnant or proctologists who had come dressed as pirates. Not even the sight of Ann and I necking back rum stopped some believers. Or the fact Nic is quite clearly not responsible enough to be allowed to wear rectal gloves for any occasion other than a dress up party.

At any rate, eventually people braved the bellies and enquired after our health. I'm not sure I should have lifted my dress to show them my tights straining to contain my cushion but it made for a good photo.

Regret of the night - not convincing the two ladies dressed as Pocahontas to fight it out for number one. Pochahontas A was far, far sexier than the Pochahontas B. Definitely a reason to fight to the pelt knickers.

Important to note - I look quite dashing with a moustache. Maybe I should have given my belly one as well.

Lockjaw

2011-09-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

I appear to have been clenching my teeth a great deal in the last 12 hours - in my sleep no less - because today I have quite the sore jaw. The more filthy among you will leap to the first dirt-ridden conclusion and assume I had one hell of a good night. Or my bed partner did at least. WRONG, mofos. I have no bed partner. This is very sad, obviously but right now we're focusing on the fact that I have a sore jaw for no good reason.

I suspect I was clenching my teeth at having had my previous bed partner of one week, the lovely Jody, taken away from me by ... AirNZ. Admittedly, Jody doesn't put out but in her week with me she did cook, clean, snigger, provide port and cheese and discuss her favourite Gary Larson cartoons so she's pretty much perfect.
Apart from the no putting out bit.

I have not yet watched any of the World Cup. My workmates are flummoxed by my blatant lack of patriotism. I, in turn, am flummoxed by the fact I don't want chocolate this morning.

What's hot in China right now

2011-08-30T16:38:00.000-07:00

Right. China. It was ace, thanks for asking, and I came back with trinkets and knickknacks and a bit of a muffin top from such things as breakfast coke. I ate more fast food in two weeks than I normally do in two years. I had no self control at meals - and why would I when dumplings and Peking duck and hot pot are on the table? It would be rude to not hoe on in like a four-year-old who's spotted a chocolate bar at a birthday party. Or myself having spotted a defenceless four-year-old holding a chocolate bar.

And now, instead of a long essay about the things I did and how amazing they were, I am going to talk to you about fashion. Every country has its own fashion - over here in Aus, jandals go with everything. Frenchmen look good in cardigans. And in China, women like to wear flesh-coloured ankle high stockings with their heels and skirts. Somewhat sadly for the women of China, despite the stockings being flesh coloured, they are still highly visible. Often they create a sort of ankle muffin top. To my eyes, they actually quite hideous. But I'm certainly no Vogue editor and they are extremely popular so I clearly have no idea about what is hot.

Moving right along. Invisible bra straps. Like the aforementioned ankle stocking - these are not actually invisible. No one looks good wearing invisible bra straps. You merely look as though your underwear is made of some very cheap sort of plastic bag.

Saving the best for last - glasses with no lenses. I loved this. Glasses are tres cool but if you don't need them then all you need are frames! It took us a bit to work out what was going on but a guide confirmed for us that yes, glassless glasses are so in right now. Mostly just among the teens though. Traveling as I was with three wearers of optical help, I was sorely tempted to make Will, Sarah and Tim that much more fashionable but suspected they enjoy being uncool. And able to see.

And that was China. Good times, folks. Good times.

Smashing China

2011-08-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

I have a great deal to write about intriguing fashions worn by people in China that I will be attempting to start a craze for here, but something much more important has come up and we need to focus on that instead.

While I was shamelessly touristing round the Far East, a decision was made by my higher ups back here in the Sydney office to terminate the free Tim Tams. I am under no illusions about the 'coincidence' that this decision was made while I was absent. A hunger strike for free biscuits covered in dark chocolate hiding a smooth creamy centre seems a little ridiculous so I think the only way to get round the Tim Tam prohibition is to buy my own - and sell them at an astronomical price to those workmates I know cannot resist. I will, in effect, become a Tim Tam dealer. Already I can see that some co-workers are suffering the shakes from being deprived of their favourite biscuit, so really, I'm being a good samaritan.

In the mean time, RIP breakfast Tim Tam. We had some good times. I'll miss you. There were days where I thought you were the only one who understood.

Signs I'm a corporate wanker

2011-08-02T20:08:00.000-07:00

I just spent $9 on a sandwich. Twenty-three year old me is horrified. But likes my dress.

There's lots in a name

2011-07-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

This is somewhat belated given the event occured a few weeks back when once again I was watching the rugby. The Super 15 final, which NZ did not win. We'd toddled off to the local for a few drinks and some watching of the big screen. Mainly to get out of the house, to catch a few friends and to soak up the atmosphere - which was, sadly, verging on violent. No actual fisticuffs but there were some angry people out that night. None appeared to be drunk but all were in favour of shouting abuse at the telly, mostly at the ref but also at the Crusaders. One chap, in particular, was very much of the school of thought that says screaming in a crowded pub at the telly is bound to win your team the championship. In fairness, no one stopped him, I think we were all too scared. His team won, for which I was somewhat grateful - he was still muttering in an angry fashion after 'his' victory was assured by the final whistle. His girlfriend sat though the whole thing calmly sipping wine. I'm guessing he does this on a regular basis.

The blokes behind us attempted to be a little more polite in their disgust at some of the moves the Crusaders were showing on the field. One of them shouted 'Don't be a poof, ref', and as we looked at him said, 'Sorry ladies. At least it wasn't the c-bomb'.

And I couldn't help myself from answering with, 'I'd rather hear cunt than poof'.

We left not long after.

I can see that to several people poof is a great deal less offensive than cunt. Cunt 'sounds' harsher to the ear for starters and has a nastier rep, if you will. But if you call someone a cunt, I don't think you're calling them a vagina. You're expressing your distaste for them on some level but it probably isn't specifically in regards to their gender. You can be a good cunt. A total cunt. An utter cunt. A very bad person indeed. But if you call someone a poof you are in effect saying that they're gay - and that it's not a good thing to be gay.

Am I making any sense? Talking out my lady bits?

Points to ponder

2011-07-18T23:22:00.000-07:00

I had to work from home last Tuesday because I had what ranks right up there as one of my top ten worst periods of my life (so far). I got to work and then I went back home again, but, like a trooper - took my laptop with me and proceeded to do more work than usual, while scoffing chocolate, being quite ratty to the brotherman and refilling my hot water bottle at regular intervals. I may have also been wearing pyjamas. Anyway, apparently in some Japanese offices you are legally entitled to take days off during your bleedy time - this is separate to your 'normal' sick days. I'm not entirely too sure how I feel about it. On the one hand - days off for bleeding - woot! On the other, galloping on the heels of that chap that lost his job in NZ for making some terrible statements about women and their bodily functions - is it condescending?

'I see you've got your period (I'm not sure how your boss knows this, maybe you have to wear a scarlet letter P?) - you'd better take some time off because you're probably in pain and incapable of working.'

I brought this up with our latest houseguest, Courtney, who said, screw that line of thought and roll with it, baby. Which of course I can't because I'm in Australia. Not Japan. A workmate pointed out that if men had periods, this rule would be mandatory worldwide. Also, a cure for period pain and PMT would have been found years ago.

I wasn't sure what to think. My poor little head was too busy trying to remember how many neurofen you're allowed in an hour.

This was even less fun than a few weeks before when I suddenly had what we shall politely describe as VERY, VERY SORE BOOBS.

They seemed to think they had a period coming, only I knew, in my not necessarily infinite but quite definitely more knowledgeable wisdom, that they did not. Because I'm on the pill and I dictate the bleeding.

I'm not sure why they do this. It's like a phantom period - all the symptoms but no actual period, for which I guess I am grateful, but usually I just get concerned that something is wrong, that I'm with child (lack of sex life suggests phantom baby), as old ladies like to whisper, or some female acquaintance has fucked up my cycle and I've got a two for one deal I didn't ask for and the no actual period is about to become a full-on neurofen popping bloodbath, for lack of a better description.

They're not all like that, in fact, most of them aren't. Afterwards I barely remember them. But all women have at least one nasty period story. They recall them with involuntary body clenching as though this will ward off future visits from the period demon, let's call her Trixie. We talk about periods like old people do about the war and summers of long ago. 'Do you remember the one of '94? That was a shocker. Now these young folk, they've never seen anything like that one. Whew, when I think about how many sanitary pads I went through and that night I had to sleep on 14 towels so as to protect the mattress, it just brings me out in spots thinking about it.'

Men will often leave the room at this point and from the kitchen will come the sound of a bottle being opened and swigged from.

Anyway - it transpired I'd forgotten to take the pill for a few days so actually, it was all my fault. Feck.

Indoctrination complete

2011-07-06T04:33:00.000-07:00

I'm watching the State of Origin. Men in tight, tight, oh sweet baby jesus, they're too tight, shorts. A distinct lack of biffo so far.

A wino tried to talk to me about the Super 15 while I was waiting for a bus yesterday. I am concerned I am exuding an air of 'rugby fan', although I can see that complaining about that while watching the State of Origin might not be sensible.

The wino also said that if I got home and my husband or boyfriend hadn't cooked me dinner then I should demand he go out and get me takeaways. I suddenly regretted not having a husband to demand this service of. I want takeaways! Stat! There is a nagging wife buried in me that just wants an outlet.

Won't someone think of the children

2011-07-04T20:32:00.000-07:00

Ways to make volunteers for Save the Children laugh in disbelief: When they ask 'Do you like children', the correct answer is 'definitely not'.

A small child had tried to run me over on the pavement moments earlier and I was feeling less than maternal. However, I very much dislike charity volunteers who cannot be content with collecting in a bucket. I will give money to a bucket. I don't to the ones where I have to sign up out of guilt and bullying. It's not that I think the charities don't need more money, it's that I really don't like being bullied into anything and I find an encounter with such volunteers usually ends with me feeling less than charitable.

Basically I'm a capitalist bitch and I need all my dosh to buy more materialistic items I don't actually need.

I gave blood yesterday though so I think I've redeemed myself in my own eyes. Because I dislike giving blood a great deal. Needles! They're for sewing, not sticking in flesh.

The not so silent sounds of me getting dirty with a bagel

2011-06-26T19:51:00.000-07:00

I am eating bagel of such deliciousness that I fear a unicorn might have died in the making of it.

Except I made it so I know that didn't happen.

We go on a wine hunt

2011-06-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

We found a lot. My gallant companions (Charles and Mary) and I, driven by our not necessarily faithful and definitely quite abusive companion, Tim, went out fully prepared with wallets containing credit cards and mouths ready to sip and spit and make faces behind the backs of dedicated wine makers who do, sadly, spout a great deal of nonsense. So do I, but mine is at least all sorts of nonsense and not just specifically in regards to squashed grapes.

We drank some, we tipped some out, we nodded some, Mary got points for knowing fancy words and I behaved like a spoiled Sydney wanker.

Look - if someone serves you a soy chai latte (my wanky non-boozy drink of choice) and it tastes like coffee and when you complain you are informed that chai latte syrup contains coffee (LIES) I really do think you have the right to be a wanker. I was informed by my wait person that all the shops in Sydney serve chai lattes made from such syrup. It was at this point I uttered, 'I'm FROM Sydney and that's not how chai latte is made there'. Wanker? Yes. But really - it's a chai latte. Not a java chai latte (which Mary kindly looked up on her nerd phone and it's a real thing).

I think we ran away at this point.

Despite that small blip, it was an ace weekend, although Tim failed to get his girly cocktails for the spa and had to make do with dessert wine but I don't really care about Tim so, yeah, it was ace. Nerd conversations abounded, an obscene amount of cheese was hoovered up (there's no polite way to describe how we ate that cheese) and we stayed at a brewery - although that did let us down in the case of the ginger beer. Which was explained to us as being a beer flavoured with ginger - actual ginger mind you, not that other stuff. They also had chilli chocolate porter. Novelty beers sold in champagne magnums? I'll take two please! Which is when Charles and I discovered the folly of waiting until the last moment to purchase crazy beer flavours. They'd sold out of most of them. We gnashed our teeth and pulled out our hair and decided we'd just have to come back again (fabulous marketing ploy).

Things that don't go with wine - toothpaste. The difficulties of wine tasting straight after breakfast.

Warnings I would like to see

2011-06-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

Do not touch the white Tim Tams for they are the source of much unhappiness.

Last few updates have all been a trifle food obsessed. Ha - trifle! Oh dear LORD I need to stop finding myself hilarious because I am beginning to suspect I'm not.

Very little of interest aside from food-related happenings has gone down lately - but this weekend Tim and I are escorting Charles and Mary to the Hunter Valley where I have no doubt much wine will be consumed and a fair amount of trash will be talked. WhatI find amusing about the Hunter Valley is that somehow by going to visit wineries, an air of sophistication is given to what is basically the guzzling of free booze, disguised as 'tastings'. We are also staying at some place with a brewery. For Charles, you understand.

And in the best news since my discovery that you can get vegetarian oyster sauce, Nic and Kajal are back and they got me a royal wedding commemorative thimble. I am so touched. Because although I am a spinster, I was lacking a thimble. My tea towel collection is coming along nicely though.

Cooking with failure

2011-06-01T16:22:00.000-07:00

Where I manage to fail at the simple task of cooking fish. Inedible and in my bin.

When terribly simple becomes simply terrible

2011-05-31T17:44:00.000-07:00

I am a fan of the potato bake. It's simple and delicious and involves cheese. Yesterday, however, after a rather blah day, I decided to zhoosh it up a little. Mainly because we had other veges in the fridge that need devouring. So it became a potato, pumpkin and eggplant bake. Which probably would have still worked but then I decided to add a layer of sliced tomatoes. And then Kajal asked for a layer of peas and at this point it would have been churlish to say no and green is such a pretty colour anyway, no? So in it all went, over went the cheese sauce and into the oven and we wandered away to watch something trashy on the telly because even really sophisticated women such as ourselves occasionally feel the need to stare aimlessly at a box in the corner of the living room.

Some time later I wandered back to check on my precious and discovered after opening the oven that our three smoke alarms all work very well. The bake was overflowing, the oven was smoking, but even more alarming - the delicious cheese sauce had curdled. It was still edible but only really if you managed to forget how a proper potato bake dances on your palate in a saucy and bewitching manner.

Oh god it was so SAD. I can only blame the tomato. Or the peas? Eggplant? I refuse to blame the potato or pumpkin. They are blameless victims. This is even worse than the time I discovered that hot porridge, milk and a kiwifruit are not a delicious combination because chewy milk is never nice.

Food for thought

2011-05-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

I gave myself mild food poisoning - mushrooms, why must you turn on me like that, cruel - yet oddly attractive because I know smurfs live in some of you - little bits of fungus?

Since the departure of Nic'n'Kajal, we have tried to use their room as a brothel but no one would come - I think our surf nerd theme, complete with authentic sand and sci-fi/fantasy novels of the non-erotic kind may have not been sexy enough actually. So we allowed a Canadian to come and stay. His name was Ian, which actually makes up part of Canadian, so we just called him that: Canadian. Possibly not very friendly of us, but we made up for that by drinking all his beer. In return he cooked us dinner. My personal favourite was rasagne. Lasagne that needed another layer. What better than leftover risotto? And it was really good, so, hey, I probably shouldn't have mocked it so much. However, he also introduced us to clamato juice, which isn't necessarily a beverage I will be rushing out to buy if I ever make it to Canada, so maybe the rasagne mocking was for the greater good.

Canadian left, and our livers started to recover. Until we let the Chilean move in. Likes a drink does the Chilean. He also cooks well. He made a sort of shepherd's pie, although with hard boiled egg under the mash, which I thought was both odd and disgusting because I see no purpose for hard boiled egg in a perfect world. However, the rest of the pie was delicious. But when I took a piece, the Chilean did tell me that I could add either salt or ... sugar.

Sugar and hard boiled eggs make poisonous mushrooms appear quite attractive.

Less OMG, more OMP

2011-05-16T04:37:00.000-07:00

In yet another thrilling example of how I am that much better at just living the dream* than most folks, but especially you, dear reading audience of seven, I have managed to burn myself - which I realise at first may not seem spectacular BUT - I now have a somewhat wonky and 10% incomplete letter P burnt into my left hand. I have no idea how I managed to do this but I am in no doubt as to it being proof that even when I fuck up - I come up trumps.

Also, new informative thing - don't fill up a water bottle in the dark. Because you will burn yourself and then have to go to bed with a both a hot water bottle and a tea towel full of ice, which sort of cancel each other out.

* I am actually not sure I want to live the dream after last night's one where Fi's brother Gary accidentally killed someone by throwing a spade at their head and then we all had to help hide the evidence.

Zombie chick lit - coming your way soon to eat your brains

2011-04-28T04:09:00.001-07:00

Nic and Kajal have buggered off to London because they're massive fans of Wills and Kate and they NEED TO BE THERE, MAN. Also, Nic is meeting the family for the first time. Nothing to worry about there, we're a charming family, whatever all those wankers say, and any other family would be overjoyed to have us join them. It saddens me, though, this absence of brother mine and Lady K, because they are a large part of my social life. They are in fact half of my social life so Harriet and Karen need to up their game plan.

However, we can keep in contact via the magic of le phone, and Nic has already expressed his horror at a book topic through this very medium. Book synopsis: About to break up couple go to therapy only to find she has been infected and is a zombie. They must survive and learn to love each other again.

If ever there was an OMG moment, this is it, people. O M G. Where O is not for awesome.

Sweet and very sour

2011-04-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, I know. Two posts in two days. I must be drunk. Or ill. Probably ill because I have just eaten the most godawful biscuit. Two salty crackers with lemon icing placed squarely (no human applies icing in that manner) in between them.

And I only ate it because some utter wanker in my office ate my breakfast Tim Tam and I need my early morning sugar injection and I was pretty desperate. I concede that if I didn't want the last biscuit in the pack to be eaten by anyone other than me, then perhaps I ought to have hidden the Tim Tam until such time as I deemed it necessary to smash said oblong of Not Good For You into my slavering biscuit embracing unit.

It just didn't occur to me when I left the office at the terribly late hour of 5.10pm last night that anyone would be so foolish as to eat the last Tim Tam after that because I have become infamous for eating them first thing in the morning. Clearly the Tim Tams would not be replenished before 8am so what the hell was the Tim Tam taker thinking?

Upside down and inside out

2011-04-11T01:38:00.000-07:00

So, as no doubt many other 33-year-old adult women did today, I got to work and discovered my knickers were on inside out.

And then there was a fire drill which was pretty much an excuse to stand about outside in the sun discussing what the different coloured hats on people's heads meant - which is probably not such a good sign given they are the floor wardens/first aid wardens. I should know that stuff. There's just so much stuff to remember as a grown up. And apparently I can't even remember to put my knickers on the right way round which makes me, gosh, I don't know, a really honest dunce?

The Tim Tam or the faux Mellowpuff?

2011-03-24T17:00:00.001-07:00

I think I'm almost back to not being exhausted. Turns out a weekend in Melbourne for Skyke's wedding (bloody gorgeous, cried through the whole thing) catching up with a truly ludicrous amount of people and their babies and drinking a very pleasing amount of champagne and whiskey, along with the drainingness that is turning 33 whilst realising that Japan is going through some truly terrible times that I watch on the telly while quaffing pricey booze like some sort of capitalist bitch will totally and utterly shatter me and make me remarkably incompetent at work on Monday.

I followed that up with a weekend of houseguests and our flatwarming/belated birthday spinster party. Which, whilst being terribly awesome, primarily due to the hot French dudes walking around in jeans and my leopard print leotard, as well as the cucumber sandwiches and asparagus rolls and sherry punch available for quenching thirst, was also somewhat tiring. But our houseguests - Debs, Clare, Kruse, Adrian and Steffen - get points for being very, very able with brooms and dishes, and for displaying agility after swilling booze from tea cups. Steffen perhaps gets the most points for waking up at a different house and calling us to say said other house had very nice ferns and he'd be home as soon as he worked out where he was.

Kruse gets slightly less points for making roast lamb because he also beat me at Scrabble. Debs gets no points for winning Scrabble. Adrian can have one point for showing me his third nipple. And Clare can have a few more points for turning up to a party, where she knew no one, gamely wearing scratchy old lady nightwear and actually enjoying the sherry punch - both acts that require a fair amount of bravery.

So, 33. It seems to fit. It also seems to be making me tired and prone to making purchases of items such as sewing machines and food processors. I can only imagine that by the time I finally get to cougar age (only seven more years!)I will have reached my goal of owning 100 cardigans - I currently only have 15.

33. And still eating chocolate biscuits for breakfast.

Home sweet homie

2011-03-02T17:02:00.000-08:00

Having just spent two weeks in NZ I have been pondering what home is and whether or not it's greedy to have more than one. Homes, I mean, not houses. I wouldn't mind having a couple of houses to suit my different moods. Somewhere dark and cold for grumpy Penelope to hide in as she sulks and kicks the furniture. On the surface, Palmerston North would probably fit that bill - except it was all lovely and sunny when I went there (I can hear your gasps of amazement from here) so I'll have to find another place to practise my Eyeore impersonation.

But, PN is home. And so is Wellington. And now so is Sydney. Manly, really. Mantown. Where wearing Speedos down the Corso is acceptable. London was home, but it always felt a bit short term. Ditto Xiamen and Homeashil-Dong (I don't think I've spelt that right but it's so bloody small I can't find it on a map). And working backwards we eventually wind up in Christchurch. Home for three years and I when I left I said I could never live there again because we were a little incompatible despite how good we looked on paper - and while that still holds true it didn't stop the tears after the quake. Or the guilt. Having had the good fortune to have flown out of Chch the day before, the feeling of total helplessness and worry has not gone away, despite having received cheerful emails from people there. Who all seem to be making the most of their dwindling booze supplies.

Anyway - NZ is home but once again so is Australia. For reasons I can't explain and cannot be arsed even bothering to look into, Sydney has grabbed me like Melbourne didn't - and I loved Melbourne. Mocked Sydney. It would be rubbish. Like Auckland (another place I'd prefer not to live again - I am picky, no?) but it's not. Oh how my taunts have fallen into tiny little puddles of embarrassment. Although, given I live in Manly, someone is bound to try and drink them.

I was asked if I would move back to Wellington and the answer is of course yes. Because it's, um, home. But I couldn't say when because Sydney is home. But if I have kids would I want to bring them up here, and sweet baby jesus, deal with them having true blue Aussie accents? Which probably suggests that much as I love Sydney, perhaps it's not quite as much home as I think it is ... will learn to embrace the accent eventually I'm sure.

As is no doubt obvious by the nonsensical babble above, I got back to this home from visiting my other home a bit sad and confused. However, I was cheered no end by getting to my new place with Nic, Kajal and Ratty at 10pm to discover the girls had made my bed for me - which given they moved houses without me as well, seemed awfully nice.

However, there is one small snag to our nifty new place - the combination of our wooden floorboards and the baby downstairs. We've been told off twice. Given we're not holding parties, playing footy or using our drum kits, I'm not too sure what we can do about this. We'll get rugs, yes, but basically, four people in an apartment make noise. Maybe I shouldn't have put the washing machine on at 7am this morning.

Birthday this weekend - and I'm spending it doing what spinsters love to do best, aside from eat stale crackers and drink sherry out of tea cups. I'm going to Mike and Skye's wedding. I asked Skye what she wanted for a wedding gift and she replied 'get shitfaced and misbehave'. She's pretty much the perfect bride. Although, as her mother-in-law is my Sunday School teacher, I shall be on my best behaviour - which means I shall try very hard to only talk about polite things (which will be hard as I just read this article about Japanese toilets and I want to ask people about it). I'm pretty sure the other guests, which include my brother, Kruse and Bibby, can provide plenty of excitement though.

The fruit bowl of emotion

2011-02-07T15:14:00.000-08:00

Not the grapes of wrath; today I suffer from the pears of disappointment. Actual pears of disappointment, as compared to the small sighs I utter when contemplating my bottom some days.

A mushy pear. Possibly one of the most soul destroying experiences in life. And it looked fine, cunning little pear-shaped seductress of evil. They have powers of deception, do pears. Not too firm, not too soft, they suggest in their enticing and fruity way, and you get sucked in. But the mouthfeel is utter mush. Floury mush. And I think they've contaminated all the other fruit in the bowl because now everything tastes bad and I'm just going to have to eat a Tim Tam instead to get over it.

41 degrees on Saturday. Felt like the inside of a hair dryer, to quote the big brother. And I moved house. It's a temporary move as we look for a place that is neither infested with huntsmen spiders, nor below a herd of water buffalo preparing for their ballet debut at the Opera House. Or up a hill. And close to the beach. And the ferry. With a good kitchen. And decent bedrooms. And flow. Flow is just so important.

And the big hand says it's beer o'clock

2011-01-27T21:13:00.000-08:00

Well, it definitely is in NZ. Boozing in the office always feels a spot naughty though. And let's be honest - even though my ability to play pool and speak foreign languages improves dramatically after a few drinks, my ability to edit does not.

And in other news I am having possibly the worst PMT in years. My cousin is staying and she's bleeding (she's going to love that I've blogged that) and despite going on the pill recently to control what I lovingly call the blood tsunami, my lady bits are desperate to join in with hers. As long time and possibly quite sickened readers will know, I have quite the weak vagina. And so the normally happy state of Penelope has been hijacked by the emotion troops with their sharp and pointy javelins of bitchy.

So I'm drinking beer. I know this won't lead to happiness. You know it won't lead to happiness. But I'm going to do it anyway. And later, if Harriet and Carrie are very unlucky, I'll show them that the ingrown nipple hair (which I already showed them on Australia Day Eve) has scabbed over nicely. It's not just my body that hates me. I think the baby Jesus is behind this somehow. Must stop swearing on Sundays.

Let's list again. Like we did last summer

2011-01-17T21:01:00.000-08:00

It's time for a list. And what better topic than things I would lick off dead people if encouraged to do so:

Aoli
Guacamole (homemade, none of that store-bought, contains no actual avocado rubbish)
Cashew, brazil and almond butter
Proper mayonnaise
The pate from the restaurant I took Karen to last month that I forget the name of but sweet baby jesus it was some good shit
Champagne spiders
Chocolate icing

For Roxette fans only

2011-01-12T15:31:00.000-08:00

I've got the look!

It was Christmas Eve, babe. In the drunk tank that is the Manly Wharf Bar. As I waited to be served, the chap next to me attempted to make flirty conversation. With my breasts.

He opened with, ‘Are you in a gang?'
I’m an honest soul so I answered, ‘No. I’m not in a gang. Do I look like I’m in a gang?’

Apparently I do. Mother will be overjoyed. I don't know why we bothered with private schools. I am informed that I have ‘crazy’ hair and this is an important attribute of being in a gang. And then he asked if I have any tattoos. My denial didn't put him off - and he showed me his.

Roll on one week and it's New Year's Eve and having a cape with an eagle on it did not make me invisible to unattractive men determined to get their New Year's pash. I shudder in recollection.

If anyone would like to join my new gang, which I started this morning, all that is required is a cape. And sarcasm. Crazy hair and tattoos are optional extras. Willingness to debate the Bangles versus Bananarama looked upon highly.

Signs I'm on the naughty list

2010-12-23T16:34:00.000-08:00

I got an ingrown nipple hair for Christmas.

I am a martyr for the cause, where the cause involves chocolate biscuits

2010-11-29T16:05:00.000-08:00

I can't find my post-it notes. I need them. To write scathing comments on.

My new job, where I get to correct spelling errors and point out stupidity and get paid for it, is pretty good. Unfortunately, the constant supply of chocolate biscuits is proving to be not so good for the squeezing of bottom into the very short skirt that Ratty talked me into. The work trip to Malaysia where I ate non-stop and drank cocktails by the pool was also not good for this purpose. But sacrifices must be made sometimes, and a resort in Malaysia is a good place to start making those sacrifices.

Rant of the week - bleeding from the lady bits. In my previous job I worked with almost 90% women. And yet we were all furtive about the lady bleeding. Because somehow, and I'm yet to work out exactly how and why this is, letting people know that your body is 'flushing' stuff out in a less than sophisticated manner is humiliating and shameful. And it just gets more awkward when you work in an office with lots of men folk - what if they realise you are ... bleeding? I suspect women's secretive attitudes towards periods might have something to do with men also being awkward about the topic - something I learned yet again in the UK when talking to a female workmate about a particularly nasty round of period cramps I was enduring by scoffing Neurofen like licorice allsorts - a male workmate asked what we were talking about and I told him. They both looked horrified - but I think I was forgiven because it is a truth universally accepted that Kiwis are brash and incapable of understanding the delicate line between enough and too much information.

And, yes, I realise many men couldn't care less and don't think periods are something to be afraid of, even if the women they know do turn into fire-breathing chocolate scoffing teary nutters who alternate between being nymphos and shrieking 'Don't touch me' during that time. Women's attitudes towards periods are a bit shit, really. Even in front of other women. In an office of predominantly women, why the need to hide tampons/mooncups/various other feminine hygiene products in our clenched fists as though we are desperately ashamed of ourselves? Not that I'm any better at announcing this, but I have on occasion felt the urge to traipse through the office juggling tampons shouting 'I am bleeding from my vagina and it is normal'.

Aha! I have just remembered where my post-it notes are. I threw them at Dave last week. Which means they're probably on his side of the office.

Nat - I would love to sniff your baby's head. Do we have to put her in a brown paper bag first and loiter about looking suspicious whilst wearing daggy clothes and hiding said bag from the pigs?

Scenting me, scenting you

2010-11-03T01:14:00.000-07:00

Smell, like many things, is a bit personal, no? One man's rubbish heap of slowing rotting compost is another man's personal pile of gardening heaven - sniff that! That's the promise of vegetables sprouting, pretty flowers for the bees to caress in a sexual manner and hell, some people just like compost. Others like soap.

So, here's a list of things I don't much like the reek of:

Me after yoga
The tea cupboard at work
Toilets with air freshener.

Me after yoga seems obvious - I'm a barely moving, sweat glistening shiny lump of pink flesh that's dripping with all sorts of toxins I've just forced out of my skin. YUM.

The hot beverage cupboard at work is a mixture of teas: earl grey, English breakfast, herbal (mostly green and citrus flavours), and pretend sugar for those who can't quite give the stuff up but wish to at least make an effort towards their trousers being less tight. This cupboard is directly underneath the chocolate biscuit cupboard, which seems a bit cruel if you're one of the aforementioned fake sugar users. But back to the smell - all the teas are competing for olfactory dominance and the end result is a most unpleasant, almost musty combo of green, lemon and black tea and something else I can't quite distinguish but it's distressing me because, being the tea whore that I am, I'm opening that cupboard at least seven times a day. Is perhaps a little pathetic but I'm sensitive like that sometimes.

Toilets that have air freshener. Look, I get why there's air freshener - I think we all can appreciate that at some time we've used a toilet and thought, 'hmm, that's not so easy on the nostrils,' but trying to cover up the often robust reek of faecal matter with 'jasmine and avocado spring fling' does not make for a better scent. The two smells wage war on one another, neither dominating, both eventually doomed (thankfully) to fade but in the mean time, treating other loo users to the hideousness that is their unhappy marriage.

Good smells:

Me when clean (despite being told by several people that my perfume is a spot old fashioned and I smell like their mum - I'm catering for a special brand of man who fancies older women, obviously)
Chilli and garlic - what's not to like? Even if this combo might lead to you making a visit to the bathroom, resulting in use of the lavender and broccoli air freshener residing there. Totally worth it.
The beach. I walk along one every day. Envy me, bitches.

Other stuff: Travis and Una pass through. We eat a lot of cheese. So much cheese. I try to convince them to move here. You should too.
Nat and Georgia have a baby that at some point I'll get round to investigating and perhaps I'll return those books I borrowed off them six months ago. Maybe.
I have a barbeque. Where I make other people get the barbeque going. I was otherwise occupied with baking dessert. And Nic and Adrian quite obviously weren't doing anything - and I knew Nic was most like to want to eat most of what we cooked so it seemed only fair he make the darn firey apparatus go.

New job goes well - the nerd factor is HIGH.

Run Fatboy Run

2010-10-18T18:54:00.000-07:00

I watched the last few minutes of Timmy doing the marathon in Melbourne recently. I can tell I'm going to be one of those embarrassing parents at school sports days, crying and pointing with pride at my child, because I came a bit too close to doing this with Tim.

Tim ran the whole darn thing. Points for him. After which he gave me a sound piece of advice: 'Never do a marathon'. I think we both knew the advice was unnecessary, but still, kind of him to pretend.

Melbourne was ace, there were drinks, vats of tea, chocolate, Debs talked me into riding a bike (sore lady bits the next day, thanks for asking), op shopping and being felt up by baby Spencer. For the record, having your breasts groped by a baby with Mike Spencer's face is just plain weird.

I finally moved into a new flat, which has impressive views and is still not far from big brother should I feel the need to be told off for something. The flatmates are older women and the one who owns the house has just two rules:
1: Rinse the dishes. Can do, I said with confidence.
2: No one night stands. I laughed. And laughed some more. And said 'can do'. Obviously my plans to have an extremely debauched summer will just have to take place elsewhere.

Summer's making a break for it in Sydney - although got wrestled to the ground and pummelled by the rain today. Which I got caught in en route to the bus. I was rescued by a man with a huge ... umbrella. If my life was a rom com then he would have been knicker droppingly gorgeous. Sadly, no, but the shelter was appreciated. Also - let's be honest. I don't look my best when dripping with both sweat and rain (had been lolloping along for the bus as was late - the mystery of the missing stockings will have to wait until this evening to get solved).

Along with the new flat is the new job. Which I start next week. So I'll say something about that then. By which I mean in another month when I can be bothered updating.

Signing off with the news that once again I learn the hard way that too much fresh pineapple gives you a hurty tongue.

Invisible bacon gets the X-Factor

2010-09-22T03:29:00.000-07:00

Caesar salad has bacon, among several other things. Boiled egg sometimes creeps in, and it should be kicked out and across the restaurant. Soft boiled or poached, thank you. But back to the pig - no bacon makes for a sad Caesar. One that has lost its toga and laurel leaves. And this was the state of my salad last week. Heavy on the lettuce, big on the evil boiled egg and massive on the invisible bacon. Rome has fallen, I thought.

But I perked up on Saturday because we had a dress up party to attend. Full of reedeeculous Europeans with great hair and hilarious accents. Sebastian, or Sea Bass as we fondly call him - I think he just thinks we're mangling his name with our antipodean accents - informs Nic that the theme is bad superheroes. At about 5pm we decide we should probably do something about costumes. And panic because we have, of course, left it a bit late to do any more than come up with stuff from around the house. Sometimes though, the best costumes are those you source from under the kitchen sink. In this case we managed to come up with Super Mario, Poison Ivy and Mexican Wrestling Barbie. What? You don't have a pink wrestling mask squirreled away at your house? Odd.

Anyway, we swan off to the do, feeling pretty chuffed with our free and awesome costumes. We arrive. Everyone's in costume, some in very weird costumes, and we get some strange looks, but hell, these people are crazy French and German and Finns and whatnot, so whatever. One woman appears to have a giant snail attached to her back ...

We meet some other Kiwis, who have LAME costumes. A straw hat does not a costume make. Apparently this chap is farmer. We look puzzled. It's a Kiwi hero, no? I guess - I mean, my dad is a total hero. But he doesn't wear a straw hat. And this joker can't even do a farmer's squat. I have to show him how, but in pink platforms it doesn't quite have the effect it ought. And he asks what we are, and we inform him proudly of our radness and he says, 'I thought the theme was bad heroes from your own country'. We look at Sea Bass. He nods in a reedeeculous French way. We glare at him and protest that this is NOT what he told us. There is, as you may have guessed, a small difference between a general bad superhero and one from your own country. But several of the costumes make more sense now.

So I just tell people that a Mexican Wrestling Barbie won NZ X-Factor. Apparently this is quite plausible because they nod. As for Ali, dressed as Poison Ivy? She's English - we're sure she can pass for a WAG. Nic as Super Mario does pose a problem but he's having such a good time with his fake moustache that we just leave him to it.

And, in final news, I get an Oren tomorrow. Luke's floating about this country somewhere and Karen gets back on Monday. Friends, Romans, Countrymen, some bacon would make this day perfect.

Naming and shaking

2010-09-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

I had a dream this morning that I was dating former wrestler turned actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson but had to break up with him because I loathe the name Dwayne. (This seems fair, no?) I was trying to ask if he had a better middle name. But then my dad discovered both a diamond mine and a Lego mine in the garden, so all my attention was taken up on that. A Lego mine – how awesomely hilarious would that be.

Christchurch = earthquake central. Somehow I thought Wellington would have gotten a big shake up first. Mother Nature, oooh she's a cunning one. So predictable with her winter/summer/spring/autumn games and then she tries to mix it up a little with ridiculous results. I, for one, shall be writing a letter of complaint.

Bend me, shape me

2010-08-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

Nothing says 'I am a sophisticated 32-year-old woman and you should definitely respect me' like me fixing the broken zipper on my skirt with a bulldog clip.

In other news I attempted hot yoga. Yoga and I have a chequered past, mostly because I either suck at it (possibly true) or the teachers have been useless (probably less true). Hot yoga is somewhat more painfully enjoyable. I'm still not very good at large chunks of it, but boy can I touch my toes with enthusiasm.

Which brings me to my next point - is there some sort of flatulence etiquette in yoga?

Listing

2010-08-19T19:19:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday! Let’s have a list.

Things I have learned the hard way this week:

Buying very pricey stockings doesn’t make them any less immune to runs and holes.

You can get chocolate hangovers.

If you don’t feed Karen’s cat, it gets quite antsy and will stick its claw in your eye at 5am.

If you have dinner with a Finn and they open a new bottle of vodka, you may not leave the table until said bottle is empty.

Where the Coke machine is at work. I didn’t need to know this until this morning when I felt somewhat less than ideal after dining with a Finn last night. And then the need to know was very urgent indeed.

I am the walrus

2010-08-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

Maybe Turkish delight for breakfast followed by a great many sultanas was not such a spiffy idea. You can't see me but I'm slumping and feeling more than just a little bit ill. Who would have thought sultanas had the potential to create such havoc in my belly?

This follows on from me eating possibly the equvialent of merely my left leg in cheese on the weekend. It was Karen's fault. Every time I hang with that woman, I leave with a distended stomach. And she remains as svelte and pixie like as a ... well, a pixie. Hateful little forest dwellers.

Will, Sarah and Tim graced me with their presence - there was a trip to the Hunter Valley, where Will proved he knows his onions in regards to wine, and I proved to have the worst adjective of the day when it came to describing wine. Beige. That's right, wine can be beige.

Must be time for a list - we all love lists.

Things I had thought to get this year:
A better laugh
Exercise

I have failed in achieving the above. I am now scarred on both the inside and out after the running = falling over and getting hurties on my kneesies so exercise is obviously going to be shunned forever now. And the laugh - I was thinking a ladylike trill would be nice. But no. I still have a distinctly unladylike cackle.

New flatmate's catch phrase: 'I'm heading out to get my creep on'. You go, Anton. You go. Better or worse than old flatmate's 'I'm heading out on a cock hunt - you want to join'? You be the judge.

You can never get too much cheese

2010-07-28T02:41:00.000-07:00

So I'm an evening cat sitter this week - Cheese and I have a bit of a routine that involves me lying on the sofa, with the heater on full blast, with Cheese lounging majestically on me, hogging most of the heater. Although, last night when he realised that he was taking up all the heat, I witnessed an impressive act of generosity by a cat - he moved a whole two inches so I'd get a little bit of the warmth.

Staying at Karen's who lives smack bang in Sydney city, to be both her backup flatmate and evening cat sitter, has its advantages, in that I can walk to the place I'm temping at this week, and its disadvantages, in that her shower is fierce. Waterblaster fierce. Good for sore shoulder blades, but feels like tiny, sharp pixie needles assaulting your nipples.

Anyway, I did my NZ dash, and Ruthie's wedding was pretty fracking good and I only blubbed a wee bit during the ceremony. Mum got a bit teary during my speech, which should give you some indication of just how good a speech I can give when the subject is my oldest friend who has given me permission to describe her husband as Irish MacGyver.

I saw a lot of people, lost a sock (a thigh-high woolly one, much to my fury) and a much loved item of jewellery but I'm sure they'll find their ways back to me. Bloody better. I really liked that sock. I got back to Sydney utterly exhausted and very poor and so very happy to be home. I am also blonder and minus a lot of hair, thanks to Bran and his magic scissors. I tried something new this time and bribed him with carrot cake. Which James ate a fair bit of. Possibly as revenge for us making him watch some terrible movie starring that Jolie bird and the McAvoy chap where bullets can curve round pig carcases.

I got home to the news that we were being evicted - stupid home buyers. So I'm moving back into Nic's - into an actual room this time, as he leaves the country for a month to gallivant round U-rope in his lanky nonchalant manner.

And this weekend I get a Will and a Sarah and a Tim - and the Hunter Valley. Voltron, people, it's going to be Voltron.

Back to basics

2010-07-04T04:19:00.000-07:00

I am ashamed to note that I haven't talked about Manly's public toilets. This is remiss of me. With my bladder, knowledge of where the public can legally relieve themselves is of utmost importance. And Manly is coming out tops. Loos all over the place. And they seem to always have toilet paper. I heart Manly and you should too.

I had dinner with Amanda and Greg on Friday night, fully intent on coming home at an early hour. I sort of did. If by early I meant 3pm the next afternoon. I'm not sure how but somehow soup and mulled wine morphed into sofa, Motown, tales of South America and a 6am crash out time. In my defence, their sofa is very comfortable. And their mulled wine most drinkable. And the walk home the next day completely cured the headache I had managed to pick up somewhere in the night.

However, Amanda did dream that she was punching me so, perhaps I shouldn't make a habit of falling asleep on their furniture. Perhaps this is where my headache came from.

Oops, I did it again

2010-06-30T23:47:00.000-07:00

I tripped again. With witnesses this time. Reopened knee wound and got another. I am a champion.

Nothing says sophisticated like a 32-year-old woman with sticking plasters on her knees and elbows. It does also rather suggest carpet burn, which might have been a much more pleasant way to get these injuries. Better luck next time, maybe.

Exercise is bad for me.

Taking it hard and fast

2010-06-21T22:16:00.001-07:00

Hugs I have had recently that I have thoroughly enjoyed:

Karen
Nic
Harriet
Ruthie & Ian
A whole bunch of people at the pub the other night.

Hugs I have had recently that I have not enjoyed at all. No, siree.

The pavement.

So, in a moment that in retrospect was clearly drug induced, so insane was the action, I decided to go for what most might call a 'run'. However, is unfair to actual runners to describe it this way when in reality I stop, walk, chat to cats and tie up my shoelaces a great deal. And now I can add falling over to my list of 'running' accomplishments. In my defence, it was dark, the pavement was next to a cemetery so probably the broken up concrete I tripped over was zombies trying to escape and not me being clumsy, but whatever - I tripped and fell spectacularly. Fortunately, my beautiful face was not marred -I used my less-likely-to-be-seen-by-the-public elbow, knee and palm to take the blow. And then I lay, sprawled on the pavement saying just the one word over and over. This word could probably be found in the Oxford dictionary with 'obscenity' next to it.

And then I got back up and like a trooper I kept on going because in the dark the injuries looked a bit pathetic. Yes, I am indeed very brave.

Of course, when I got home, I discovered my leg was covered in blood, as was my shoe, thanks to Mr Knee. Disappointingly, there was no one home to appreciate this sight or offer me pity.

Our house is up for sale and on Saturday, just twenty minutes before the real estate agent arrived with the first lot of eager home buyers, my flatmate Kev put his foot through the floorboards in the hallway. We don't want the house to sell but Kev assures us his manoeuvre was entirely accidental. Apparently skipping like an elephant is part of his daily routine that just happened to coincide with a very weak floorboard.

Taking the pith

2010-06-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

Today I wasted a good minute pondering how many hours of my life I have spent waging war on pith. For it is an ongoing battle and one I'm not even entirely sure that I shall win.

But I hate pith. Creepy little tendrils of horrid taunting me by clinging to the delicious flesh of mandarins. Inhaling it by accident is like eating cobwebs discarded by particularly vindictive spiders - a boobytrap that I must circumnavigate with all the cunning that Indiana Jones would utilise if he thought that the Orange Orb of Succulence was a religious artefact the Nazis were keen to steal in order to gain both world domination and freedom from scurvy.

It appears that summer is no more in Sydney. Instead we've had three weeks of rain and I have made myself very unpopular by admitting that I like it. Locals tell me this much rain is not normal. Coming from Wellington, I do find it normal and am delighted by the fact that despite the rain, it's still warmish and there's very little wind.

A sad fact must be faced though, and that is that my tan is no more. Yes, I really am that shallow.

Putting on my pansy pants

2010-05-20T23:20:00.001-07:00

So, Nic and I were wandering home from quiz night, stopping off at the Salvos and St Vinnies on the way, seeing what people have left outside these fine establishments as donations - people leave some weird stuff. This is how I got my favourite cardigan. Anyway, there was a box of books, which is like cat nip to Nic and I, and we were rifling through it with fevered brows - what might we find?

At this moment, four large men walked past, one of whom was rather intoxicated and took umbrage with us stealing from the poor. Given my unemployment status I rather think I am the poor but anyway ... I backed away feeling fearful and thinking that my skills, which do not include fist fighting, were going to be better deployed calling for help on Mr Mobile Phone. Nic, meanwhile was being all nice and non-confrontational, whilst this chap got rather angry and had to be somewhat restrained by his less boozed friends who eventually - whilst also watching me punch numbers into my phone in an obvious manner - dragged him away.

There were no good books in the box.

Does this sort of behaviour make us thieves?

I have to admit to being more concerned that in such situations I am no help and as a woman I become incredibly worried about my own safety and how it might potentially go very badly for me. Pansy pants.

Good things about being a grown up

2010-05-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

Cake for breakfast.

Continuing on from the deliciousness caused by Karen and her generousity of DOOM last week, I just spent the rest of the week eating. I am good at eating. I wanted cake, I made cake, I ate cake. And because I made the cake, I know exactly how much butter and sugar I ate.

So, it's like, May. And it's colder at night now - the socks have come out. But it's still ever so lovely during the day and I'm prancing round in a bikini on the beach when I can - you know, because with my hectic life, sometimes I have to do other stuff. I'm just trying to think what that is, because it does keep me busy.

Caught up with Nat and his lovely wife, whom he's knocked up. They also fed me. I waddled home from their place as well. I was also clutching books - I like people who have bookshelves.

And the littlest Whitson turned 30 yesterday. In my head the munchkin is still 12, but apparently she's in her thirties too. Dear God.

You come twice, you pay twice

2010-05-03T22:48:00.001-07:00

That's some good 'how this transaction is going to work' advice overheard between a woman (one can only guess at her profession) and a man at a restaurant where Karen works.

Another Monday in Sydney, another marvellous Monday with Karen. The past two she's journeyed over here and slummed it in Manly. Yesterday she went nuts and decided that just because I don't have a job, doesn't mean she can't take me out to lunch at Manly's fanciest restaurant. So she did. A lot of money and four hours later I was slouched in my chair, fancy restaurant be damned, so full of exceptionally delicious food and wine that I did not care what the wait staff thought of my poor posture. I did not want to leave my seat because I was worried the staff would have to roll me out like Violet Beauregarde in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when she ate Wonka gum (that is definitely not a euphemism for anything, all you filth thinkers out there) and ballooned up.

We staggered out. Karen and her loyal steed Betty caught the ferry home and I walked very slowly up the hill home. Home is my new flat, which is just round the corner from Nic, so he can visit for luncheons and whatnot. We have a cat - this was a large part of my enthusiasm for moving in. It's hard to tell who is the bigger affection whore - me or Kitty. She's not so keen on sitting on laps but is more than willing to sit next to you and be petted. Pretty much just like me, really. She's probably a little cuter but I have thumbs so, no competition there.

Still gloriously, gleefully unemployed, thanks for asking. Will endeavour to do something about that this week. Or maybe next week. Will also attempt to not wind up in another lock in at my local pub of dubiousness - although the much, much free beer was very nice, it made walking home with Harriet, clutching the huge meat pack we'd won in a raffle very difficult. We dropped sausages all over the place. The dogs of Manly must have been overjoyed.

Hugs not drugs

2010-04-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

I am a hug whore. I'll take them where I can get them. So on Tuesday Nic and I went on a mission to get a very special hug. Hugs from Amma. She's hugged 28 million people and she knows her onions.

We waited three hours to get our hands on this woman. She's pretty good at what she does. People want to hug her badly. So we did. And it was indeed good. I may have cried. I really like hugs.

No job, no flat, but I got hugs. And sunshine. And a scab. But I'm ignoring that. And a bruise that won't go away. But I'm ignoring that too. And possibly a cold but I am giving that serious lack of attention.

Just for Littlejohn who begged for it

2010-04-06T20:12:00.000-07:00

Good things about unemployment are being able to spend one's time baking birthday cakes for brothers who hit their middle thirties, and being able to hang out with visitors such as Katie, who graces me with her particularly shiny and lovely presence today, and Travis who used me as time wastage between international flights.

Whilst being used in such a manner we had lunch at a cafe and came across these delightful entries on the menu: cheery tomatoes and trendy beetroot salsa. I can only imagine that depressed tomatoes and uncool beetroot salsa are so last year.

So, anyway, Easter was spent driving 5.5 hours down the coast in search of the perfect wave for Nic, and the nastiest wasp to step on for me. I ate no Easter eggs because this accursed country doesn't have marshmellow ones. Jesus died on a cross so I could have those, damn it.

And I have started reading Grimms fairy tales and have learnt that if I throw frogs at my bedroom wall they'll probably turn into princes. Nic's flatmate unkindly pointed out that until I move out of the living room, I won't have a bedroom wall to attempt this with. No cake for him.

I read a rather good opening line today: 'There was a bird, a mouse and a sausage living together in a house ...' you can't help but read on because you KNOW this living arrangement can't possibly work out.

Mondays with Karen

2010-03-30T20:31:00.001-07:00

Other people have Tuesdays with Morrie. I have Mondays with Karen. The first one was for the purposes of catching up on seven years of no-see. It only took five jugs of Pimms to get through the basics, by the end of which I was practically living in the bathroom, such is the inability of my bladder to cope with that much liquid.

So, two weeks in Manly, and what I have got to show for it? A pretty nice tan. Sand in almost everything I own, some bruises from an attempt to learn to surf - not my proudest athletic moment, that one - and no clean or dry knickers because I did a huge load of washing and hung it all out and then it rained. Warmly.

I also did some work for Jessa, where we both went berserk with our red pens and were told we were anal. Given how much we'd let go because of the deadline, we were both a bit surprised by this, but kept on trucking. Because we're troopers. Troopers who drink bourbon in the bath and sing to Icehouse.

Manly Girl Guides. Makes me laugh every time.

Oh, and two references in one week to vajazzling cannot be a good thing. Go on, look it up.

Things that have made my day in Manly

2010-03-16T21:12:00.001-07:00

White Lady Funerals - A woman's understanding.

Katie and Pen fail to make a porno

2010-03-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure where we went wrong. I mean, we had all the ingredients. Two exceptionally hot women wearing very little in the way of sleepwear, a broken stove, dubious music and the stove repair man. An unattractive stove repair man, which if my knowledge of porn is to be believed, means he's well hung.

He came in, he fixed the stove, he left. Didn't even want a cup of tea.

We're still shaking our heads over how we failed to recognise the potential in this situation. I think we were too busy talking about whether or not to do a load of washing.

We need help.

I don't like teenagers

2010-02-24T13:51:00.000-08:00

I went to Matt and Ruth's wedding (nice do) on the weekend. At about 10.30pm, the wine was flowing and people were in a good mood. Unfortunately, I had to leave as the mothership had arrived to pick me up. I went to get my bag, and do to so had to climb around two teens sitting close on a step looking like they'd love to be more intimate but were constrained by guests and their official roles as bar keep and waitress.

As I climbed over them, I said 'Excuse me, canoodlers, I have to get my bag.'
As I climbed back past, the teenage boy decided it was high time he showed his smarts and masculinity, and said 'That's not even a real word. Haven't you heard of the Oxford dictionary?'
Cue tittering from the teenage girl and smirking from the boy.

It was like like I was Marty McFly in Back to the Future and someone had called me chicken. He pulled out Oxford! I saw red. Fueled by at least half a bottle of champagne, I turned around and stalked back to them (stalking was easy, it was a lawn and I was wearing pointy heeled shoes).

I said 'Young man, I am an EDITOR. And it is too a word.' (Slightly childish response there, considering canoodlers is not a work, but fucking teenagers need to be put in their place.)

He said 'Harrumph, sheesh.'
The girl said 'I told you it was a word'.

I sailed off over the lawn on the high seas of smugness.

Ups to me because I give the awards

2010-02-07T00:27:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned how much I like aioli? Because I like it. Are you allowed to eat it with a spoon? Do I care? It is the savoury equivalent of chocolate sauce. Maybe I wouldn’t smear it all over myself in order for some lucky victim to lick it off but that’s mostly because I’d see that as a massive waste of aioli. Same goes for chocolate sauce.

Other food-related points – I quite often fail to see the point of cucumber.

So, the bigger Whitson came to stay and it was all magical, like we were living in the enchanted forest and any moment now we’d come across the magic faraway tree and discover that at the top of the tree was The Land of Take What you Want and we’d just go nuts and come home with ponies and candy floss and ovens that produce cookies whenever you clap your hands.

Nic brought me a belated Christmas present, which was lovely, except I didn’t have anything for him because we’d said NO PRESENTS. Anyway, he gave me a bottle of Cougar bourbon and told me to drink it with Jess and act appropriately. We drank the bourbon but failed miserably to pounce on any very young men. Maybe next time – we were a bit distracted by Sorority Boys – men in drag make us swoon.

Yes, I have a Jessa in my arms. It’s very nice. She smells good. Probably because she washes her hair.

We also had the fleetingness of a Justin. He was here for ages but, well, you know Justin. He’s very hard to catch. He’s the sort of person for whom those gladiator nets were invented.

Three weeks left of work, hurrah. This whole working ‘thing’ is killing me. Yes, yes, it’s a nice job, but unemployment elsewhere shimmies enticingly in front of me, and by jingo, I’m going to get my aioli-smeared hands all over that stuff.

We had cats for the weekend. They liked my room the best and peed on my bed. I wish they'd liked Oren's the best. He's back from Israel and he's allergic to cats. It would have been hilarious. For me.

He brought us chocolate. We left it in the sun. It's still tasty.

Carbon Hairprint of Shame

2010-01-19T21:09:00.000-08:00

Yes, once again I fly to Auckland to ... get my hair cut and reblonded by the Amazing Brandon. He's a magician of sorts and never tries to make balloon animals but instead produces a mean cup of tea.

I've done the math and sadly, it is actually cheaper to fly up here than frequent someone I DO NOT TRUST with my dirty blonde locks in Wellington. So far my hair has cost me $100 for the flights and $25 for lunch. Cheap, I tell you. And the chance to catch up with the other Auckland lot, although Jase is currently in the dogbox for double booking and choosing the other invite. This, let me tell you, is precisely the reason I am not attending his wedding in Raro later this year, and not my dubious finances.

Other stuff. Everyone else I know, and thousands I don't, have been attending the evening concerts at the gardens. I can't because of my job, and I just need to reiterate here that it is only the fact that I usually rather like my job, that prevents me from not throwing massive FOMO tanties when everyone else is clearly having fun and I am asking reporters 'Did you really mean this, or do you mean that, and if you did, then why didn't you just say that?'

We have a new French flatmate - she told me her name and I can't pronounce it or spell it so I just call her the French flatmate. Lazy, I know, but I hardly ever see her and she'll be gone in two weeks when our beloved Oren comes back with presents from Israel. Dear God, they had better be good presents to make up for the fact that I've had to deal with losing my partner in nerd tv watching for two months.

I went to Christchurch for a reunion with the witches. I also saw Ben and Karen's new place and had a nice chat to their child who likes boobs and curls. Smart little boy, that one. The witches were in ace form - Fi's partner lasted a whole 30 minutes with us before declaring that he couldn't take any more of it and he hid in his study with a bag of licorice allsorts for the rest of the night. This was probably very sensible. Christ, we were in what I can only describe as a form so good that we floated in a realm somewhere above cloud nine. However, the gods don't like it when mortals hang above them and I was punished with another bladder infection. Someone up there does not like me.

Other things I have learned this month are that elbow grease and vinegar and baking soda are excellent cleaning tools. I know this because I watched Melissa use all these things to clean our oven. I encouraged her, like a good flatmate ought to, and she did an excellent job. Well done her.

I went to a party (yes, I am that popular) on Friday night where most of the guests seemed to have a link to Palmerston North. This was somewhat amusing, and even more so, whilst being slightly odd, when nice chap said to me: 'Penelope -didn't you go out with Karl in 6th form?' This was completely true and for a moment I was taken back 16 - SIXTEEN years, thank you - to 1994 for my long, by high school standards, relationship with Karl that lasted exactly three weeks. He was my first boyfriend, it was intense, we broke up and he called me a bitch and then said he was joking about meaning that. I wish him well in his endeavours.

The be-tanned one, also known as Whitson Major, arrives tomorrow. This will be nice. I like him. Even if he does have a better tan than I do, but I think anyone who lives in Wellington will agree that, given our weather of late, the fact that I have any tan at all is impressive.

Rumble in Himatangi

2010-01-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for some thugs to bash over new years, may I recommend the docile summer beach village of Himatangi.

Sadly, even though H, Katie and I were totally prepared to wrestle some youths to the ground after pulling out some insulting hand gestures, I think all the locals just wear black hoodies to keep out the sand. Not to threaten or intimidate. Pity. So we talked to the bambi we found instead.

Himatangi is a windy place. Windy and sandy. Is nice when it's not windy. But it's pretty windy. Did I mention the sand? I don't really like sand. Gets into all sorts of inappropriate places that do not need exfoliating.

New year's eve itself involved a nasty game or ten of scrabble. There was whisky, some swearing, maybe some name calling. Thoroughly enjoyable. I like going on holiday with nerds.

Christmas was also nice - was the only child home so came in for some spoiling. Had some very good conversations with the cat, who may appear to be only able to purr, but I know different. Realised I was on my way to becoming a sad old cat lady when I found several minutes of video footage of the cat on my camera. She's not doing much, pretty much just being a cat, but she's so cute! You'd love our cat. No, really.

Have had my contract at the paper extended till the end of Feb, which is all good and nicely ties in my very loose plans for world domination sometime after I turn 32 and Kit marries John in March. However, these night shifts make me a little sad when I realise that everyone else is probably doing something fun, like hanging out with friends at the pub on a sunny evening, and I am slaving over depressing headlines about road tolls. It's just as well we're having a pretty bad summer so at least they can't have their drinks outside. It's the little things you have to focus on.

Rhiannon and the Gold Dust Woman hit the 'naki

2009-12-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

I would like to lick Stevie Nicks' tambourine. I want to be her beribboned microphone.

Rhiannon and I met up with another Fleetwood enthusiast and his not such an enthusiast wife who very nicely put up with us practically crying and warbling and clutching each other shrieking 'I love Stevie'. Frack, it was ace.

Full, full points to the person in the audience, who shouted 'Stuuuuuvvvviiiieeeeeeee' in a full-on Kiwi accent. The legendary Nicks would have been thrilled from her heeled toes to top-hatted head to have inspired such devotion. No one carries off a sparkly dress like she does. And people were trying. Badly.

The 'naki gave us some rain but quite frankly it could have snowed and it still would have worked with the music. An audience who knows all the words to all the songs is always a nice place to be.

And then we left the 'naki at midnight, only six hours after we got there, because we had business elsewhere. Like breakfast with my dad and godparents in PN. Had my spinster t-shirt admired by the locals, though. Ace, ace weekend. Oh God, I am still swooning.

Three more days of work, my mother is back in the country and I have a Katie and Debs en route. I love summer.

A blow to one's ego

2009-11-26T15:39:00.000-08:00

Mother, please don't read this. You'll feel bad on behalf of your car.

I get a flat tyre. Actually, I get in the car and realise that I have a flat tyre but AHA! I was not the last person driving it because I'd made Melissa drop me somewhere the night before so it was entirely her fault. But the tyre issue remained. I don't think I've ever changed a tyre. And so, for the fourth time this year, I ring my new friends, the AA.

The AA chap nicely says that I even if I did know how to change a tyre, I wouldn't have been able to get the darn thing off because of how tightly the little bolty things were put on last time - he is jumping on his bolt-getter-offer as he says this so I'm sure he's not just making me feel better. Well, sort of sure.

And so life goes on.

But wait, there's still more. I have a bad night's sleep, go out for breakfast unwashed and with very fluffy hair and the top half my pjs (very pink I might add) still on, and when I get home, so very, very exhausted and full of Sweet Mama's best offerings, I back into the fence. Twice. With witnesses.

Blonde woman in pink shirt hits fence twice.

Yes! I strike another blow on behalf of feminists everywhere.
And throw one in for stereotypers for good measure.

Rejection by proxy

2009-11-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

I have a very caring mother. She lives in another country at present and so we communicate a great deal via the magic of texting. Sometimes this results in our texts arriving at inopportune times owing to phone companies being a bit useless. A few weeks back, at about nearly 1am, I got a text from the mothership telling me the following things:

She has a friend (nice!) in Chch, who has a son in Rotorua who is ... MY AGE and, oh, the poor chap, he's single.

I think you can guess where this is going. Now, the mothership never does this sort of thing, I suspect so we will never produce grandchildren who may give away the fact that although she looks about 35 she in fact might be a few years older. So blame can be laid squarely at the feet of her friend. At any rate, I text back saying 'Is this a set up?' and mother says it's not her fault and the young man will be in touch next time he's in Wellington.

He never does. This is rejection by proxy. Thanks, mum.

I can just imagine the conversation he's been having with his mum.

'You did what? Said I'd call some sad and pathetic single woman whose mother has to get her dates? I can totally get my own dates, thanks, mum.'

Moving right along ... we went to the All Whites match on Saturday night. Oren, J, Morgan and I painted ourselves up, wore some white, had a few drinks and marched off to the stadium. I think I should add that Morgan and I know very little about soccer and had no idea just how big a deal this match was until a day or two before. It was insane. Wellington went berserk. It was fucking ace, actually. We leapt about and shouted and generally had a spectacular time and wound up dancing round the pub after the match, and managed to convince several other people there that they should let us paint their faces. Full points to my flatmate, J, who was painting the face of a very hot girl, who obviously liked him but he was oblivious to this fact, to whom he said 'Hold on, I just have to finish painting your double chin'.

Size is everything

2009-11-10T14:45:00.001-08:00

Another thing people don't talk about very much and I feel is definitely terribly important and possibly even the answer to world peace, is the difficulty of having one breast that is slightly, or sometimes not slightly, more like hugely, larger than the other. This cannot only be an issue for women, surely? I realise men have eensy teensy boobies in comparison to the ladies but even on this small scale I suspect mammorific injustice rears its head like an unwelcome steak at a vegan barbecue.

Is it an issue? Am I just making DDs out of A cups? Possibly. I mean, no one ever talks about it so perhaps it's all in my head. Except that with my lack of social graces I have had this conversation with other women and I know this problem is out there. Now is the time, sisters, to stand up and say with pride 'I have different sized breasts'.

Bra shopping can be enough of an issue without the added pressure of knowing it's only going to make one breast happy. Bra shopping is not quite on the same scale as the horror of jeans shopping, for which I have long suspected they give the most sadistic salespeople extra training for, but trying to find a decent bra that fits is a right old bitch anyway.

Interestingly, the women who I've spoken to on this issue say that men never notice.

Other stuff. Work goes well. My headlines improve but I'm still not getting 100% success. Did manage to get a Treemendous in today's paper though, and I'm pretty darn proud of how awful that is.

I attempted to go jeans shopping a few weeks ago. Whilst I have finally managed to squeeze myself and my differently sized hips into my old ones, they're on their last legs (see what I did there? I need help) so new ones are on the cards. So I went shopping for denim. And came home with a cocktail dress. Which I do not need. Yesterday I went swimsuit shopping. And came home with shorts. As you do. And it's raining today so this whole 'summer' thing is not working. Although I do have my first round of sunburned cleavage going so I have high hopes that actual summer, not this faux summer, is lurking nearby.

I am pleased to see, though, that you can buy bikini tops and bottoms separately. If only you could buy bra cups separately . . .

2009-10-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

The sort of mild sickness drags on but I'm back to eating chocolate buttons for breakfast so I'm obviously attempting to get back on the horse.

Last night saw me quaff three glasses of wine and a tequila shot before the final of burlesque class. There were eight of us having a few drinks to, ah, well, loosen up, which is probably just as well, seeing as how the end of class had all us standing around in stockings, heels, corsets and knickers, having gleefully peeled off gloves, skirts and shirts. Was hugely entertaining - I can't say I'm the best burlesque dancer, in fact, my shimmies are downright clumsy, but it is indeed a great source of entertainment. Especially when I tried to explain to my Swiss flatmate what titillation was. Sadly we didn't get to the nipple tassle stage, although I gather that comes later if I keep going.

I think I have half gotten the hang of sub-editing. I have a sign on my desk now that reads 'Today is not today' because of my bad habit of not remembering that for some stories, not written by our reporters, changing today to yesterday is very important because we are, of course, playing with tomorrow's news. It can also lead to complete headfuckwittage when it sometimes gets a little complicated - when you throw tomorrows and yesterdays into the bargain and you're tired and forgot to bring your smarts to work.

Right now I have a Ruthie slaving over a hot stove, as is her duty, damnit, as a woman and my oldest friend, and then soon we will be going on a doily hunt - because you can never have enough of those. And as I now have an omlette in front of me I think I'll pay that the attention it deserves. And give the pimple on my chin (why, God, why?) no attention whatsoever.

Not so cutesy but pretty fracking sleepy

2009-10-18T02:59:00.001-07:00

It's my own fault. If I will insist on a jetset lifestyle, complete with liquor and hos, and cocktails with live fishies in them, what was I expecting? Of course I'm run down and tired and scratchy with what appears to be a mild dose of adult acne to complete the nastiness. Oh and minus most of my voice. I don't need that. It's a complete waste of time. No one listens to me anyway.

I went to Christchurch. For at least 24.75 hours. I saw a lot of people. I did a lot of talking. A lot of laughing (once again I tried to remember to have a ladylike trill, but I forgot and cackled instead). There was some wine. A trip down memory lane with one of Timmy's KGBs. My teeth hurt a bit from all the sugar after that one. And I left at 11pm because I am old, I was tired and I had a flight to catch the next morning because these days I work on Sundays so I had to be back up here in our nation's beloved capital. I can see my house when I fly into Wellington. That's pretty darn rad.

Ah, yes. Babbling. See, even without a voice I can do this effortlessly. The Chch gang were all good. Appearances were made by people who ought to be in Auckland, Wellington, Melbourne and London, so a good effort on all sides there. There were children, which proves that people have not been letting the grass grow under their feet in the past ten years, since I think the first round of university graduations, but rather have been making hay whilst the sun shines. I am obviously not one of these people, but I kindly allowed Ben and Karen's very charming baby to lick my hands so I could sense what it is like to have one of these 'things'. I did not even try to pick the baby up, mainly because I am sort of possibly flu-ish, but also because I have a fear that I will drop the child. And babies don't bounce.

As far as reunions go, and it is my second one this year, it was pretty ace and I regret that I only see all these people a little more than never or once a year. Fi and I managed cups of tea and cackling/snorting - pick whichever one seems more adult - until 1am and then I had a restless night's sleep, interrupted by Fi's cat. The one that likes to indulge in heavy breathing and walking on boobs.

I got back to Wellington in time for lunch and a flying visit from Bran, who chopped off 6cms of hair, (no one at work noticed) and in return I had Melissa make him crepes. He admired my lack of voice, which does indeed sound like I favour any and all brands of cigarettes, preferably all at once.

Work is mostly good. I managed to misspell siege on Friday night. We were on deadline and I was panicky, but really. Oh Penelope. Just admit you're rubbish. Seige. Siege. Seige. Siege. Don't worry - it didn't make it to print.

I have a workmate who has been at the paper since before I was born. I am at least 15 years younger than all the other subs. Baby. That's me. AND NO ONE PUTS BABY IN THE CORNER. Well, they do. But sometimes I like it that way.

Anyway, this particular reunion made me ponder the past ten years, what others have achieved, and what I have achieved. Let me list these things for you.

Other people sometimes have:
Children
Houses
Pets
Plants they have not neglected and let die
Partners
Assets
Careers
Vegetable gardens
No student loan because they paid it back
No credit card debt because they don't think shoes are a form of religion.

I have:
Shoes, but not nearly enough
An exceptionally lovely vintage full length cream leather jacket that I blew a lot of money on in London and then lost half the buttons off so now I never wear but I think it's an asset of sorts
A broken laptop
A very large student loan
Decent boobs - a natural asset
Credit card debt
A pirate Barbie costume
A lot of books
No plants
Oh, and my looks. They'll never fade, of course.

You might have to reread them a few times but eventually you will see that the lists are slightly different.

I guess a lot of this all comes down to what you want from life and what you consider achievement to be. Different strokes, chaps. And comparing yourself to others, which can be both heartbreaking and exhilarating, is probably not a great idea. Even if it is a great source of entertainment. Reasons why I am glad I am not Amy Winoface and so on.

There are definitely days when I think I have failed miserably at achieving stuff. However, I'm going to go with the rather wanky fact that I'm mostly pretty happy, which I gather not everyone else in the world is (I'm thinking Lindsay Lohan), so I'm going to give me one squillion points just for that. Rad.

Sleepyhead babbling

2009-10-07T15:34:00.000-07:00

SHAZAM and the laptop is back in business. I still have no screen, but who needs that? I have a large monitor, perfect for watching Battlestar on. I think the laptop heard me pondering its flying abilities and pulled electronic finger.

New job goes well, I think. This month, Matthew, I be a sub editor for the paper. It will take me through to Christmas at which point I am quite happy to be unemployed. I had a great headline last night. So good I'm not going to say what it was, because it was a mildly bad pun-like one. But I was congratulated, and as I'm never told if I'm doing well, just when I've fracked up, I'm going to take that and run.

We had a champagne brunch on Sunday, with more gluten than you could wade through. Melissa was away so the gluten gluttony was ON. I really do love pastry.

My job has ridiculous hours 3.30-11.30pm so my sleeping patterns are a trifle screwed so I think I might go and have a nap now. And then I have to make scones and take them to Morgan. Just cos.

Oh, and J is back. He brought me Swiss chocolates. They were ever so yum. So, so yum.

I repel technology

2009-09-29T15:34:00.000-07:00

Laptop died. Good and proper this time. I am hijacking Oren's whilst he works. Shhh. He'll never know. After this I might see if my laptop is a flying laptop. It says it's not, but I think it's lying.

This is going to be all short and sweet, pretty much the complete opposite of me, because I am feeling poorly (don't want chocolate, never a good sign), I'm shattered from sickness and new job with ridiculous hours, and I woke myself up this morning too early because I was having a dream/nightmare that involved being naked with Iggy Pop.

Not the dominant female

2009-08-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

It really, really disappoints me to discover that despite being the oldest, the biggest and the tallest woman in my flat, I do not have the dominant vagina. Melissa moved in and my periods went walkabout - apparently her body won the lady bits' wrestling match and I am doomed to follow her. And then Jani moved in and it started all over again. The only time I think I have forced all my female flatmates to dance to my tune was when I was on the pill - and I'm fairly sure I apologised.

This means that I have stormed into the living room in the past and scared poor wee Melissa by pointing an accusing finger at her and demanded 'When is your period due?' I have no doubt that she wondered what kind of flat she'd moved into. Now she just giggles. She knows she has the power.

It's Sunday and the storm just hit. Up here in the Eagle's Nest that is my home in Roseneath we have a perfect view of the rain and wind-battered harbour. Leaving the house today seems like a suicide mission. So I won't be doing it. Instead, I think I have been possessed by demons because after a breakfast of the chocolate fish variety, I cleaned the kitchen. The bathroom is next. Lamb casserole is in the oven and the bananas will be soon be sacrificed in favour of cake. And then the vacuuming. I know, I know, I don't sound well, at all. Last night I was in bed, sober, by 10.30pm. Another raging Saturday night for Lady Penelope. I had, though, just watched five hours of True Blood. It has been suggested that this cannot possibly be as good as BSG. This is rubbish. Don't make me choose between them. I can't do it. They are equally marvellous and shiny. I watch them with different people. With BSG, Oren, Duncan and I mutter 'Frack me'; with True Blood, Morgan and I discuss how Vampire Bill might just be the perfect man. Of course, he's imaginary, which helps immeasurably.

I'm still destroying people's lives on behalf of the man - this brings me no joy but I've started a candy kitty and convinced young Colin to go on the jetplane run - basically I have become a workplace bully who must be kept sweet literally.

Andrew, Morgan and I went to see Morgan's pa perform some of Shakespeare's greatest hits. He was awfully good, but the synopsis provided had us in mild hysteria. Macbeth's started with 'The Macbeths are ...' This was all it took. Who ever describes them as the Macbeths? They sound like the couple next door you never want to ask over for dinner - 'Oh, no, not the Macbeths, he's okay but she's always bitching about something ...'

Friday night was whisky and fondue with the Christchurch posse, plus a few others. This was magnificent - particularly when it was discovered that Will owns a fearsomely large banana.

I might have a nap now. Because it's Sunday, the house is mostly clean and I've hung out my washing - literally, not metaphorically.

Fleeting Extreme Radness

2009-08-15T18:08:00.000-07:00

Fleetwood Mac are coming! They totally deserve an exclamation mark. I swoon at the very thought of the Mac and am lolling on my living room carpet listening to them right now. It's just me, a large cup of tea, this charming block of chocolate that insists of smearing itself all over my face, and my broken laptop with the Mac blaring and I'm sprawled inelegantly (who sprawls elegantly? Maybe Coco Chanel would have?) doing the crossword and I am totally relishing being the only one home.

Not that I don't adore my flatmates, who are very good at being flatmates and super rad into the bargain, but it's been a social few weeks and I am rather tickled at the opportunity to be alone - I've been having some good conversations in my head lately and it will be nice to air these with myself openly. If only I wouldn't be so pigheaded sometimes and would just listen to me, I'm sure I'd be doing much better at this game of life.

Eighties dance party last night - I am sore. But I pulled some sweet as dance moves whilst wearing hot pink lycra. And this morning Ruthie and I watched Girls JustWant to Have Fun and got ideas for more dance moves that are guaranteed to make us so many friends on the dance floor.

Still working for the man. I feel like such a traitor.

Oh, and Captain Morgan is back. I sense trouble.

Sex, lies and videotape

2009-08-04T02:32:00.001-07:00

There is no sex. That would be the lie. I saw Pump up the Volume a while back on the old video though. Phwoar Christian Slater back in the day.

And it transpires that if the moon is in the right spot and the sausage rolls are just so and I've had just the right amount of Battlestar to get me through till morning, and the Singstar is in a separate room to the rest of the party, then by jingo I'll enjoy it. And I jumped off furniture whilst doing so. Will and Sara throw a good party. Except for the wine thief with pink hair. The act did spark a rather good conversation on the morality of booze thefting at parties - a glass is fine, taking the whole bottle is a no no.

Saw Harry Potter tonight. And the utter highlight was making it through a 2.5 hour movie without having to disrupt my row by stumbling to the toilet in the dark. Go me and my bladder.

Sigh

2009-07-31T18:50:00.000-07:00

It was just one of those ludicrously social weeks that beforehand makes you think 'Fuck, I'm popular and super and I bet most people want to be me' but by the end you can only semi formulate thoughts, such is your exhaustion, and those thoughts go something along the lines of 'I hate everyone, why must they bother me when I am quite clearly a recluse'.

I had an ace week. Am just suffering the exhaustion of the social butterfly. A not particularly dignified social butterfly. I have flitted. And lolled. Swilled. Scoffed. Put on about 20 kilos in the space of three hours (Korean place - I just ate and ate and ate and could have had more but I was concerned about vomitting). Oh, and I got new knickers. Can never have enough of those.

Sooo, after the PNGHS slumber party extravaganza of last Saturday, there was Kelby on Sunday, being all cute and Kelby-like, and then the fecking radness that is Battlestar Sunday. And then Andrew's birthday on Monday, which ended up with Sara, Mark, Stu, Luke and I experiencing fine dining Flat Awesome stylez - fush'n'chups'n'whiskey and X Men.

Tuesday was more Battlestar than you can shake a stick at. I'm not sure why you'd want to, anyway. Wednesday was the meeting of the classics nerds, and I made them, nay, forced them to come to quiz night, where after a bit of a dodgy start, we managed to come second again. AGAIN. Second is so last year.

Thursday was Jess. I was already a spot tired but I made the effort and went to dinner after we hugged and kissed each other in a thoroughly dubious manner, as befits women who admit that if only they were both gay they would totally rock out as a couple. I saw a Charlie. Met some other people, including Jessa's 18-year-old cousin who, it transpires, is in 7th form and was drinking on a school night. I was shocked. Even more so when he told Jess and I that one of his friends lost his virginity to a 32-year-old mum recently, and that most young men totally lust after older women. Jess and I looked at each other and made a date to loiter outside Wellington College the next day. Had to renege on that when remembered that I'd be working. Because that's what adults do. Dragged an unsuspecting Richard back to my place and Jess and I plied him with scotch and carrot cake and demanded he tell us filthy stories. Staggered to bed at 2am, having done the mildly drunk maths and realised that I'd get at least 4 hours' sleep and why would I need any more than that to handle a day working for the government? Also, they just extended my contract so it's probably about time I let them experience hungover Penelope.

Woke up not hungover. But so very, very tired. Jess went to bed with all her clothes on. I at least managed to put on PJs and knee socks. This was not my best look.

Friday I had a bizzare conversation with workmate about a paperclip.

Friday night I ate a lot of Korean with Duncan. Demanded to be allowed to pay as have been given money for this working lark and I felt like frittering it all away. Unfortunately, once I'd convinced the restaurant staff to ignore Duncan's attempts to pay for half, it transpired that they don't take credit card ... which was all I had. Duncan and his EFTPOS card to the rescue. Was a spot embarrassing. We waddled back to mine and made Oren's night by watching Battlestar. Duncan fell asleep. He does not get a gold star.

And tonight it's Will and Sarah's housewarming. With Singstar. I am not a fan of Singstar. I know, I adore karaoke, but for some obscure reason that a psychologist would no doubt ascertain is due to my inability to jump out of a tree into the dam that one time when my little sister totally showed me up by doing it effortlessly ... digression and anyway, I just find it not conducive to me enjoying parties. I am a party pooper. But I rather like Will and Sarah and I want to see their new place because I am nosy so I will go and eat all the chips and sit in the corner and do my best with polite conversation with strangers. I really am spectacularly bad at polite conversation. It's so boring. And then I can't resist saying something awful and if people react well, then I like them. If they don't, I go home and make voodoo dolls of them and they start to suffer from horrendous ailments like piles.

Negligees and pillow fights

2009-07-25T17:35:00.000-07:00

Oren has confessed his disappointment that when I invited three of my oldest lady friends over for a sleepover we did not prance about in skimpy lingerie lightly hitting each other over the head with pillows, in between brushing each other's hair. Instead we lolled about in an undignified manner, scoffed cheese and cackled in manner of ancient crones. And as our combined ages must be somewhere in the 120s, I guess we are. Just one crone, though.

I don't think Kit, Spanna, Manda and I have been in the same place at the same time for about ten years, so there was much of the reminiscing, old tales retold and embellished, some very bad photos and fair lack of maturity displayed. We dragged mattresses out to the living room and slumbered with gusto, got up at a sensible hour and brunched and then dispersed, promising to repeat it all for our 4oths. It is very irksome when one's chums insist on living in other countries/cities/islands. (Fi - you owe me a visit.)

Anyway, it is a sunny Wellington weekend and even though I am exhausted, I am not hungover, and for some obscure reason, there is still chocolate, so I'm going to inhale that, and then I might read all afternoon. I have not read for more than a lunch hour for quite some time. This is because I am supposed to be looking for work so if I read insead, I feel guilty. Strangely, this does not appear to affect my watching of Battlestar. We're into season two and it is MAGNIFICENT.

Oh, and I have a short-term contract making up lies for the man for the next few weeks so I can read without the guilt for a wee bit.

I sabotaged a job interview recently (really didn't want it but the dole people insist you apply for a certain number of jobs each week, so ...) which was in the Slutt Valley, so I drove out there (45 minutes - insane) and when they asked how my workmates would describe me I went with 'Impulsive and chatty. Oh, and I make good cookies.' Satisfied I'd screwed that one up well, I went away smiling. Right up until they called me a few days later and said 'Congratulations, you've made the final three ...' The other candidates must have been rubbish.

Guity as a girl can be

2009-07-16T02:32:00.001-07:00

Much to my eternal shame, I did not know that Bananarama were British. And we lost quiz night by one point. If only I'd been a better fan, I could have hauled us up to a tie.

So, for the third week in a row, we came second at quiz night. We tire of second. We are hungry for first. But it appears that we are not hungry enough. Next week we shall be starving.

I actually did some work yesterday. Unusual, I know. And I loved it. I made a book. I like books. They smell good. Sometimes I smell good. Sometimes, like after the pretend run I went on today, I do not. It was a pretend run because I didn't do a lot of running. I am far better at walking. And loping. Because I am a Penelope. Sort of like an antelope but slightly less graceful.

And today I lolled about the house in preparation for working again tomorrow. I know. Twice in one week. That's a lot of work. I'm exhausted already. But this block of dark chocolate KitKat seems to be taking my mind off things. It's really pretty good stuff. I felt bad abandoning my Whittaker's - cheating on chocolate is near unforgiveable, but there's a recession on and Pak'n'Save had a deal on with KitKats so I listened to my credit card and went with the cheaper option.

My credit card is pretty chatty these days.

And I have a new addiction. I share it with my flatmate Oren. We heart the new Battlestar Galatica. I saw all the old series a few years back with Kruse and have long wondered what the new version was like. And now I know. Ben once described Prison Break as being like crack to him and Karen and I think I know what he's talking about. It's almost as good as Twin Peaks was. And that was pretty good. I think we'll be rewatching that soon. Transpires that Melissa has never even heard of it. I shake my head at the youth of today. I'm sure her life will improve dramatically once we've forced her to watch it.

In the mean time, I haven't seen any Battlestar since Monday as Oren and I have had conflicting social lives and at the rate we're going, I'm not going to get any until Sunday. This pains me terribly. I can't eat, I can't sleep. I long for Battlestar.

My poor technique

2009-07-06T21:59:00.000-07:00

When required, I have very poor interviewing techniques. Among other things.

I was at an interview recently where one of the panelists kept throwing up. I just have that effect on some people.

Who eats the nasty spotty lolly things in the bags of licorice allsorts? They are vomit inducing, just like me when I want to be.

In other random observations/pointing outies of thingies, I was asked out by a jogger on Oriental last week. It was a little creepy. Did I say flattering? No, creepy. And far more creepy than the slightly insane man who walks around my neighbourhood talking constantly, often in a rather angry voice. I passed him on the cliffs of doom (the local horror that is Grass Street) and was not really listening to his muttering right up until, just as he passed me, he hissed 'Make the voices STOP' and I gave him my full attention. It also gave me a bit of a fright. But just a bit. Because as I've said before, I'm tough. Especially in daylight.

I've had a lot of houseguests lately - too many to bother myself with this looking for work nonsense. But I seem to be free from them all now so must get cracking. Right after I make myself fairly ill with this bag of marshmellows.

Kruse dropped by in manner of horrible ex boyfriend who comes bearing far too many bottles of French champagne that we promptly added ice cream to. Champagne spiders are all the rage. He is a useful sort of fellow. Utterly horrible, of course, but useful.

Ruthie also came to stay and there was a lot of not very feminine snorting with laughter and many, many cups of tea. And hot water bottles. She also introduced my flatmates to some ridiculous computer game and now they are hooked.

And Melissa moved in. She did heaps of baking yesterday but apparently none of it was good enough for her exacting standards (it was going to be a gift) and now we have a lot of baked goods to consume. It is just as well that I am at home all day and prepared to do anything to stave off boredom. And I have pretty much given up trying to get back in to my jeans and have embraced voluptuousness with gusto. Is that spelt correctly? Do I care? Are my standards dropping? Did I fail the spelling test at quiz night?

Yes.

Scientific proof you can eat too much fudge

2009-06-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

In an effort to keep myself busy I have spent this morning conducting scientific experiements in the field of food technology. I have attempted to find out the exact amount of fudge a 5'10, 70-something kilo woman can endure. Chocolate coconut fudge, for those of you interested in the finer details of my highly technical experiment. My hypothesis? That I will eat a lot of it and feel very sick, but still keep eating. I may vomit, but this will not stop me.
I didn't make the fudge. It was made in sterile conditions (we'd just done the dishes) by well-respected fudge connoisseur Ruthie. She was wearing an imaginary lab coat and everything. I was supposed to be helping but then realised that previous attempts at making fudge suggest that I ought to stick to my own area of expertise: the eating bit.

So, two cups of sugar later:

I feel a bit ill. Like I shouldn't make any quick movements. Although, the amount of sugar now in my system is going to kick in soon and I will no doubt do something foolish like attempt to get out of my chair and walk to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. This might actually kill me.

Aside from having flashbacks to Form Two science class (even then I could tell that the only lab coats in my future would be on other people, such was my dunce-like inability to understand anything) I have been enjoying the recession. I signed up for the dole today. I don't want to bore anyone, but as 70% of all jobs are not advertised I'm supposed to be bothering you all for work. So hand it over. It's not as easy as it once was to get money from the government, and this is no doubt a good thing, but it is a tiresome proceedure to go through.

Wellington is spectacular - it's cold and wet and out my living room window I can watch it rain heavily all over Oriental and the harbour. Take that, employed people. Even on such an awful day, my love for this city never wavers. It looks good in grey. Maybe it's the fact that I get to walk along the waterfront in order to get anywhere - being this close to the water is pretty darn rad even if I have to wait five months before I can get my leopard-spotted body (it's not fading, I swear now my teeth are getting sharper, as well) out to the pontoon for some fearless leaping into the sea.

Job-hunting is not going so well. But if I learned anything from my lecture at WINZ, it's that I can't expect to go into the kind of job that I want because it's not a time for dream jobs, it's a time for doing whatever I can. So I can kiss goodbye to being a trophy wife and think about being a whore instead.

How do they know?

2009-06-10T20:56:00.000-07:00

Today's horoscope:

You are weirder than others think, for your most unconventional quirks are not readily seen by many people. You may have an air of dreaminess about you, but you still are able to keep your most intense thoughts private. Your inner space is yours alone; even if your close friends get glimpses, you are not required to take them on a tour of your imagination.

Quirky sounds better than weird.

Apologies dearest Skyehole

2009-06-07T23:12:00.000-07:00

I have been gently reminded that I forgot to say I also saw Skye in Melbourne and she has a very decent baby belly on her. And, of my own accord, I must say she's the best looking pregnant woman in a tutu I have ever seen. And I love her. Even if she did used to joke that the fox outside our flat in London was my new boyfriend. We were just very good friends.

Oh, and Elise makes exceptionally good pesto. I was wide awake with the stupid hungry jetlag the other night just thinking about how it good her pesto would be right now, knowing quite well that if I got up to look in the fridge there would not be any. Because she didn't give me any to take home. Which is fair enough because they would have confiscated it at customs - but I can almost guarantee it wouldn't have made it to that point because I would have hoovered it up at Departures.

Is so hard being so very popular

2009-06-07T02:07:00.001-07:00

I finally leave Edinburgh, almost sobbing my heart out at the prospect of leaving Dave and Manda, but uber excited about a camping trip with the London massive. The ten-hour bus trip seems like nothing after South American bus experiences, although I was reminded sharply of that part of the world when I first climbed aboard the London express.

'This bus smells like South America.'

And then I realised that there was a toilet onboard, which was great given my very pathetic bladder, but obviously it hadn't been cleaned terribly recently, or terribly well, because there was a distinct smell wafting in a not so gentle way throughout the bus. But I am tough and thought nothing of it. Tough, I say. Like nails. Bendy nails.

Camping with 16 others and a baby - times have changed. We had enough tents, although a mild case of poor communication between Katie and me meant that we were down a sleeping bag (all my fault) but someone else actually had a spare. And we ate vegetables. And proper sausages. You know the ones, they actually have meat in them. There was still drinking and singing and poking of fun but somehow less messy than previous years . Having said that, my camp stretcher collapsed within 30 minutes of me lying down on it. Not such good times there, but I rolled with it. Because I am a trooper. And I am lazy. And incapable of putting a camp stretcher back together in the dark.
And because I can't go on any sort of holiday without having some part of my body fail me, another bladder infection made the last day mildly irksome - this had a lot to do with me drinking several bottles of water in order to let the infection know that I was totally in charge - but then I got in the car for a two-hourish drive back to London - managed not to disgrace myself by wetting my trousers but I think sleeping on a broken camp stretcher might have been more fun than not thinking about a toilet and how badly I need to pee.

And then home via Melbourne for a surprise visit to Jess for her 30th. She fell over when she saw me, was very gratifying. Mind you, it could have been the smell of unwashed, jetlagged Penelope, but probably not. She's seen me looking/smelling far worse than that. Like that time we drank too much tequila and I got mistaken for a heroin addict because I was incapable of moving (brain was working terribly well, just rest of self not co-operating) and I eventually threw up a lot before telling atrocious lies to a taxi driver about how I had just been jilted and was therefore obliged to go out and get very drunk. Jessa's 30th was spectacular, if only for the dancing, but you know you've been at a good party when you don't get home until 5pm the next day and you're still in last night's dress, with a mammoth bruise on your bottom. Good times. I think I liked the lolling on Debs/Jess/Nic/Nath/Elise/Timmy the best. This is what friends are for. They also make you cups of tea (Tim failed here and I'll be making a note of it in my official report to his mother).

Melbourne also enabled me to give Nic his birthday present, carefully crafted by Dave and myself. It's a very special, very adult version of Guess Who. Hours of entertainment.

Then Auckland and straight into Bran's arms. And then, as the deal goes, I made him cookies of bribery. And then Wellington, straight into the mothership's arms. She loves me. You can see why. And then to Flat Awesome, where Mark and mum got on far too well so I had to make her go. And then bloody marys. And then lunch with Luke to get salacious details of his far more exciting life, just so I can live vicariously. And then another bloody mary. Because I am unemployed and I can. And then drinks with Duncan. This involved an absolutely thrilling trip to get his car. And when I say thrilling, I really mean not very thrilling at all. But the wine made up for it. And then back to Flat Awesome for drinks with a ginger and Mark and Stu and shouting at the final of New Zealand's Next Top Model. And then a party. And then the dancing. And then the takeaways. And the realisation that we were minus Loz's phone. And then the sleeping. And the waking up realising that what I had thought was a glass in the dark last night was actually an olive jar, but it still did a pretty good job of holding water. And then the walk of shame from Loz's to Mark's where there were pancakes. And tea. A lot of tea. And then there was Sara. And more tea. And then a bus to Palmy. And the others had bloody marys without me, bastards. But that's okay because I had parents and a cat and a fire and all my shoes.

And now back in my old flat in Wellington pondering job hunting, wondering how I'm going to cope with how incredibly cold it is (get pet bear to hug?) and wishing I had remembered to get chocolate at the supermarket. Jetlag makes me wake up at 2am utterly ravenous. It also makes me feel ill, although my mother says I could just have caught the sickness circulating at the moment, which makes perfectly respectable people, such as my aunt, throw up in a stranger's garden.

I did not win Lotto. There seems to be a glitch in the system.

The peroxide gets the better of me in the kitchen

2009-05-20T02:53:00.000-07:00

In the interests of alerting all to the potential dangers of ever having me stay as a houseguest, where I offer to cook delicious and only mildly unhealthy meals only to try and kill you, let me tell you the sad story of Mr Roast Chicken.

Oh, he was a pretty roast chicken, all trussed up and stuffed by me, surrounded by his buddies, little mr carrot and not quite so little mr potato, as well as bulbous mr onion and guaranteed not to make you any friends mr garlic. They were having such a jolly time, all hanging out together, getting a bit hot and heavy under the collar and generally raging up a storm, getting one hell of a tan and generally making me look exceptionally good to the starving masses. I even made gravy. Properly, for feck's sake. We carved. We served. We ate - Dave had manfully eaten half of his by the time I got round to starting which was when I noticed the odd taste. I had another carrot. Yup, something squeaky clean and not too edible about it. I asked the others who said that they too could taste it but no one had wanted to insult my cooking. Whoever had last used the roasting tin had indeed washed it, but not rinsed it and my beautiful roast chicken and his little vege chums were all mint and avocado washing up liquid flavoured and inedible. I was very sad. Manda was furious. She loves roast chicken. So Dave and I had a cheese toastie off and made Manda judge who was the best by blindfolding her with a mildly filthy tea towel and force feeding her. Fortunately for my reputation, I won, although it was noted by both the judge and the very bitter opposition, that I should have toasted the bread before I put the cheese on so as to avoid that slightly soggy bit you get.

I still get very sad whenever I think about the roasting tin. The situation is not made any better by me running out of chocolate and being too lazy to remedy the situation.

Remember that time Dan wore a nurse's uniform? That was good.

2009-05-19T05:24:00.000-07:00

Possibly, in hindsight, deep-fried pizza and a deep-fried Mars bar were not the ideal midnight snack, but we were aiming for the complete Scottish experience so ... sadly, this may have not aided me in the continuing saga of me versus my jeans. I can get them on, but sitting down in them is not fun. Probably not fun for anyone watching, either.

Dave, Manda and I have a sleepover and drink some whisky and play some cards and talk a fair amount of rubbish and fail to leave the house for periods longer than approximately 37 minutes. We also fail to get fish food. Or to get to bed before 2am. Which means that as an unemployed person, my day technically is about two hours behind that of the average person, so a 12.30pm getting up time is really only 10.30am. But this morning I am wakened at the ungodly hour, by any person's standards, of the real 8am, by a phone call from home - people are drinking at the Cambridge! I am pleased for them. The Cambridge is a good bar. However, I do feel they could have waited a few more hours. I do not hold grudges, though. Back to sleepytime, where I dream I am a 15-year-old boy who can breathe under water right up until my phone goes again, still too early by my standards, at 9.35am. Justin is a cripple and can't go camping but wants to know if anyone has a nurse uniform. Mine is in New Zealand somewhere, last seen being put to good use by Dan. Back to sleep again and I have dreams about fish and chips, which suggest to me that I am hungry, and men in very short shorts, which suggest that perhaps I am a pervert, and then it's 12.30 and time for breakfast and the good news that Kruse is an uncle.

I did a touristy thing and climbed up to Arthur's seat. I am not a good climber. I am more of a huffy, puffy, let's just stop here and admire the view, sort of climber.

I did a silly thing and got on the mini roundabout in the playground opposite Manda's house. Dave spun me round and round and it was fun for about ten seconds and then I felt very ill and I shrieked 'Stop, make it stop, please, please' and he just chortled and I resolved to throw up on him, but not Manda, no, not her, because she just looked very sorry for me, whilst somehow still managing to look superior for not having been so foolish to get on the damn thing in the first place.

Jelly beans in the shape of little love hearts are delicious.

Thoughts from this very comfy blow-up mattress

2009-05-14T02:50:00.000-07:00

Edinburgh is a bit stingy with its weather. It's pretending to be sunny but the moment you get outside the wind attacks you with chilly and grasping fingers, and sticks its nose up your shorts in the manner of a very impertinent canine.

I have achieved very little the past few days, although, as I am unemployed and on a very tight budget, I suspect doing very little is one of my best options. And I'm pretty good at it. I am particularly good at drinking tea and eating chocolate covered peanuts in bed. I even half cleaned the bathroom yesterday. And I did the dishes. And made a very good midnight snack of Welsh rarebit after Manda and I overdid the 'bad day at the office must have several glasses (bottles) of plonk' bit. Obviously she had had the bad day at the office, but as a good friend I felt I ought to help her out in the drinking of wine bit, because I am a trooper like that. I did not feel like a trooper yesterday morning. I didn't even want the chocolate covered peanuts. But I dragged myself out of bed and set off for Glasgow. Eventually met up with Manda, who was there for work, and Frazer, who I have not seen since the epic camping trip of '03, and whose accent is like wading through very thick chocolate. Transpired he had the other Amanda visiting him, who was also on that trip back in the day, so there was much rejoycing and catching up and bemoaning all the people who seem to have become adults since then, bastards.

Frazer has a very nasty habit of buying another round just as you're about to say you've had enough.

This morning I don't feel too bad, despite the six pints, and I've just remembered the bottle of cider to get us through the train trip, whoops, so I've eaten the peanuts and drunk the tea and realised we're out of toilet paper, which is irksome. However, everything pales in comparison to the depressing conversation I just had with Jody, who has recently moved home, about unemployment. We have decided we might have to take up drinking cheap sherry out of tea cups whilst perusing the wanted section of the paper. Or watching Oprah.

Unemployment/travelling is making my jeans shrink.

Pretty much just me muttering about nonsense

2009-05-11T02:30:00.000-07:00

This unusually sunny and beautiful Edinburgh morning finds me sitting in Manda's bed eating fudge for breakfast and reading an article on how not to be single at 40. I know it's a few years away, but nothing wrong with being prepared, no? Although it does assume that for most women being single at 40 is somehow very shaming. Surely it's better to be happy by one's self than unhappy but with a partner? Look! I have a man! I have achieved ... something, I'm not sure what but apparently this is all I need. Although, at this point, you'll start finding articles on why you should get rid of him if you're not happy, it's all about being your own woman, loving yourself, girlpower ... but then the moment you're single all anyone ever asks is whether or not you've met anyone because no one can possibly be happy by themselves ... sweet baby jesus, it's a vicious circle, made worse by some well-meaning (or possibly very unpleasant) person asking if your baby clock is ticking because babies are the primary aim of women ... I think I might be feeling a bit ranty this morning. More fudge will help that, surely. But then I'll just get fat. And then no one will want me because I wobble. But I should love myself no matter what ... I need to stop reading these articles.

All this fudge is aggravating the tooth that just got fixed, but I'm the boss, not Tony Danza, so I say we eat more of it.

The good thing about staying at Manda's house is that she doesn't like chocolate. Or anything sweet, for that matter, which means that if I buy, say, oh, I don't know, a family pack of Maltesers, I know exactly who is going to eat them all in less than 24 hours. Me. Gosh they were delicious. Manda is obviously insane for not liking sugar.

Since I got here about four days ago, the weather has been awful and my beautiful beyond belief tan has slunk away, upset by my inability to feed it sun. The leopard spots remain, however. Are they some sort of early warning that I may become a cougar, destined to patrol the swanky bars of Auckland, feeding on the flesh of Very Young Men? Let's hope so.

Edinburgh, despite its dubious weather, is a charming city. We ventured out on Friday, school girlz stylez, with a water bottle full of gin and lemonade for the bus trip to the pub. In hindsight, this was a bit immature and foolish, given that we then drank a fair amount of beer with Manda's workmates, listened to a bloody marvellous trio with a guitar, ukulele and bongo drum who kindly played Crowded House when they realised where we were from, and raged it up in general - we have photos where I'm sitting on the bar hugging the barman. Dear God he was one hell of a ginger (I think I am suffering withdrawals from not having my own gingers nearby). At some point Manda and I decided that it was time for dinner (I think this was about 1.30am) and home time so we combined the two and made the taxi driver, who hated us, stop at one of Edinburgh's fine dining establishments, also known as a kebab shop.

Saturday morning wasn't as shiny as it could have been. Saturday night was mildly quieter, in that we didn't leave the house but Manda's blasted flatmate came home with a bottle of spiced rum and knowing all the dance moves to Poker Face. I managed to escape after four drinks but Sunday was still a day of lounging about in one's PJs, watching Outrageous Fortune and feeling mildly homesick because of all the Kiwi accents. And also chortling because I wasn't wearing a bra because I hadn't gotten up yet*, but Manda was because she'd never gotten around to taking it off the night before.

*I don't count being up being up until I've had a shower. Them's the rules.

Have booked some flights home, am now even more utterly destitute and am enjoying myself thoroughly. Home in about three weeks and I have changed my flights in order to fit in with Brandon's schedule so he can play with my hair. It was cheaper to fly directly to Wellington but no, I insist I go via Auckland just to see Brandon. I can see myself having to defend my Auckland visits for the rest of my life - but my stylist lives there! I have to go at least three times a year! Surely it's tax deductible?

Nudey Rudey

2009-05-05T04:54:00.000-07:00

Nudist beach. We couldn´t help it. We giggled. Once again proving that with great age does not come great maturity.

Last night was spent pretending to be pterodactyls.

Exhausted by Justin and Katie

2009-05-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

He said it was an accident but today Justin invented the avocado white wine spritzer. Flashbacks to the smoked chicken martini of years gone by immediately followed.

I am too old for 4am bedtimes. Justin tried to go to bed at 2am but Katie kept filling up his glass and said that as she likes to deal in twos, he couldn´t go to bed until 4. So none of us could. I think she regretted that today when she had to drive to pick up Caro but we screwed up the arrival time and then she got lost and as far as I know she´s currently asleep on a beach somewhere near the airport because Caro doesn´t touch down at 4.30pm - she gets in at 8.30. Justin and I are on dinner. Literally. Eggplants like it when you stand on them.

Gibberish again. I really need sleep. Leopard print coming along nicely on tummy. Rashy thing still bumpy.

Katie is learning to say some very rude words. I am so very proud of her.

Topless women everywhere. Justin loves it. Nudist beach sometime this week where I bet he just faints from all the boobies on display.

And I´m down another credit card. I wasn´t even drunk when I lost it.

Exhausted by the old

2009-04-30T02:39:00.000-07:00

After another few days of doing very little and failing to get out of bed before 11am and generally enjoying ourselves very much, the owners call and ask if they may disrupt our idyllic life so they can fix the bathroom which is apparently leaking into the apartment below. We are generous and allow them to do so because it seems polite - we are informed that Germans would not be as nice about it, or offer cups of tea and lunch as we do. Mother would be so proud. Four men take apart one bathroom, then the other, at which point I realise that we have no toilets and that I should not have drunk so much tea. But I love it so much . . . Fortunately just as I am pondering the bucket in the corner of the laundry, they very kindly give us one loo back. Crisis averted.

The owners are a charming English couple in their 60s, who refuse to live in England, but instead live in France for six months and Spain for the other six. It sounds very tiring. Horrified at having put us out of a toilet for a few hours they insist we come for drinks - they have also discovered that Katie has a bicycle and they too love cycling, so good warm feelings all round. They ply us with wine, so much so that I have to resort to sitting as far away from my wine glass as possible else I get totally fucked up. More warm feelings when I find their Arthur Ransome collection and borrow one and then they insist I take several others as well, which is just as well because I´m running a bit low on reading material. By this point we are all pretty much in love with each other so they drag us out for dinner and we eat a lot of fish and chortle at the Spanish dessert option of a Magnum icecream presented on a saucer with a flourish.

Katie and I then both have worst night´s sleep ever, which is unfortunate because we said we´d be out of the apartment by 9 so the chaps can come back and continue to destroy the bathroom. We stumble to the beach, I push Katie over and she falls asleep and I find the market and buy fruit, which I don´t want, what I want is hot chocolate and churros and I think I might go and get that now. Oh God, so tired.

This was a pretty rubbish update, sorry.

Coming out in spots

2009-04-27T04:06:00.000-07:00

I thought perhaps I was allergic to Spain as my tummy is covered in spots, and as I spent a lot of time in South America being infected with things, I just thought this was par for the course and as long as it wasn´t my bladder again, I could take the peril. But then I recalled that I had similar spots in January, when I thought I´d just splattered myself with sunblock in a weird manner and so now I am forced to conclude that I do not have an intriguing rash that will allow me to meet hot Spanish doctors, but rather I have some bizarre skin pigmentation issue that doesn´t seem to be affecting my health so I will ignore it.

It does make me look like a leopard, though, so not all bad.

Spain did give me insomnia and headaches, but they seem to be clearing up. A likely explanation for the headaches would be booze, but Katie and I seem to have somehow, for some inexplicable reason, not really indulged. We had plans to totally take over this village of 2,500 people on Saturday night, but somehow wound up reading and drinking tea instead. Old age is certainly taking its toll.

I think I had a tea hangover yesterday. Turns out you can have too much of a good thing. But it was raining, although in a nice and charming Spanish manner so I read some more. Finished Katie´s book on Enoughism, which is both depressing and inspiring - depressing because I really do need to face up to the fact that I don´t need more shoes and inspiring because Katie and I are now determed to Save the World. One square of 70% cocoa, sugar-free chocolate at a time.

Fuck. I thought I had mosquito bites on my back but Katie has just confirmed that I have a rash. Perhaps this is because I have jumped on Katie´s wheat, sugar and dairy free bandwagon for this trip as it just makes things easier when cooking. Obviously I am allergic to not having any of those things.

Fail

2009-04-23T03:01:00.000-07:00

Did not make Grenada. Got stuck in a supermarket underground car park. Our hire car was upgraded so is very large soccer mom type Mercedes station wagon thingy. Is an utter bitch to drive on other side of road (not that I would know but Katie´s potty mouth would indicate she´s had more fun). At any rate - getting out of tiny parking spot, around car park whilst avoiding pillars of doom and through tight barrier on weird angle was incredibly difficult. Barrier also had a timer which we failed. In the end we got the driver of the car behind us to help out, guessing that as a native driver of the other side he would be able to manouvere mammoth wagon better than us. Sometimes being a girl, and blonde into the bargain, is very helpful.

By then it was 5pm and we decided that instead of Granada we would go back to the village and have gin. And possibly get chatted up by a Scotsman. Who hopefully now thinks that we are lesbians.

Bits and stuff

2009-04-22T04:18:00.000-07:00

There are several things I forgot to say about Ireland, namely that the crimes against hair committed by teenage lads are horrendous and they should all have their styling gel confiscated immediately. I shouted ´rubbish´ at lots of them and, sometimes, I even opened the window before doing so.

We passed a dog in the act of what seemed to be making love with another dog only, as we drove past, we realised that the dog was, in fact, having its wicked way with a sack of potatoes. I know it is childish and silly to personify inanimate objects, but the sack of potatoes did not look as though it was having a good time.

The Irish are a chatty bunch - on the bus to the airport an American sat down and was immediately engaged by the elderly Irish chap next to him. They chatted politely for a bit before the Irish asked "And how old are you, then?" The American looked a trifle surprised at such a personal question but answered nicely, ´51´.
´51!´ The old man gasped and looked thoughtful for a moment and then leaned forward in a confidential manner and asked, ´Would you be having Botox then?´
In truth, the American did look a lot younger than 51.

Spain so far is terribly nice and warm - Katie and I are living it up in a wanky apartment on a small beach outside Nerja where we are being awful travellers and doing nothing. It is very nice. We only scraped the hire car a little bit and I´m sure that dog deliberately stepped out in front of us.

We spent the first night searching for tapas at 11.30pm, being stared at incredulously by old men when we said we didn´t want booze only food. They insisted on buying us shots anyway.
We were then mistaken for Germans. About the only good thing with that encounter was that I understood what the young man was talking about.

Katie and I have so far attempted to make conversations with the Spanish in German, English and French. Spanish just seemed too easy.

Yesterday we got caught comparing fat rolls by a Scottish real estate agent. For the record, Katie does not have any.

Right. Am utterly determined to get to Granada today as we have to get Katie some bike parts. Some jockey wheels, apparently. I will buy more chocolate because yesterday I left a block in a hot car and, well, you can guess the rest. And we need some sangria. Probably a lot of that.

And yes, I am having issues with the quotation marks. But I really don´t want to use doubles. It makes me feel ill.

More ranting about public toilets

2009-04-19T12:39:00.000-07:00

I drank a lot of tea in Ireland and therefore had to use a lot of toilets. Easter weekend - all the public loos were locked, feck it. What's the bloody point? I had to pee behind the damn toilets. Judging by the amount of toilet paper lying about, I was not the first to have this idea.

Em's wedding yesterday - was an utterly gorgeous summer day, with cutesy English church, park champagne photo stuff, double decker bus and far too much wine. And the Time Warp. I felt a trifle off colour this morning, but there was no time for dilly dallying as had roast at Kruse's to attend, along with Chook'n'Katie'n'Caro'n'Dom. Roast onion is currently very high on my list of yum things I should eat more of.

Was particularly pleased with my wedding outfit as it cost £4. Vintage 60s, completely non-breathable blue dress. I was ever so cute. And a trifle smelly by the end of the evening owing to said non-breathable material and my sweat-inducing enthusiastic dancing.

Spain tomorrow so it might be about time to have a look over my Spanish homework, which I have been meaning to do for about four weeks now. They all speak English over there anyway, don't they? You just have to talk louder and slower with an exasperated expression and wave your hands around a bit.

Missing work which means I must be ill

2009-04-09T03:56:00.001-07:00

It's true - I went back to my old office at Waterloo, bearing cookies of yum that disappeared rather quickly because of my superior baking skills and the magic qualities and quantities of butter and chocolate involved. I only meant to stay 20 minutes because I know they're all busy making books and there have been redundancies but 2 hours later I was still talking to people, or rather, they were all talking to me and I was drinking tea. Gosh I miss work. I miss making spectacular fuck-ups and getting paid to complain about commas.

But am in Ireland now, where I braved a half pint of Guinness and it was all right. Would be improved dramatically by the addition of lemonade but I was a bit worried the bartender would slap me one if I asked so I opted for a whiskey chaser.

It is raining. Am not sure why I expected anything else. But the accents are knicker-meltingly good.

Snippets of London

2009-04-07T14:26:00.001-07:00

Almost saw a fight in the park on Sunday. Almost. A lot of angry young men stalking round the footy field that I was trying to run (this is a generous term) around. A lot of people ignoring them. And then the police came.

The end.

Awash with tea in a good way

2009-04-05T05:55:00.000-07:00

Jet lag is even less enjoyable that I remember it.

I blew my nose yesterday and a whole lot of black stuff came out of it so I knew I was definitely back in London. I am also drinking Yorkshire tea, probably another clue.

So, rocked in, was an hour too late for the protests/riots, such a pity, and got to Katie's just in time for tea and chocolate and the super uber news that she had quit her job that morning. We are unemployment buddies. We will skip through the daffodils together, holding hands and whistling in a merry fashion. Now, if I can only control my spending, this whole unemployed in Europe gag should be a doddle. Which it won't be because I've just remembered what I've bought in the past four days. But the dresses are so nice and they're vintage, so somehow in my head, it's all okay. And I really needed those aubergines. And I can pat myself on the back for not purchasing the purple towelling playsuit for £40, even though I really wanted it.

With the riots, bankers were told to 'dress casual' so as not to provoke the hippy protestors, also called 'unwashed' and 'stupid' by people interviewed in the media. I gather the average banker's idea of casual is somewhat different to that of the normal person. Full points to the young chap who went to work in a t-shirt proclaiming 'I predict a riot', though.

Caught up with the London version of the Chch gang yesterday, where I shamed myself by pretty much falling asleep at the table and had to go home at 9.30. Pathetic. They all seemed well, although, quite frankly, they could have been telling me of their unfortunate chlamydia experience and I might not have registered it.

Spent Friday night in Oxford visiting the munchkin - who I made sure was fed every two hours as per the instructions. Otherwise I'm pretty sure she shrivels up and cannot be revived unless you rub bike oil into her skin. Oxford is very pretty. Oxford is very English. So disgustingly pretty and English I was charmed. Had a jolly good op shop as well. And I got new jeans. They are stretchy ones, which I said I would never buy, but as Gen bought them for me, I can stick to that. The truly exciting and magical thing about these jeans is that they are almost too long. Impossible, I hear you gasp. Oh gentle reader, I too feared this day would never come, but it's true! So true it deserves a hated exclamation mark.

Right now I am supposed to be in tennis whites, drinking pimms and being mildly rude to Justin's friends, which I'm pretty sure is the only reason he invited me. However, not even the lure of tight white shorts was enough to get me across the city today, when I could instead be scoffing more chocolate and eating neurofen like raisins instead. Also, I'll need at nap at about 4pm. So I told him I was getting a labia reduction and would be unable to make it.

Current sleeping pattern involves me waking up at about 4.30am most mornings for about two hours. On Thursday night/Friday morning I was lucky enough to be lying wide awake at about this time, which enabled me to hear a woman greet her 16-year-old daughter as the young lady and her date tried to come home quietly - I think they were a bit past curfew. Mum was one cross lady. Shrieking like a fishwife. Took me a bit to piece together exactly what was going on, so high was her voice pitched, but eventually I worked out that the daughter was with an undesirable, possibly a much older one at that, judging by the amount of times the mum screeched 'She's only 16-fucking-years-old'. Daughter obviously did not agree with the state of affairs and argued back, resulting in mother uttering the charming line 'You fucking whore'. Good times, I tell you, good times.

I have a really good bruise on my lower back, which several people have kindly pointed out to me, although, generously, they have not poked it. I know where this came from and await my revenge. It's just a pity the perpetrators are in a different country right now. Their time will come.

On the back of my chocolate bar the manufacturers have kindly listed exactly how many calories are in each chunk. I do not think this is helpful, rather that it is depressing. But one more piece won't hurt. And neither will this piece. And if I don't eat it, then Katie probably will, so it's best if I just keep going and prevent her from making herself sick from overindulgence, which she is so prone to.

Ireland this week. Spain not long after. Wedding in middle.

hot and sticky in a not very interesting sort of way

2009-03-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

Sydney. Waiting for the plane to be ready for my lolling. Three hours into this whole flying back to London nonsense and I already smell like I've been going for a day. Must invest in a better deodorant.

On the road again

2009-03-29T00:41:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you about my toe. You want to know this.

I ripped the toenail back. Not off, just back to a 90 degree angle. I made a sound like a kitten being squished. That was ages ago and the nail is all dead and still not doing what a nail ought to do and still quite the owie. So I've painted it pink. A nice, jolly shade of pink.

So, yes, have been a trifle slack on the updating front, which would lead you to believe that I have a very exciting and busy life. And I do. It is thrilling. It's been a bitchin' summer. Being unable to get my bung toe into sneakers to do exercisey type things has meant I have had to find other ways to fill my days. I drank a lot of tea, had a lot of guests, had not enough sleep on several occasions and then managed to stub my sick toe which had very bad results. And then I was told I had toes like a budgie. I am going to Google budgie toes to check the validity of this statement in a moment.

I have been taking Spanish lessons. I'm not so good at Spanish.

You know, I'm not really 'feeling' this blog tonight. It's not rolling like a homie. So I will end with the fact that I had a delightful trip to Palmerston North to celebrate pa and I turning 99, an enchanting stay in Christchurch where I practised my cackling, a very brief but awfully good fun time in Wellington last night that involved a small amount of violence on the way home as we free hit each other, and am now in Auckland, having had pints with the gang and then a nap because Penelope is no longer 23 and cannot function so well on four hours' sleep, preparing to not enjoy my flight to London on Tuesday.

OLD

2009-03-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

I am old. There is port. Port is good when it is old. Ergo, so am I.

Logic possibly not so good right now. Oooh, look at those teaspoons. I should collect them. That's what a spinster would do.

Somewhere, in a parallel universe ...

2009-03-04T22:14:00.000-08:00

Penelope actually updates. Sadly, here she has her grubby little hands on a book and is going to sit in bed with chocolate and get crumbs on the sheets.

If I look out my window I can see the shadow of 31, trying desperately to hide behind a lampost, as it hopes to eventually leap upon me and overpower the lesser number 30. I see you, 31. I know what you're doing. And you can wait until I'm good and ready for you.

The neverending story of my bung finger

2009-02-02T00:38:00.000-08:00

So in order not to bleed all over stuff I afix a plaster to my finger, which seems quite keen to pump out a great deal of the red liquid that I would quite like to keep in my body because of its magical life-giving properties. I have to raid the first aid kit at work where they only have the superior cloth superglue plasters, none of this childish sticky plaster with novelty images on it nonsense. Unfortunately, I seem to be mildly allergic to the superglue ones, but I wear them anyway, because they are so superior. But they make me itchy, bring me out in lumps, although only where the glue has touched my usually pristine skin, and eventually cause me to peel. They also make my finger somewhat numb. I can use my finger and I can feel through it but it's jolly darn odd. Perhaps this is what wearing a condom feels like?

I work for Internal Affairs, right? The translation section, right? The phone calls we get, disturbing our day as we try to destroy people's lives by not doing their translations properly. (I just stamp them, am not smart enough to be allowed near the dictionaries with their fancy foreign lingo.)
'Can you send cheese to America?'
'I think my rental company is lying to me - can you tell me if they are?'
'What's shadow in Yugoslavian? That's what we want to name our dog.' (They did at least have the right department, but . . .)
'I have a forklift license - do you have any vacancies?' (They wanted Tranzlink, not translate)

They just keep coming and it's so hard not to laugh. I've only had one woman shout at me but I have high hopes of many more.

Still hurting

2009-01-29T01:28:00.000-08:00

In which I prove that I sometimes cannot multitask when not being paid to do so and attempt to slice off the tip of one finger whilst simultaneously trying to chat to Debs, drink gin and chop spinach. A few days later I get another finger with the bread knife and H's kitchen does not improve with blood all over it.
(This is my index finger, without which I cannot do up my increasingly tight jeans, as it's the only one that can get the button to do what it's told. I need this finger and must stop trying to cut it off when distracted and carrying knives.)

In other depressing jeans-related news, I was wearing the freshly washed buggers today, doing some lunges in order to stretch them back into some semblance of acceptable tightness, as compared to what, frankly, is quite unacceptable at the moment, whilst also eating chocolate with my good hand, when they ripped. Again.

I moved. We have views. They don't quite make up for the jeans situation, but they're pretty good. Two bits of sea. Oriental and the other one. I have already pissed off the neighbours with my parking skills. Neighbours nil, Penelope one.

In which Penelope has an owie

2009-01-20T22:23:00.000-08:00

I have been covered in bruises for much of the last six weeks. Bruises I got when sober from walking into furniture, tent ropes and things that might not even be there but go bump in the night. The final straw has been the hole in my tooth. It's been there for ages. The dentist said if it didn't hurt then I could wait. So I am waiting, but now, NOW, it's making my cheek hurt, don't ask how, I think I chew my cheek in my sleep. So, dentist on Monday. I love my dentist because he is ever so charming, has lovely soft hands (I quote my dad there) and makes charming and witty chairside banter and if he weren't a million years old I would totally ask him to marry me.

There was karaoke last weekend. There is video footage. My nose is huge.

Bringing it down from within with gin

2009-01-10T23:09:00.000-08:00

I am a lackey.

But I am very good at it. I lackey with style and a hangover. Pate sandwiches are quite nice and shiny and help a great deal if you turn up hungover on your third day.

There is no publishing work in Wellington right now. Oh, how I have tried to find some. Whored myself, even. There's work in Auckland, you know. It's like being lured by the devil - one's almost dream job but on the north shore. No fair.

So I am a lackey. It is not difficult but me and admin have never been the best of chums so I've made some spectacular feck ups, but I'm sure Internal Affairs are used to that. I get to play with languages all day. Hindi and Punjabi are just a little too similar for my liking.

As for the Christmas/NY-ness, this was all good and included PN, Chch and Castle Point, a fair amount of sav, bourbon and Lindauer, one hens night, the loss of my Lady Penelope jacket (who nicks a pink nylon jacket with gold buttons, aside from someone like me?), Jess and I enthralling/horrifying Castle Point with our version of the Time Warp, and the utter highlight - taking our overseas visitors home to PN which we assured them was a dubious place at night time and, lo and behold, on a night out we managed to see a chap take off all his clothes and dive onto a pool table.

Am subletting a room at H's - which is ever so convenient on Kent Terrace, even if it doesn't have an outsidey bit. Have restarted the Thursday drinks with the gingers. Prefaced with swimming at Oriental, which is so totally better than a pie and a pint at the pub in London.

Am feeling, however, with the new year madness behind me, that I am somewhat at a loss to explain what I'm doing with my life. I have a nasty case of itchy feet. Am supposed to be at a wedding in London in April, and have the ticket. However, am now supposed to be back here for two weddings and a reunion-type thingy in June/July. Might be a year of loitering about places, wearing big hats and quaffing booze. Which doesn't sound so bad, except I miss my job in London and the prospect of temping for a year, no matter how nice the workmates and how delicious the free fruit bowl, is enough to make one contemplate suffocation by teddy bear.

More importantly, do I need orange shoes? Surely everyone should have at least one pair? Even if they are broke?

Oh, and the gin reference. There has been gin. Have, in fact, gone a little off it.

Sorry about this but

2008-12-28T12:38:00.000-08:00

Feck. Long time, no bloggetty blog. Will definitely get round to it soon. Like in about a week when I get back from doing stuff that is more fun than typing.

Homeward bound

2008-11-27T10:18:00.000-08:00

I have some goodbye drinks with the Wellington/Melbourne crowd, which was triple radness to the extreme and I realised that I've failed miserably to see some people more than twice in the past year. Stupid old London. Mike dubbed me home from the station on his bike, which was worryingly fun, and we ate fried chicken and watched telly and chortled loudly at midnight, much to Skye's rage (she was trying to sleep). And then I had another round with the Christchurch bunch, sensibly, I thought, an afternooon affair so I'd have time to get home and pack for France. I did get home and pack for France but I was mildly pissed at the time. Good times. Red wine teeth not so hot. Sigh, is so hard being so popular and having to drink so much with so many who adore me.

So Dan and I, like, totally did Toulouse. Failed to eat my own body weight in cheese but probably got reasonably close in drinking my body weight in whisky. The weather was not clement and I'm not a good tourist so there was much sitting inside and watching True Blood, in which little Anna Paquin grows the fuck up and gets to have sex with vampires - a dream come true, no doubt.

Dan and I did manage to leave James' house to get to Carcassonne, a walled fortressy type arrangement, where I saw one of the better torture museums - educational and hilarious. Any century that produces an instrument to torture bad musicians is okay by me (of course, any century that produces nasty instruments to torture women who have sex with the devil is not, so that kind of ruined it all).

We ate some stuff that was yum. Ate more stuff that was yum. Drank semi-dubious red wine with gusto. Met all manner of nationalities, but oddly, very few actual French. All in all, had a thumbs-up time and was completely exhausted from all the telly watching when we got back.

Cue my final night in England. For which Skye'n'Mike'n'I invited Kruse and Bibby (so the old flat was together once more) for a Stratford stylez event of Chinese and zombie porn. It was magnificent. Bibby provided the projector (really, the only reason we invited him) and we ordered far, far too many dumplings, which we still managed to eat most of. Skye'n'Mike thoughtfully made me a t-shirt so I'd remember the good times - it's got a photo of our Chinese takeaway shop on the front. Skye wouldn't let me open the door to the takeaway man in it in case he got offended. And then, with the heating pumped up, it was too hot and they all took off their jumpers to reveal that they, too, had the same t-shirt! Hilarious! Oh, how I shall miss them all. Mike promptly got dumpling sauce on his.

So, a late night and then much pottering around the next day demanding Kruse make my laptop taller than God and twice as pretty and then he manfully carried my pack to the station and plonked me on the tube and I burst into tears because I am good at this, and then I staggered on my way to Heathrow. And then 26 hours and one mildly irked man next to me later (had to keep climbing over him in the plane to get to the toilet) I was home. Twenty-three degrees and I haven't worn socks since. My plan to get off the plane and spend the afternoon napping was dashed by Brandon deciding that there was no time like the present to re-blonde me and I spent the afternoon sitting in his salon catching up on the gossip and complaining about all the couples.

Made some cookies, hung with Ruthie, saw all the lads, and now I'm in welly, crashing at H's. Jess'n'me watched some Real Hot Bitches do their thing last night and now I have to start purchasing some day-glo lycra so we can join in the new year. Probably drank too much bourbon last night as well, but at 6.30am, I'm feeling pretty good. Right. Who wants to give me a job? And some new jeans? I darned mine, but I didn't do so well because the next time I put them on and bent over, well, there was more air on my nether regions than I prefer.

You really can't beat Wellington on a good day.

Almost away laughing

2008-11-14T01:39:00.000-08:00

Day three of unemployment. It's starting to take its toll. I am bored. I also have far too much to do and I am ignoring it in favour of watching stuff. I started packing and I have nice pile of shoes in my 'probably shouldn't take home but am all in favour of doing so' pile.

Since it's been a couple of weeks since I last attempted to update my reading audience of six, here is a brief description of my life in November:

Roast with Kruse, Gen and Justin where we get to the bottom of Gen's fisting abilities. Oh the hilarity where words have several meanings.
Em turns 31. Drinks. Get harrassed by locals on the way home from said 31st. Yes, my legs are indeed a stairway to heaven.
Conrad gets a girlfriend! Conrad is smug. Resolve to deflate Conrad.
Quiet drinks with Dan and Nic turn into five bottles. Label for one says it is soft and approachable. Do not feel this way the next day. Must not do again on a school night.
My leaving work drinks, which I didn't want to organise so I gatecrash Mike's, from Sales and Marketing, instead. This goes very well and I end up having conversation with a young whipper snapper, who cannot hold his booze so well, about the supportiveness of different men's underpants. Am told by several workmates they regret not getting to know me better now that they know I am the sort of woman who drinks too much tequila occasionally and gets mistaken for a heroin addict.
The election turns me to the bloody marys (red and green) but to no avail. Instead am cheered by Kruse, Caro, Katie, Gen and Dom and roast lunch and rugby. And then we girly up for a cocktail party at the Skanky Palace (aka Chook and Laura's house). Stop off for a quick pint at Kruse's local. Locals are confused by Kruse's red suit and his bevy of beauties. Gen dances with local eldery crack dealer. She looks stunning (in my dress that we have had to wrap around her about seven times she is that much smaller than me, damn her), the crack dealer less so.
Finally get to the party and fail to recognise Simon, who has had his hair done by Laura and now resembles a member of some Emo band. We talk, we gossip, tell lies and make beer blue. Then Gen and I run away so we can make the last tube - we both have busy Sundays planned. Nerds.
I work on a Sunday.
Last day at work - 50 workmates surround my desk, apparently because I am so popular but we all know they are really just there for the cake. I get nice presents and feel sad so eat more cake than should. Then work till 8 and have satisfaction of finally being the last person to leave the office.
Day one of unemployment - wake up at 6am. Emails from workmate who took over my books start at 8.30am. He will never be as good as me. Spend day in pjs watching Anne of Green Gables and swooning over Gilbert.
Drinks with Em, Conrad and Dan so can say goodbye. Nathan turns up - it's been eight years and he seems to have gained a wife and almost a child. I have not. Conrad still smug about girlfriend.
Day two of unemployment. Em and I go to the British Museum and nerd it up. See favourite vase with Achilles and Penthesileia. We spend 90 minutes admiring stuff and then two hours drinking tea and eating cake gossiping. Much like being back in the university halls.
Day three - am absolutely determined to get up and post some stuff home. Right after trawling in the internet in seach of nothing in particular.

France on Monday. Will attempt to eat own body weight in cheese.

Sometimes these things just happen

2008-10-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

Caught up in the excitement of a Saturday night at home, Skye, Mike and I get far too excited about watching Annie Hall and decide that what we really want to do is pretend to be chickens.

In other news, my German workmate offered to marry me so I could stay, which was very kind, if not terribly sincere. His reasoning was that as his country has bombed the bollocks out of Britain and he's allowed to be here, it seems very unfair that I, loyal subject of Liz, should be forced to leave. He is a nice man and together we have completely destroyed an author, which has given us no end of delight - I like to think that he will always remember me as the editor who had the guts to purposely forget a foreword, thus bringing a teetering author to the brink of insanity, which led to nasty letters allowing us to break a contract. Unfortunately, I shall remember it as my biggest boo boo to date. But with such a satisfactory outcome.

With only three weeks of work left it is with a great deal of delight that I have started agreeing to some outlandish requests from commissioning editors and authors, safe in the knowledge that I will not have to see them through to fruition. But I shall miss the gang - we've become so close the last few months as we've given each other the flu, in a continuing vicious cycle where one of us gets better only to catch it again from someone in design a month or so later. We compare symptoms with gusto, warning the American that his turn is next. He laughs in the manner of someone who does not yet believe. His time will come.

Socially, there have been drinks, some cocktails, some thefting of condiments that I had nothing to do with, unless you count the fact that the getaway vehicle used to transport the goods was my handbag, some watching of reality tv, which has just led me to hate everyone on the telly, and quite a lot of eating stuff. It's autumn: time to eat and get the all-important layer of plumpness needed to protect one from the chill of London. Which I shall then magically shed when I get home. I just need to lay a trap for the pixies in the backyard so as to get my hands on some fairy dust, which, when applied correctly, works in a similar manner to a gym workout. But way faster. Like overnight. I know it's true, I read it in Cosmo.