Things I Know about Football

I’m married to a sport fanatic. He doesn’t play, just watches. But he watches everything. When you follow all football codes as well as tennis, cricket, golf, tenpin bowling, basketball and the national spelling bee championships - there is always sport to watch, every day. He’s very committed.

So in order to have happy, lovely, couple time, I occasionally have to watch the sport and recently we’ve started a habit of going to our local WAFL games on Saturdays.

Now I know nothing about sport, I don’t understand what they are doing or why. I have no idea what the correct protocol is when someone kicks the ball out of the big white circle. I have no idea what a ruckman is or how they can possibly end up jumping on each other’s shoulders like that. I have in the past tried to watch a game but I always get lost at the bit when they stop playing and swap sides, I lose my team, I have no idea what is happening and what direction the ball should be going in and it all just gets too hard. I like to think im at least moderately intelligent, but football is something I just don’t understand.

I have been picking up some things from our trips to the football though, here’s what I’ve learnt.


Things I know about Football

It’s perfectly acceptable for several players to jump on top of the player who has the ball and hold him down so he can’t get rid of the ball. In these situations everyone in the crowd then has to yell “BALL” as loudly as possible and abuse the umpire.

The more team paraphernalia you are wearing, the louder you are allowed to yell.

Thongs and shorts are perfectly acceptable winter wear as long as you are also wearing a beanie.

It is best to bring your own stubby holder to the game.

If you do bring your own stubby holder, be sure to write your name on it in big black marker. This will stop someone taking your drink by accident. Unless, of course your name is Keith.

Dad’s who bring their kids to the football don’t have to follow any of Mum’s normal rules.

Children over the age of five can be left by themselves when you hang out in the bar, as long as they stay near the fence where you can see them and only talk to strangers supporting the correct team.

If your team is winning, you must make friends with everyone around you.

If your team is losing, you don’t have time to make friends, you should be busy abusing the umpires. Spearmint Cowboys.

You must walk on to the oval at half time. If you have children you must kick a football with them on the oval at half time.

The bar sells wine – this is a trick, if you order wine you will immediately be branded a pussy and be escorted from the grounds, you must only drink beer or spirits. This counts for the womenfolk also.

You cannot swap sides during a football game, even if the side you picked is losing by billions of points. If you support the same team for more than one game you must support the same team for your entire life. Even if you move states, even if the coach and all the players die in a tragic accident and the team is a completely new one. Even if you suffer amnesia and forget which team you support and who you are and what side of the bed you sleep on. You still can not swap teams. Ever. I now support the Perth demons, even though they are crap.

I might buy a hat. Carn the D's!

Scoot Somewhere far

I used to say, I love planning things I’ll never do, and then doing them. This is one of those plans and one of those things.

So I’ve decided that I want to scoot somewhere far, and then scoot back home. The plan at the moment is to scoot first to Wave Rock, then from Hyden to Norseman, on to Eucla, across the border and across the Nullarbor to Ceduna. After eating many many Oysters in Ceduna i'll travel north through Coober Pedy, up to Uluru and then back along the Great Central Road and the Outback Way through Leonora and Leinster, across to Mt Magnet and then down through lots of places I’ve never heard of back to Perth.

Obviously I need to do a lot more research, some of the roads I’ve chosen may not be suitable for a scooter, I’ll need to be careful about distance between petrol stations also with my tiny little tank. I’ll also need permits and things to go through some areas.

Food, Water, Shelter, Fuel.

So I’ll have a little tent and a big warm sleeping bag, and I wont think about snakes ever. No snakes in the outback. None at all. I’ll camp most of the time and occasionally treat myself to a hotel room.

I’ll have to carry a lot of water and at this stage have no idea what I will eat. I’ll have to carry a spare jerry can for fuel, and spark plugs and a little took kit for fixing things on the bike. I’ll have to get someone to show me how to fix things. I’ll have to get an extra comfy special seat for the bike.

So I’m thinking of taking 3-4 weeks for this little trip. Doing a lot of planning beforehand but having the freedom and enough time to change my mind whenever I want and stay an extra night or go on a detour for a couple of days. This will be a solo trip. Just for me. I’ll have to document it somehow, maybe get myself a good camera.

So this trip is now officially on my list of things I definitely absolutely must do some day. The deadline for this one will be 4 years.

I must scoot somewhere far across a desert or two and back before the end of 2014.
Done.

List Revisted - The Action Plan

As is the usual Jess style I have just accompanied my new job and new career plan with a new haircut.

So I thought with all this positivity and planning and change in the air I would review my "Things I want to do someday" list and put in some deadlines. Progress has been made. YAY.

Here it is, things that Ive done, things that I'll do soon and then the rest.

Be a non-blonde again - done!
Me < 60kg - done!
Write poetry as an adult - done!
Learn to spend a whole night in heels (and remain vertical)- Done!
Get rid of the green tinge from my hair - done!
Put plants in the back garden - next weekend definitely.
Be able to run 10km - must happen in the next 4 weeks (crappo)
Make a soufflé (a good one)- before Christmas
Go skydiving - This is now on the list to be done in the next 13 months - perhaps as my birthday present next year.
Compete in a triathlon - in the next year, perhaps next years pink triathlon.
Have a job title I’m proud of - if all goes to plan in six months I will be training and 28 weeks after that - Bingo!

These will come later...
Write an erotic novel.
Go paragliding
Have something published
Have a nude photo shoot
Spend a day at a nudey beach - completely
Learn to dive
Swim with whale sharks
Go to Bhutan and see the effects of ‘gross national happiness’
Snorkel/dive Ningaloo reef
Go ‘proper’ camping
Give birth
Levitate
Live in France – if only for a few months
Become fluent in French
Be pikies and drive around Aus in a campervan
Go hiking
See snow – not the crap stuff on the ground but see it actually fall from the sky
Somehow get backstage at a concert (may already be too old/married for this one)
Learn to surf
Learn to snowboard
Learn to salsa
Invent something
Be an extra on TV or in a movie
Be in another play
Get a tattoo
Cross an international land border
Learn to sail
Be asked to present a speech for something

I Want to be Tall and Important Man. With a Gun.

So I did it. Yesterday I took up the challenge. I Stepped Forward©

As I walked towards the complex I was amazed at how clean and manicured everything was, how modern, how.... uniform.

I walked past a statue of a very tall man looking important, walked past two very tall important men who starred inquisitively at me and then wandered on past a quadrangle that held a group of about 15 Very tall and imposing men in bullet proof vests, all standing in a circle feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind their backs, pecks bulging.

I saw two girls, they were sporty. They were the only people I saw that didn't have uniforms on. I wish they had so then I could see what they look like. No pleats please. That would almost be a deal breaker.

I saw in front of me a map of the academy with a large sign informing visitors that they must report to academy management and receieve a visitor's pass immediately before entering any building or looking at anything or they will be shot by massive men with massive guns.

I followed the maps directions past many tall modern, navy blue buildings and past many tall, young navy blue men until I found the recruitment centre.

They smiled, I smiled, they asked why I was there - I said to hand these in - they said, well sit down then. I smiled. I sat. They smiled. They checked, they smiled, they said 2- 4 weeks then another few weeks but 6 months at least.

I said ok, I smiled, they smiled. The ball is in motion.

The man said six months, my problem is - what now? Im currently being paid peanuts to be bored out of my brain, peanuts can't pay the mortgage. Although, I could use said peanuts to feed a pet elephant, and I could teach the Elephant tricks - like playing soccer or painting and then I would make people pay to watch the Elephant play soccer and they would spend massive amounts of money on the elephant's paintings.

But I dont think Gus would get a long well with the elephant, and we couldnt fit Gus and us and an elephant into the bed on Sunday mornings. And elephants have huge poop. And it's probably illegal to keep an elephant in a suburban backyard - and I've stopped doing things that are illegal.

So what now? I cant go back, I can not go back I can not go back I can not go back I will not go back!!!

Seek it is.

Two Jumpers Helps.

The two coldest roads I know of in perth are thomas street heading towards UWA and mounts bay road – either direction. I think it’s kings park that makes thomas street so cold, the dark, the green, the trees. Mounts bay road for the same reason, the dark, the green, the trees and the river. I always feel just a touch warmer when I reach the city. I have to take one of these road to get home from work. I hate them. Riverside drive should be equally as cold, but im just that little bit closer to home so I don’t feel it as much.

I feel the cold, really feel it. This is the time of the year that I usually spend snuggled up somewhere with a million layers of clothing, a blanket, a hot water bottle and a book. Still shivering from the cold.
I would prefer to lock myself away until late September, appearing only on those freakishly lovely winter days we sometimes have, but not unless it hits 27 degrees.

I’ve been riding the scooter sor far this winter (its only just July and it feels like ive been cold for months) riding the scooter to and from work – a thirty minute ride these days and have been experimenting with different methods of staying unfrozen.

I wear thick tights under my pants, I wear jeans to work whenever possible. On my top half I wear a singlet, a t-shirt, a jumper, a big f-off warm as I can find jacket and a scarf. I wear thickest gloves I could find, I wear knee high boots with my tights under my pants, I wrap my scarf a liitle bit muslim so it covers my ears and my chin and I wear a beanie under my helmet.

I don’t care what I look like. I don’t need to be cool. I just need to not freeze.

I also distract myself from the cold by keeping myself entertained. I probably should concentrate on the road but then I would freeze. I entertain myself by counting things, street poles, other cars, trees that are taller than buildings. I like counting and timing, see how fast the poles whizz past me, see how many cars pass me before we get to the next traffic light and how many of them I then pass through at the lights. I like to race cars, find one and race it to the spot where we go our separate ways, and then I find another to race to the next intersection.

I wore 2 jumpers last night under my jacket, and I tucked my jacket sleeves into my gloves, it was almost warm.

It’s my birthday in one week. I will be older.

mad hushed skirl

Woooooooo-
hoooooooo what a fall what a soar what a plummet what a dash into dark into light what a plunge what a glide thud crash what a drop what a rush what a swoop what a fright what a mad hushed skirl what a smash mush mash-up broke and gashed what a heart in my mouth what an end. - Hotel World, Ali Smith.

Those are not my words, I just liked them. I read them and I thought, what a lovely way to go. I like the way they feel in my mouth, I like the way I feel when I think them. They feel like they match the part of me that is 'most Jess.' The 'I am' part. I am, not I think or I should or I know or I can't but I am.

I am a tree climber, a fence jumper, a book reader, a tripping overer. I am talking too loud on the bus, I am the foot in my mouth, the one glass too many. I am putting your arms out and spinning around really quick just to pass the time, I am opening your mouth to the sky to let the rain fall in. I am always cold in the winter, I am a list writer, a talk to myself in the toilet. I am tap water and banging pots and pans with spoons. I am lying on the floor listening to music in the dark. I am a chaos creater, a messer upperer, a mad hushed skirl.

It's a hard life, but We've worked out how to get by

Have develloped a nice little holiday routine. Each morning I wake up and open the bedroom doors to let the world in then lie in bed a little longer staring out at our pool and beautiful garden. Then it's time for a swim, bathers optional before the tinkle of the bell on the villa gate signals the arrival of breakfast. Our waiter then sets up the dining table while our chef cooks the breakfast in our kitchen. After breakfast is more swimming and tanning before we venture out into the world for shopping or tanning or just meandering around Sanur. Lunchtime comes and we eat again then it's bintang time, either in the pool in our villa or at the bar across the road. Afternoon is swimming and nap time and enjoying the rain if it comes until the baygon man comes at 5pm. He sprays the room for Mosquitos, turns the lights on, turns the water feature off in the pool and turns down the bed putting chocolates and flowers on the pillow. Then it's bintang time again and off to find some dinner. After dinner it's back to the bar meet new friends get a bit loud. On our way back to the hotel we pop in at reception to tell them what time we would like the breakfast show to start the next day. Then we chill and watch the bats playing in the trees before we sleep and start again.

Are we there yet?

So, guess what! It's very nearly honeymoon time. So close I can almost.......

There are only three sleeps till holiday, two if we are being realistic. I highly doubt I'm going to get much sleep on Saturday night considering we fly out at 4.50am and I am one of those excitable jumpy annoying wonderful people who get overly enthused and start compiling lists of lists of things that I've written and making sure that all lists have been checked and double checked, and then writing lists of things that I've definitely checked off lists.

Three sleeps! (well two)
This means in only 78 hours I will be on the plane, 78 hours!!!!
Thats only 4729 minutes! - ok minutes make it sound long :(

but after those 4729 minutes are over I only have 3 hours and 40 minutes on the plane and then I will be in Bali again!! Almost exactly a year since we last were there - wayyyyy too long. Way too long!

It's only 4727 minutes now!!

And to those interested parties - come on don't lie, I know you are very interested, that means I officially only have 104 fifteen minuteses of work time left. Excluding lunch breaks. And I plan to actually work less than 90 of them:)

Part of our honeymoon is going to be spent in Bangkok - we had planned this section of the trip to be the exciting bit but watching the news lately I think it may be more exciting than we first anticipated. At this stage I'm not too worried - a little bit of civil unrest never hurst anyone........ right? And I'm invincible girl, nothing bad happens to me, I'm not even a skin cancer kind of person.

Perhaps it isn't even that bad - the media does always exaggerate things a little, I'm going to reassure myself by posting the most extreme media accounts of this little political thingo.

"A crowd of some 15,000 sprawls out around the Rachaprasong intersection, many dozing under canopies, sharpened bamboo sticks beside them in case things turned ugly again......

Red shirts atop the barricade hurl abuse and set off firecrackers to unnerve soldiers, many armed with loaded M-16 assault rifles and shotguns, just a stone's throw away."

Also just realised that the enemies of the red shirts wear yellow, shit - I look really good in yellow. Guess thats another colour I will have to avoid in Thailand. Bugger.

Perhaps the red shirts will be victorious, the government will step aside peacefully and by the time we get there (almost two weeks) it will be a fresh new country and we will get to see the wonders of the celebration of people power?

Nah guess not.

btw - 4713 minutes!!! woop woop

My Life Began in a Toilet

Firstly - this is fiction, clearly, and it is YOUR responsibilty to make sure I finish it one day.
Yes, I mean you.

My life began in a toilet. And it seems like this event set the tone for the rest of my life, but more about that later.

A toilet of a 24 hour MacDonalds Restaurant at 3.46am. Now I don’t remember this day. I’ve tried my hardest but can’t seem to get anything before the age of two, and even then it’s just vague memories of thoughts and colours, not actual events. Like I remember thinking my brother was so old because he was seven, and I remember one summer when it felt like we went for a picnic every single day and I remember the day we threw out my cot and got me a big bed. Sad but proud, that’s how I felt.

You know how they say if walls could talk? Well that’s what this story is. This story is as if walls could talk, and they did, and they told me everything, from the most insignificant little detail to the climax of the event, the screams, the blood, the gasps. And now I’m telling you.

So it was 2001. January 26th 2001. Of course I was officially born on January 27th, but walls don’t know much about calendars and clocks, unless they have one hanging on them – which this one didn’t – So when I said, “tell me about that day” January 26th 2001 was the day they told me about.

Apparently it was hot, as it usually is that time of year. The breakfast crowd was a little slow being a public holiday and all. Usually from about 4.30am the drive through is buzzing with a steady flow of early morning tradesman wanting their breakfast value meals with a large flat white, extra bacon and an extra hash brown thanks love. But there weren’t many today. The soft serve machine was broken too, but that wouldn’t be a problem until later.

Now there are four walls in a toilet, at least, with a few little dividing cubicle walls and that extra cut out bit near the door where the hand dryer is. I only spoke with a couple of these walls. One wall, the back wall of the toilet, started in my ladies loo at the far end of the building, carried on through the bloke’s toilet and then through the disabled toilet, through the kitchens, finishing at the drive-through booth where fat Suzie had the morning shift. The other wall went down the edge of the building, starting in my toilets carrying on through the main restaurant booth area to the front of the shop. The outside of the wall was the ass end of the building where staff would sit on upturned milk crates and smoke cigarettes and pot and listen to punk music loudly. So these two walls, when they told me this story, had a pretty broad view of what happened in this particular 24 hour MacDonald’s restaurant that day. The day that turned into night, that turned in to the early hours of the morning when I was born in a MacDonalds toilet.

So as I already mentioned it was a public holiday, Australia day. The day all Aussies wear green and gold or Australian flag t-shirts and play cricket and watch cricket and watch tennis and drink beer outside and swim at the beach and watch fireworks and have coat of arms BBQ (Roo and Emu – delish!) and do all sorts of other Australian things like whinge about stuff and listen to the triple J hottest 100 and argue about silly things with family members. Like Bob Hawke’s white Australia jacket and whether Bert Newton should give up the carpet.

So it was a quiet morning as I said, fat Suzie manned the drive through and counter because it was so quiet, Mohammad was cooking out the back and Tracey the assistant manager was in the office on the phone to her boyfriend whining about having to work and telling him how much she couldn’t wait to see him later, giggle “George! No, I’m at work, ok, the pink ones, with the lace panels, yep – giggle”. Nothing much happened. Fat Suzie ate some chips, picked a zit and read most of the latest version of Dolly magazine. She loved the dolly doctor section because the girls that wrote in to that were clearly way more dumb and troubled than she was. Made her feel good. Mohammad didn’t talk much, he kept to himself, worked hard, secretly hated fat Suzie because she was fat and she smelled bad and her nail polish was too bright and ugly, but he never let her know.

Someone drove through and ordered 10 bacon and egg McMuffin meals at 09.47am and fat Suzie almost told them where to go – but she sullenly directed them to the waiting bay and they waited and waited and eventually Tracey noticed there was some sort of commotion, put her shoes back on, did up her pants, stumbled out of the office and yelled at Suzie and Mohammed for not letting her know they needed help.

Fred – the customer with the 10 meals - was actually the new guy at the local fire station and was looking forward to yet another stressful day of drunken fools and hot weather and fire and had been sent down to get the morning crew breakfast.

By the time Fred got his meals the radio was already playing Chemical Brothers – It Began in Afrika and Tracey and Suzie – who were to finish very soon and start their A-Day debauchery flew along with the beat of the song – drank up that party vibe and started to boogy. Mohammad wasn’t really into this kind of music, he also had volunteered to work the double shift, he had two young kids and a wife to support and needed to get out of this fast food hell hole as soon as possible so he often worked double shifts – especially on public holidays so he could go to night school and improve his English so that he could use his law degree here in Australia.

Nobody bothered to check the toilets before they left, or at any point during their shift – even though Tracey had clearly written on the log book – 5am – toilet check all ok, 6am – toilet check, replace one roll all ok, 7am – all ok – 8am all ok – 9am – all ok ( in a different pen) 10am – hand towels refilled – all ok. Of course, the traffic had been very slow that morning, the toilets were all ok, there was no need to fill or replace anything but Tracey was a diligent assistant manager, she went to great lengths to make it look like she was doing her job.

The New Bit

Lunch shift Start 10.30am

Mia didn’t want to work today. She DIDN’T. WANT. TO WORK. TODAY! Unfortunately she’d been seen out at the Cott Sunday Session by Tracey the week before when she had called in *sick* and therefore got stuck with the crap shift this week. Tracey also threatened to tell the bouncers that Mia was only 16 if she ever saw her there again. Cow! Her friends were having a BBQ with a keg and a paddling pool today and she was not happy to be missing it. At least she would be finished by 6pm and still get to see the Australia Day fireworks. She had a bottle of raspberry flavoured vodka in her bag too and was planning to start getting smashed at about 4.30pm so she wasn’t too far behind her mates.

Mia took control of the drive through and wallowed in her own self pity. She had purchased the cutest little white dress to wear today that had the Australian flag across the front of it that showed off not only the amazing tan she had spent the summer cultivating but also her pert little boobs that she was very proud of. By the time she got to the party it would nearly be dark, the dress wouldn’t pack it’s full punch with out all the sunshine. The radio in the kitchen had just started playing George – Run and it suited her mood perfectly. She didn’t know what the song was about but it still struck a chord with her current predicament. Life was so unfair.


And that was George, the band of brother and sister duo Katie and Ty Noonan as we all know with Run. They actually got their love of music from their mother who is a successful opera singer – I believe Katie is looking at starting a duet album with her mother next year – watch that space! Next up at number 91 with have a track form relative newcomers, Canadian rockers – Sum 41. The title track from their first full length album – here it is number 91 – Sum 41 and Fat Lip!

Mia sang along with the chorus, kicked her melancholy into the grease traps and swore that she was never gonna let society control her and as soon as she had enough money to but a car, a cute car that had air-con, she would quit this stupid job and go live her life, follow her dreams, who gives a shit about anyone. Yeah.

Paper Smiles

I always love the scenes in movies that are set at train stations. Like those old wartime movies where the boys are hurrahed off at the train station and then welcomed back at the same station, changed and broken. Or movies that play on the routine of train stations, the way you may see the same people at the same time every single day for years and years and never know anything about them. I like the way train stations look, the orderly chaotic flow of people, the constant hustle and bustle, the different platforms the crowd of faces periodically separated by whooshing trains. The architecture of big train stations is always quite pleasing too.

So I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about a story. The story is about a man who spends his days watching people at a train station, he sits there all day drawing the people and making them smile in his pictures. I imagine he picks a character and draws them as they are, usually blank faced and rushed and then thinks about what could make that person happy, then makes them happy by drawing the same character but with a smile.

I’m thinking a few of those surreal European arthouse style moments where a blank faced business man suddenly makes eye contact with the crazy old picture man, tips his hat, clicks his heels and grins like the Cheshire cat, the action purely a figment of the old man’s imagination. But more than often the smiles are real smiles that have nothing to do with the man but he feels like he created them.

The artist would be an older man, in his sixties, I would probably call him Felix, or Oscar, dressed in clean but ill fitting clothes and with a bit of a homeless look about him, a bit crazy eyed. Think scruffy Geoffrey rush in op shop clothes. He’s been sitting in this one spot for years drawing the faces of the commuters and trying to work out what would make them smile.

The shy young girl who keeps checking herself in the mirror and making sure she looks ok would smile when she realised the boy she is waiting for is just as nervous as she is. The businessman with his briefcase in one hand and newspaper under his arm just getting off the train would smile when the nine letter word he had spent trying to work out the whole train ride just pops into his head when he gets on the escalator. There would be all kinds of smiles, shy smiles, sheepish smiles, guilty grins, naughty smiles, contented eyes only smile, the man doesn’t care what kind of smile he gets from them he just needs to make them smile.

At first it all seems quite lovely, this crazy old man trying to make the world happy by imagining he is making them smile with his thoughts and his pencil. Then as we get into the character of the man more, realised exactly how obsessed with this he is, that he is there every day, that his little unit is covered with these pictures, that occasionally he can’t make someone smile and he gets obsessed with them, trying to work out what would make them happy, the inability to draw them smiling makes him depressed and delusional.

Perhaps at some point he meets a young art student or film student or journalist who wants to know more about his story, maybe have an exhibition of his pictures. Through this second character we learn the old man’s story, that he has been drawing smiles since he was in his twenties, when his life fell apart. Something horribly tragic happened and he believed it was his fault because he couldn’t make someone happy. Perhaps post natal depression causes his wife to lose the plot and drowns herself and their young baby, Felix (the old man) then becomes obsessed with working out what makes people happy and starts drawing them, feeling he must make a difference to make up for his perceived horrible failings in the past.

ps. The current background to my blog title is a glimpse of the roof of the Musee D'Orsay, my favourite experience of Paris. The building was once a train station and is absolutely beautiful, the full photo can be viewed here, from where I stole it.

Dreams About Hair. She Does.

So I’ve had the strangest desire these past few days to want to wear my hair in two braids. Not plaits but tight severe braids, the kind that at first pull your face so tight there is a visible difference in your features, two braids with a middle part starting at the very top of my head and heading down to become neat little plaits hanging down my back. The kind of braids that you can sleep in for two nights in a row and on the third day they just look a little looser and give less of a facelift but definitely don’t look slept in.

Back in primary school, every time we did some sort of play or dance number we always had to braid our hair. My sister usually did mine because to this day I still can not braid. I was always so proud of the braid she did, she was brutal, pulled so tight I had to wince and try my hardest not to make a noise. I used to get to school on dress rehearsal and performance day and look around and see all those other girls, most with substandard braids and be so happy with my tight, fierce braid working it’s way perfectly from the top of my head and carrying on down my back. I always had a really good braid. Mum sometimes did it, her braid was never as tight, but it was ok, my sister’s braids were the best.

I’m not sure why I’ve been craving this dual braid business. One could probably analyse it and come to the conclusion that I’m trying my hardest to hold on to my youth and fight this adultness that seems to be inevitable. But one can also reasonably assume that sentences that begin with one as a pronoun are usually filled with utter wank.

I’ve also been having dreams lately about my hair. When I dream I either don’t remember any of it and just have a vague feeling that I dreamt something or I dream really vividly and remember every detail of the strange acid trip that was my night journeys. The ones I remember always jump quickly from realistic to completely surreal - that’s the nature of dreams I guess.

The thing that stands out about my dreams though, whether I remember the details or not is that they are always so emotionally charged, most of it seemingly unwarranted. I sometimes wake myself up hysterically crying over something that in normal life would evoke nothing more than a shrug or a passing thought. Or I’ll wake up in such a foul mood that it sticks with me the whole day, affecting not only myself but the people who have to interact with me.

One of the dreams I will never forget was when I was five, I had the shingles and according to the parentals was really quite sick. I remember this dream so clearly because it - strangely - is one of the scariest dreams I have ever had. The dream in it’s whole was quite surreal, I’m in a race against the road runner (yes that one ‘beep beep’) it’s not an organised race but some sort of race to get something, the terrain we are racing across is an orange circle, with the second half of the circle a darker orange. I’m going as fast as I can and I know I have to get to the other end of the circle before the road runner. As I cross the mid point and the colour changes to a darker orange I feel this intense sense of urgency, like if I don’t get there before the road runner something horrible will happen. It was as if the outcome of this race across the orange circle would affect the rest of my waking life, like if I didn’t beat that road runner I might even die. I didn’t beat the road runner. I was woken up before we got to the end, I wasn’t winning. This was definitely one of those waking up crying hysterically dreams

I do have happy dreams, dreams that result in absolute feelings of bliss, dreams where you wake up choking because you started giggling in your sleep and spend the next half an hour half choking half giggling at the hilarity of something I don’t remember. Other dreams too, you know the ones, the really good ones

Wow. Tangent.

So I dreamt about my hair. It’s not like my obsession with my hair is particularly shallow, it’s just always been a very quick way to suddenly tweak my identity slightly but significantly enough that those feelings of staleness and boredom can be quelled. Another way of avoiding the point I guess. I’m pretty sure I would have beaten that roadrunner.

Anyone know how to do a good, tight braid?

Tramp Stamp

I should probably never get a tattoo. I'm just not one of those decisive, gutsy people who have convictions and are willing to wear them on their full sleeve. I'm fairly flakey actually, I like stuff, and then I don't like stuff and some stuff I don't even know what I think about. But I enjoy daydreaming and I enjoy stories. And if I were to write a story about the kind of me that would get a tattoo it would be a tattoo that represented something important to me, but not too cheesy or kitsch, something that would always remain relevant. At one stage when I was younger I wanted the 'ohm swastiastu' symbol, but I'm nowhere near that hippy anymore and I don't really believe that god is going to be with you - no matter what language we are saying it in, what god we are talking about or how pretty the symbol is.

Then I thought about getting a tattoo that represented Bali and all the great times and memories I associate with there, but frangipanis are so cliche. I briefly contemplated a gecko on my shoulder (I got a crap looking henna one when I was 18) but I really hate reptiles and would feel like a bit of a tool. "Nice tat! Are you into lizards or something?" and I would have to say "nah - hate them, just thought I would look cool"

So I have been thinking for a while that I would like something fairly patriotic, I love Australia, particularly Western Australia so have contemplated some kind of beach scene, perhaps the view of Leighton Beach from Stirling Highway? Somehow sneak in the dingo flour mill? The same view I drove past everyday on my way home to my parents place that means so much to be. But I realised as much as I still love that view - its something from the past, not something that is always going to be relevant.

So this week I have decided exactly what art I would get if I was ever going to get something, of course I reserve the right to change this final decision at any time in the future.

I want to get a panoramic image of Kings Park and the Perth City skyline on my lower back. There is a spot on the Kwinana Freeway - just after the South Perth exit - I think - where you can see Kings Park really clearly, the treetop walk, the war memorial - all the bits, then as you pan right it dips down to the freeway and the Perth City skyline is on the other side. So imagine this image stretched across my lower back, with the dip in the middle the centre of my back. I've tried to find a photo on the net of the exact view I'm talking about but can only find night images. Mine would be on a bright sunny day, perhaps with a fluffy cloud or two, the image soft, almost like a watercolour but still showing enough detail to be instantly recognisable.

I like this particular image for many reasons, I love my city, I think it's beautiful and spend quite a bit of time down on the south perth foreshore walking around the river and never get tired of how freaking beautiful it all is. I like it because I would be able to point things out - the 33rd floor of St Martins tower with the revelving restaurant I used to work in, the convention centre where I worked when it first opened, the belltower (hah!), the spot in kings park where Jacobs Ladder is, the many wonderful family picnics had in Kings Park and the many days wandering around the streets of the city after school or on my way to and from uni.

I also like the idea that the tattoo wouldnt necessarily have to stay the same, as the city develloped and grew, so could mine - I would look forward to going back one day and having the swan island added in or the cable car from Barrack street to Kings Park. I would enjoy the visual difference in the age of the ink and the age of parts of my city. My City.

That is all.

Smokes and mirrors

*DISCLAIMER* What is to follow is utter wank. It's not written for you, or even for me really. It's just there. Your opinion on the following is not requested. If you choose to continue reading I would actually rather you didn't make me aware of that choice.




I ran before I walked and still will laugh before I cry
Built myself up in the image I saw in other peoples eyes.

Getting old on the outside feeling young as ever,
Climbing trees and hide and seek – aren’t grown up things to do
Red wine and cigarettes, flat shoes for long nights out
Watch the sun rise talking all this shit through

Still chasing the dream and trying to live the life
Sometimes the picket fence gets in the way
I wanna grow up but wanna stay in the game
Can’t I have my cake and eat it too

Try to see yourself without the mirrors
But keep getting caught in others eyes
Trying to work out how it fits together
Puzzle pieces tacked in place with lies

Getting old on the outside feeling young as ever,
Climbing trees and hide and seek – aren’t grown up things to do
Red wine and cigarettes, flat shoes for long nights out
Watch the sun rise with a friend who loves you

You put yourself out on the table
Sort through what is them and what is you
Trying to work out how it fits together
It’s not a very easy thing to do

I want to paint a picture of the girl
A photograph of who and how and why
Compare the dream to the reality
And see which bits I want to modify


tick!

Hello World It's me, Jess

it's been a long time hey? How've you been? i've been great:)

I've almost got my head around this 2010 thing. The first few weeks I wrote 2009 without even thinking, then I went through an adjustment period where I got the ten bit but kept writing 16/1/010. Yesterday at work though, for the first time I wrote 23/1/10 - with no stumbling or having to think too hard. Quite proud of myself!


So I broke my new year’s resolution the other day. Climbing my back fence late on Saturday night to see what was on the other side I slipped and got myself a nice little gash in the side of my ankle. Didn't get stitches - probably should have - and have been dealing with manky swollen ankle for the last few days. Swelling's gone now, went for a run this morning - back in the game!

I've also been working on my 'things I will do one day' list - as in actually crossing things off not adding to it (which is my usual style)

Here's the items I have been working on - (yes I know it's the easy ones!)

Me < 60kg - WOOP WOOP!! I do seem to be stuck at 59kg though, might have to drink less:)
Be a non-blonde again - complete! My hair is officially dark intense red and it looks freakin hot
Get rid of the green tinge from my hair - green completely gone:)
Write an erotic novel - I started this, sort of.


I've almost finished booking my belated honeymoon - can't wait. Need holiday. NEED HOLIDAY. The weather the last few days has made me ache for Bali a little bit too, that suffocating humidity and hot rain just rubs me up in all the right ways:) I love the smell of summer rain and the way that sort of humidity intensifies everything makes the air feel heavy, like you can touch it. I've had so many great memories in Bali over the years, they all always come rushing back in that drive from the airport on the first day I arrive. The taxi is always freezing cold and I open the windows and let the smells and sounds of Bali in. The humid smell, the clove cigarettes the floral frangipani's and incense from the millions of offerings, that sweet smell of hot fruit a little bit past it's best and that undercurrent of shit that is so uniquely Bali and is always there but somehow isn't too offensive.

I love the noises as well, the cars beeping, the pounding reggae mixed with red hot chilli peppers, jack johnson and a constant thread of faint traditional gamelan in the background - klongklongklong ka klong klong klong. Plait your hair? Manicurrre? beautiful girl! You come look my shop?

One of my first memories of Bali was arriving late at night on my first trip with the parents and my brother and sister. That night was a bit freaky, the hotel grounds were dark and the pool looked a bit scary because you couldn't see how deep it was. I was eight years old and my first impressions were not so great - the shit smell seemed a little bit more offensive that first trip and shortly after being put to bed I discovered rat poop and a snake skin in my fold out bed, and I really really hate snakes. The holiday did improve though:) I remember loving the food and the heat, I got very sunburnt and got my hair plaited and at night we'd go out for dinner and running through the wet grass out the front of the hotel I could feet tiny frogs squishing between my toes:) I remember dancing with my Dad at the Bali rock cafe late at night on the open air dance floor while it pissed down with rain and no one cared.

many many Bali trips have passed between now and then. I've had Bali as a troublesome 15yo hanging out with my sister for the first time as adults, I turned 18 on my first ever sans parentals Bali trip with two of my girls. We booked our flights and the first few nights accommodation and after that we just winged it. We woke up when we woke up and spent days lolling and lazing around with a little bit of shopping and a few temples thrown in for good measure. We ate when we were hungry - sometimes second lunch just had to be had, we had massages and went partying to the wee hours of the morning, we had afternoon nanna naps and had no plans and no schedule and it didn't bother us that we didn't know where we were sleeping the next night. We were young and free and empowered and it was our holiday and our world and all goodness.

I've also done trips with just my Mum, I'm a very good travelling companion (if you're paying) We've had big Bali hullaballoo family trips with aunts and uncles and noise and crazy where we would make an empty restaurant bursting with our arrival. More recently though it's been trips to Bali with hubby that have been the norm, occasionally with a little bit of family thrown in - because as soon as one person says Bali - everyone else says 'Me too! Me too!'

This trip will be different from all the rest, we have luxury digs booked. True honeymoon villa on the beach with private plunge pool and butler on call. Breakfast served on our deck each day and complimentary massage etc tec. It will be good:) said villa is also located 100m from our favourite bar, so there will still be lots of fun and drinking and stealing the microphone from the band and making them stay open just for us until the sun comes up. We will try to refrain from the early morning hotel room visit from last night’s barman asking if we would like to pay our bill now, though.

So, 6 nights in private pool villa in Bali, 4 nights in crazy party ping-pong Bangkok, 2 nights in chilled Chang Mai, 5 nights just outside of Phuket and then 2 nights in Singapore on the way home. Ready now! Yes please?

The Dark Room

As I waited in the bright room my heart had already begun to quicken. I was nervous and excited – all in a good way. I had only been waiting for a minute or so but I was aching to get in there, I needed this. I didn’t sit on the large comfortable chair available, I couldn’t sit still, I stood near the door, waiting for the signal for me to go in. This out of all of them, was my favourite game.

I wondered what it was going to be like, I had only done this a few times before and had not yet had any bad experiences, a couple of awkward giggle moments sure, but most of my visits to this room have involved fifteen minutes of absolute gut wrenching bliss. I know some of the others cheated, they liked to peek through their blindfolds to see what was coming next and try to become more involved in the process, but not me - I liked the rules the way they were. I didn’t cheat – kept my blindfold on and my eyes squeezed shut so as not to ruin the mystery, the excitement, the anonymity, the naughty - everything your mother told you not to do - aspect of it. The stranger, the dark, the danger.

As I waited for the music I took stock of myself. My hair was tied in a loose pony tail high up on my head, my feet were bare, my skin was soft and smooth and smelled faintly of lavender from the body wash in the change room. I was wearing a white silk robe and there was a slight dampness between my legs that was more related to the anticipation of what was to come than my recent shower. As I shifted my weight restlessly from one foot to another I felt the muscles in my legs tense and then relax, I was proud of my body, I wasn’t particularly tall and was definitely not long like girls in magazines but I was firm to the touch in most places and soft and supple in others. My stomach was mostly flat but with little muscle definition, my breasts were small but round, the perfect handful, I had been told. My skin was brown from the summer and days spent at the beach and my nipples were small and erect; standing to attention most of the time - but today they could poke an eye out.

As I heard the music start my heart rate jumped, my skin burst out in goosebumps and the dampness was joined by a pleasant swelling. It was time to go in.

They say bats can see, by sound. That the tiny noises they make bounce back to them off the surrounding objects and thats how they create an image of the environment they are in.

I’m no bat, but I can tell you thats exactly what my brain was attempting as I walked into that room. I put my blindfold on first, i opened the door, took three steps forward until my feet registered the change in flooring. The cool tiles gave way to soft, warm, rubber matting. There I stopped, and dropped my robe.  As I stood alone in the dark room, blindfold on - I tried my best to make my bat senses work. Was I alone? At first I couldn’t sense anything except my own thumping heartbeat and shallow breathing. My body trembled slightly with anticipation. 

Then I heard it. The quiet thud of a door closing softly. Calm slow, steady footsteps, coming closer. One, two, three, four, five, six. I swallowed and let out a tiny gasp. Not knowing what would come next, knowing I was naked, vulnerable, that i was completely open to anything this stranger might do to me, that I had signed away nearly all my rights as I walked through that door. 

I waited. I knew they were close but I couldn’t hear anything, my own sharp breathing was drowning out any quieter, more subtle noises I might have heard. I could smell something, I could smell the lavender from my shower, I could smell my own faint umami excitement, but there was something else. 

I was trying to pin down the smell when I felt it, a faint disturbance in the air near my neck, maybe a slight change in temperature or movement of air that indicated in the following nanosecond I would feel a touch. I almost jumped when they first made contact. Fingers gently brush along my neck on both sides, under my ears, rising up the back of my neck as they met together, confidently around the base of my ponytail. These hands deftly released my hair from my ponytail, letting it cascade gently around my shoulders. Those same hands together clasped my right hand and gently threaded my hair tie over my hand onto my wrist. 

Every movement they made was so steady, so sure, like this was the thousandth time they’d performed this ritual. I tried to feel what these hands were like, they weren’t rough, I’d guess they were larger than my own but it would only be a guess. Their most distinguishing feature was their capability. These hands untied my hair better than my own did. 

I stood still. Waiting for what would come next. I was eager to get on with it, to experience whatever it was that was coming. I wiggled my toes, impatient, wondering why they were taking so long, these confident hands. Then I felt them again, these hands. A jolt of electricity through my arms as the gentlest touch on each forearm guided both my hands up to the back of my head. Those two beautiful capable hands placed my hands one on top of the other on the back of my own head, pressing gently to indicate thats where they would stay. 

Those same beautiful hands were suddenly at my calves. Gentle pressure, guiding my legs further apart. I stood there. Hands behind my head, legs apart. Aching for more of these hands. Hands that could guide my body with the gentlest of touches, making me certain I would do anything these hands wanted of me. Anything. 

As I stood there waiting once more I listened to the music, strange rhythmic electronic music, a background hum indicating that the session was still in play. When the music stops, so must we and this experience would be over. 

Then the hands were back, low and steady at the back of my legs. Starting just above my knees gently moving up, I wondered at first if this person, the owner of these beautiful capable hands was in front or behind me, but I did not wonder very long. A change in position of the hands and my pelvis instinctively swayed forward and the most delicious sensation overcame me as a soft tongue snaked into my wet folds and soft lips gently sucked the hood of my clitoris. I let out a gasp and felt myself rise slightly on my toes and lean backwards. Eagerly angling my pussy towards this wonderful person.

The hands moved higher up the back of my legs, fingers gently clutching the flesh where thighs meet ass. The tongue continued; insistent, rhythmic long strokes alternating with gentle sucks of my clitoris. I felt the hands firmly clasp my ass cheeks, pulling them apart as I pushed myself into this glorious mouth with more insistence.

I clenched my thighs and I could feel it, I was close, I was going to come. I started gyrating my pelvis against the mouth as the mouth met my enthusiasm, licking and sucking, burying itself further into me, then focusing just on my clitoris, sucking rhythmically. I was just on the edge, ready to fall into the oblivion of orgasm when the music stopped.

Suddenly the space where my glorious mouth and beautiful hands had been was just air. My own hands left their place at the back of my head and swept the air in front of me, hoping to find this stranger that had so quickly and capably taken me to where even my own hands took far longer to reach. But they were gone. It was over. I bent down to collect my robe, removed my blindfold and made my way towards the light.

Back in  the bright room I collapsed on the chair. My wetness still swollen and throbbing from the closeness of climax. I wanted to touch myself, to rub gently where that mouth had been and take myself to orgasm, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to feel my own inadequacy, next to the skill of those hands, that mouth, that stranger.

I had to see them again. I had to find a way.

Thank Christ it's all over!!

MERRY XMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

I’m exhausted, every muscle in my body hurts and one of my eyes is really itchy.

I blame the festive season for all of this and am very pleased that it only happens once a year. I can’t handle all of this partying - but at least I have no serious injuries.

I like most aspects of Christmas. I like the family stuff - mine is pretty cool and we usually keep it fairly relaxed and low key (oysters, Harvey Wallbangers, French champagne, cold meat and salad and lots and lots of very good wine) I love the food at Christmas time because even if it’s a fairly casual everyone always brings their best so it’s always all good. I love the presents too – this year I got everything I requested, an iPod dock, a big F’off chopping board, shopping gift vouchers, books, new makeup, pretty garden stuff and sexy undies (well I didn’t ask for those but hubby can’t help but get me a bowling ball each Christmas)

Now don’t get me wrong – it’s not that I don’t like partying – I love partying (although I’m sure you know that) I just don’t appear to have a sensible, and that regularly results in lots of pain and occasionally proper injuries. I’m sure all of you now are thinking back to your own memories of me going too far – there are many: the trampoline, spring in the valley, any time we go to the Carlisle, the chin, the nudey booth, rolling down the hill at Lake Ave and many many many more.

I bet you are all waiting for me to launch into my New Years Eve story, wondering what limb I managed to break or if maybe I finally knocked out my two front teeth when falling flat on my face or that I somehow accidently stabbed myself with my stiletto while pole dancing in the street.

Not True. No Injuries, no pole dancing, no horrible awkward vague memories of saying something ridiculously inappropriate. I remember the whole night. I was practically a lady (not really). I was loud, I was dancing, I was talking to strangers and we stumbled back to the hotel room at about 5am – but there is no lasting evidence of my night and I had lots of fun.

I thought about making a New Years resolution but at first couldn’t think of one I could keep. I thought about ‘not to get too drunk’ but that’s very subjective, what is ‘too drunk’ anyway? And how do I make sure I get drunk enough without getting ‘too drunk?’ There’s a certain point - and when I get there I don’t even know I’m drunk, I just know I’m brilliant and awesome and the smartest and best looking person in the world who can do and say anything I want without consequence. I didn’t even bother thinking about ‘not get drunk again’ may as well tell me not to breathe or eat (no I’m not an alcoholic *she writes as she takes another gulp of her vodka passionfruit*) I then thought about basing my resolution around some sort of fitness goal, like lose another 5kg or enter a triathlon this year or be able to run 7km without stopping before the end of the year. Bah – screw that. I then thought about the obvious – ‘spend the whole year without getting any serious drinking injuries’ – I like the idea of this one, I think I may attempt it. I like this one for two reasons:

1. It actually involves no sacrifice on my behalf and will only help me
2. It’s not really something I can control (unless of course we go back to the ‘don’t get too drunk’ thing and you know where I stand on that) So I won’t feel like I failed if/when it happens.

To clarify – bruises and scratches are ok, sprains, cuts, gashes, concussions, breaks, fractures, anything requiring stitches, anything requiring a hospital visit are NOT OK.

This also only covers injuries attained when drunk and that are directly my fault – eg being hit by a car after two glasses of wine does not count.

So that’s my New Years Resolution.

BTW – there’s a bar down Wolf Lane in the city, off king street near the Belgian called Wolf Lane (surprisingly enough) It is great and wonderful. Go there.

Ham smells like burning...

I have no time to blog properly today. It's 9.28pm on the day before xmas eve, I've just finished my pressie shopping and need to start wrapping. I also need to get the ham out of the oven that I have just finished glazing and start getting everything ready for xmas day because between now and then it goes - sleep, gym, work, drink, dinner, drink, sleep, xmas!!- with no gaps in between for self indulgent babble.

But I did recently find this gem from my ancient MySpace page.

Monday, March 20, 2006
Monday: the day of rest. . . .
Current mood: contemplative
I have a love/hate relationships with Mondays. Late Sunday nights I lie in bed pondering what Mondays really mean to me.

Half of me sees Mondays as a relief. If it's Monday, it means I don't have to drink again until Friday, (or thursday or Wednesday, rarely tuesday, hardly ever Monday night.)

And not drinking until Friday, (fingers crossed) means that i probably wont injure myself, offend anyone, tell anyone what I really think of them or comment on anyones breasts.

It also means I won't be spending any time with my head resting on the toilet seat pondering why our landlord chose to paint the bathroom a sickening lilac.

But then again, Mondays mean i have to put clothes on, find all the things I lost over the weekend (shoes, my car, sunglasses, sanity, sense of reason) and get myself to TAFE. I have to think, (or at least appear to be doing so) I have to remember all the things i did't do the week before and neatly write them in my diary in a "to do List," next to all the things I didn't do the week before that. Monday means I have to feel guilt and a sense of responsibility.

I just don't know what to think about Mondays.


Still don't.

Because I like writing lists, ok?!!

So it’s that time of the year when we all look back on the past twelve months and go, “where the hell did that go and why don’t I have more to show for it?”

Not quite so much for me this year – I did get hitched – and pull off the best wedding ever. I also started a blog, started renovating our backyard, spent a few weeks away in Malaysia and Bali, lost my job, got a new one, finally taught the dog how to sit (most of the time) and reached my quarter of a century. Footballers, actors and crazy overachieving freaks aside – I think I’m doing quite well for 25. Go me.

This time of the year still does make me look at my life and look at the years ahead and ponder what I want to do, and write a list about it.


Things I plan to do eventually. In the future. No specific time limits or deadlines set – just ‘someday’

Write an erotic novel.
Go skydiving
Go paragliding
Have something published
Have a nude photo shoot
Make a soufflé (a good one)
Be a non-blonde again
Spend a day at a nudey beach - completely
Learn to dive
Swim with whale sharks
Compete in a triathlon
Go to Bhutan and see the effects of ‘gross national happiness’
Snorkel/dive Ningaloo reef
Go ‘proper’ camping
Put plants in the back garden
Give birth
Levitate
Live in France – if only for a few months
Become fluent in French
Be pikies and drive around Aus in a campervan
Go hiking
Me < 60kg
See snow – not the crap stuff on the ground but see it actually fall from the sky
Somehow get backstage at a concert (may already be too old/married for this one)
Write poetry as an adult
Learn to surf
Learn to snowboard
Learn to spend a whole night in heels (and remain vertical)
Learn to salsa
Invent something
Be an extra on TV or in a movie
Be in another play
Get a tattoo
Cross an international land border
Learn to sail
Have a job title I’m proud of
Be asked to present a speech for something
Get rid of the green tinge from my hair
Be able to run 10km

I hope to start ticking things off my list ASAP – next week sounds good.

Red Whine

I’m absolutely positive I was hit by a car on Friday night. When I woke up I could feel the tire tracks across my scull and all of the tiny little fractures in my eye sockets. I could even feel the pressure in my eyes from the enormous weight of the car running over my head.

My back was bruised and my legs were bruised and one of my feet felt like the wheel of the car had run right over it. I don’t know when this hit and run happened though. I remember leaving and getting a taxi home – and I was feeling fine at this point. I remember paying the taxi driver, getting my keys out of my bag and walking through my front door and going to bed. I’m assuming I must have recently started sleepwalking, managed to get out of bed, walk outside into the path of a car (or maybe it was a truck?) be pummelled under its wheels and then get myself up, walk back to bed and go back to sleep.

I’m absolutely positive this happened because there is no other way to reasonably explain the pain I was feeling on Saturday morning. I mean, there was a decent amount of wine consumed but I didn’t fall over at all so how did I get the bruises? How could a couple of bottles of red cause my scull to fracture in a million places and my brain to swell – just a tiny bit – just enough so that I could feel it was swollen, I could feel it pushing against the side of my temples and the backs of my eyes. I was also suffering from some sort of post traumatic stress that was resulting in extreme tiredness and unending nausea.

The most horrible part of this experience is that no one believed me. I still had to get up early and spend the whole day at work. I tried to explain my agony but my complaints fell on deaf ears. Didn’t they see that I was clearly the victim here? There is no way I could have caused myself this much pain, I like myself, I wouldn’t do that to me.

Perhaps I should start a support group – ‘drunken sleepwalking victims of crime group’ It would be for all the people who get bashed while drunkenly sleepwalking and wake up with random cuts and bruises, or those people who were positive they had their mobile phone in the taxi and are so sure they had it when they walked through the door too but it is never in their bag when they wake up. Clearly they were mugged while they were sleepwalking. Perhaps this might also explain some of those drunken phone calls or text messages we are absolutely sure we never made? Or those stories that your friends tell about you that you have no recollection of ever happening. Sleepwalking. It explains everything.

I Love the bus and Vampire Weekend and everything.

The car was out of action the last couple of days. I was driving, then it got all hot under the bonnet, then I wasn’t driving and liquid was bubbling and spurting out of the beast’s left nostril. This means I’ve been relying on public transport to get me places which hasn’t been all that unpleasant. Strangely enough I have actually enjoyed it.

Firstly I’ve been able to listen to more music. I usually only ever listen to the radio when I’m driving and only listen to my iPod when I’m running or at the gym. This means a lot of stuff on my iPod gets very little air time because it isn’t suitable for running or rowing or cycling or stretching or ‘pumping iron’

I can’t download too much music at home because of download limits and I’m too tight to buy CD’s so my iPod has been synced with someone else’s iTunes. What this means is there is a lot of music on there that I have never even listened to, so my bus trips today have been a journey of discovery.

Today on the bus I fell in love with a band. I now have this one album on repeat, listening to it right now. Beer in hand, hot outside, happy summer music, had an awesome day. Bliss.

My day was particularly awesome and not just because of my new found (and I’m sure short lived) love of public transport. I started the day with an invigorating swim, then a big breakfast with mushrooms, then a trip down memory lane with an old friend. We visited our old hangouts with her SLR in tow and followed the footsteps our 16yo selves used to take everyday. She lives in M-town and is in P-town for Xmas so has no transport either so we caught the bus – which of course added to the nostalgia. We went for iced coffee at our old iced coffee spot and were unsurprised to see the same people from 9 years ago still there doing the same things – they used to talk so big but seemed like ants today.

We then wandered, aimlessly, but ended up walking the same routes we used to take. Most things hadn’t changed at all, but pretty much everything looked a little bit different. At one stage all our dreams and memories were so entwined in the places we went to that it was easy to think the place itself had some magic. Today, seeing these places together as adults whose dreams are starting to become realities it was even clearer that there was no magic there at all. This was partly empowering – reinforcing that those great times were entirely of our creation so we can create them again and again, but partly sad to see our old haunts without the rose coloured glasses, cherry docs and fake pigtails.

One day, back in those days, we toured the town with camera in tow and took photos of ourselves and our favourite spots. We re-enacted this today – older, wiser and with a better camera. We also talked a lot. There’s nothing better than catching up with a great friend to reinforce your identity. I’m not someone who puts on too much of an act for people but it’s still wonderfully relaxing to spend a day with someone who knows everything about you and knows what you are going to say before you say it – and still loves you anyway.

Awesomeness. Bring on more summer!

Treasure-Map Nicoise

I’m currently in the process of changing my name to my new married name. So far I’ve completed it with one of my banks, my drivers license, my scooter registration, eBay, face book, PayPal and I’ve set up an email address in my new name.

I’m slowly phasing out the old email address and am going through the old emails to see if there is anything I want or need to keep. Tonight I came across an email that I absolutely had to keep – it was our Treasure-Map Nicoise.

Hubby (then fiancé) and I spent 5 weeks in Europe last year, we spent most of our time in the UK but we also went to Barcelona and had a week in Nice. When I booked our apartment in Nice the owner sent me an email with a treasure map of how to get the key to the apartment – it seemed a fun but fairly straightforward way to get access. The actual night was quite different.

Our flight from Barcelona arrived in Nice at 10.35pm. We got a taxi fairly easily from the airport and gave the Taxi driver the address we needed to go to. The taxi driver groaned when he saw the address, immediately added 10 Euros on the bill and said that street was impossible to go down and he would take us as close as possible. He dropped us at the edge of a beautiful large square that we soon came to know as Place de la Prefecture and pointed gruffly towards the opposite side of the square.

We lugged our suitcases out of the cab and started across the square in the direction he had pointed towards a huge group of people making enormous amounts of noise. As we got closer we could see that it seemed to be a collection of bars that were full on the inside and full on the outside and the streets were full and the sidewalk was full and the other side of the road there was a car park that was full of scooters and people sitting among the scooters and leaning on the scooters and leaning on the walls and drinking and laughing and it was all a little bit crazy.

Each time a car tried to pass through this section of the road they would drive very slowly and beep their horns and very slowly the hoard would disperse just enough to let the car through and then mill back onto the road – filling it as if it had never been there. Our instructions were to look for the scooter parked across from Wayne’s bar. Under the seat of the scooter there would be an unmarked key and this would open the door to the apartment block on a nearby street. Step one seemed easy enough. We decided I would stay with the suitcases while he would try to find the right scooter among the hoards of drunks. He left me outside Wayne’s bar and fought through the crowd with the map in his hand trying to find the scooter with the right rego number.

During his absence I was privileged enough to see a Capoeira street group come running through the crowd, build themselves an arena in the crowd using only the beat of their drums and put on the most spectacular show of physical strength and agility I had ever seen. The crowd whooped and cheered as they kicked and flipped and threw their bodies around to the beat of the drums. They moved on as quickly as they came, luckily we saw them many more times in our trip. In fact the carnival atmosphere of our first night that we thought must have been a once off for a special occasion was your usual night outside Wayne’s bar. We slept with our window closed.

He arrived back from Scooterquest looking exhausted but triumphant with a key in his hand and it was on to Step 2 – find the right street.

We looked around us and tried to find the landmarks that had been pointed out for us on the map, we couldn’t see the Real Estate agent that apparently had our spare key, we couldn’t see the Pouletterie that was apparently below the apartment and we definitely couldn’t see the brown door that we were meant to open with our newly acquired key.

It was my job with my basic knowledge of French to ask for help. I managed to make myself understood but we definitely asked the wrong people. No one knew where this street was, no one knew where the real estate agent was or the Pouletterie. So we started wandering, pulling our suitcases through the crowd looking at every door we could see and comparing it to the picture of the door we were meant to enter. After about 30 minutes of wandering we found the right street sign and the relief we felt on finding it was soon overtaken with dread when we opened the heavy door. In front of us we saw a pitch black, very narrow, very steep set of 16th century steps. 6th floor sounded appealing when I booked the place. Not so much anymore.

Step 3 was to go up to the fifth floor, open the cupboard that was up there, use the code given to us with the treasure map to open the safe within that would have a second set of keys that opened the apartment door. By this time it was well after midnight, the past few days in Barcelona had been far from relaxing (crazy party town – go there!) and we were absolutely exhausted. We couldn’t find a light switch so we dragged our suitcases up the 12 flights of steep uneven narrow stairs in pitch darkness. At this stage both of us were regretting going on the stupid holiday and were dreading our time in this stupid apartment in this stupid city with all these stupid drunk people outside.

We reached the top, we found the cupboard, we opened the safe, we got the keys and we entered the apartment. Opening the door the place was trashed, there were dirty dishes in the sink, a pile of dirty sheets on the floor of the bedroom and hubby just about turned round and walked straight back out. If we had anywhere else to go he probably would have. After coaxing him into a better mood by showing him the flat screen TV mounted in front of the bed that had English sport channels I managed to find some clean sheets in a box under the bed and things started to look up. The apartment itself was absolutely beautiful and when we opened the windows to the little balcony you could see the commotion below and smell the insanely good smells from the late night café that was on the ground floor of our building.

We got changed, showered the plane off us, had a quick smoke out the window and decided we were ready to meet Nice. This first night was an adventure but our time in Nice was our favourite bit of the whole trip. I fell in love with the colours of Nice, apparently the light is different in the south of France and it makes even mundane normal colours seem to glow but Nice is nothing but normal or mundane. Everything is bright and showy, the old architecture blends beautifully with the new, the outdoor spaces move seamlessly through the city so you can walk from the beach to the centre of town without your feet leaving grass. Everything in Nice is magical and I would happily go back and spend months there. Especially in a sixth floor apartment in the centre of crazy old town.

A story about you.

I remember one morning after a friend and I had had a particularly big night and had slept over at the party house we decided to go to the beach. We had barely slept, we were still wearing our clothes from the night before, it was very very early and it was probably not a good idea. But we were young and invincible and had oversized dark glasses to protect us from the world so we went anyway.

We arrived at the beach and plonked our stuff down in a spot – it was about 6am on a Sunday and there were very few people at the beach. We threw off our docs and hitched up our dresses and spent a good half an hour splashing and wading in the shallows while debriefing the night before and giggling about boys. As time wore on, we started to sober up and our enthusiasm faded. The beach started filling with people in jogging gear and kids doing surf living saving classes. We retired to our little spot and just sat there for a while in silence watching the people do their morning things. As we were watching people do their wholesome early morning beach things it occurred to us that we didn’t look so wholesome, that our eyeliner was far from fresh and people probably weren’t judging us too favourably at that time.

This then led to a closer examination of the other people at the beach and we decided to guess at what their stories were, who they were with, why they were at the beach and how they had spent last night. There was a women by herself who was painfully skinny and painfully brown and on the side of 40 that to us at the time was an indication that life had pretty much ended. We decided she must have been a model when she was younger and had spent her teen years in Europe sleeping with photographers and snorting cocaine and that she had never adjusted to growing older and losing her beauty.

There was then a very wholesome looking young couple, he with one those of those almost military hairstyles, she with a full piece bathing suit and shorts over the top. It took them ten minutes to get all of their beach stuff set up, towels perfectly perpendicular, shoes neatly beside each towel, all items neatly stowed in bags, sun cream applied vigorously and then bags placed neatly at then top of each towel to stop them blowing away. They then both went for a swim, a proper, deepwater exercise swim, not the fun jolly splashing that most people do. We decided they were very Christian, very unmarried and very sexually frustrated.

I remember this day as being so much fun making up stories about other people and wondering whether or not we were right or not. Looking at body language to guess relationships and mannerisms to try to guess if people are happy or not. I still love doing this – turning people on the street into fictional characters and writing their stories. I’ve probably done it to you.

Take the long way

I was thinking the other day about how Melbourne is in the future and New Zealand is in the future but everything after that is in the past. And how it would be confusing to live near the international date line – like if your Mum lived on the next island and she said – come over for dinner on Tuesday, you would say ‘sure Mum’ and hang up the phone but then have to call her right back to check if she meant her Tuesday or yours. That would be confusing.

And then I thought about all the f’ed up things governments do for the good of the people and I thought – what if they thought this confusion was all too much, not good for the people and they decided to close the International Date Line? With impenetrable lasers – not the killing kind but the barrier kind – you know? Imagine that, your Mum would call and say, come over Tuesday and you work out she means her Tuesday so on Wednesday you and your family get in your boat and head over to the next island where Mum lives. Half way there your see a giant impenetrable laser wall with little notices posted every ten metres – “Due to the continuing confusion causing residents, the government of the world has decided to close the International Date Line. If you wish the visit the next island, please take the long way.” Of course they would have put out heaps of media releases but since you don’t have a TV and only ever skim past the news in the paper and concentrate mainly on the quizzes, recipes and cartoons you hadn’t heard anything about this.

So you turn the boat around and you take the long way – can’t be that much longer surely?

Someone remind me to finish that story one day……


Fact: The Island nation of Kiribati moved the International Date Line in 1995 because it had split the nation in two and caused much confusion. No one else seemed to care about this change.

The Joys of Chicken Feet Bone Spitting

Another 'Things I Love' list to start a beautiful bright sunny day.

Things I Love...

My new sexy shoes
I bought a stunning pair the other day that I am certain are going to result in serious injury. I am very clumsy and on several occasions have fallen flat on my face in flats. But these were just calling me! They spent a week seducing me with their platinum platform heels, Mary Jane style double straps and beautiful black silk fabric. So I bought them.
I wore them out last night and am still glowing from all the attention. Whole rooms turned to gawp at my incredibly sexy shoes, people yelled and cheered as I walked past them in the street and hubby was so gobsmacked he could barely string a sentence together all night and just kept grinning at me.

Perth
Went down to the foreshore the other morning intending to do the 10km walk around the river and ended up just sitting on the grass on the side of the running path starring at the skyline and the trees and the people running, listening to music and appreciating what a frikking beautiful city I live in.

Oranges
Peeling them and ripping them apart and then biting into them so the juice gets all over your hands and your face. Oranges always remind me of my very brief time at Ag school when I was 15. We would go down to the orchard after school and sit amongst the trees eating oranges and getting all covered in the juice. It was bliss.

Polished glassware – ‘cos it means there’s a party about to start

Fruitsicles
In summer I always buy too much fruit at the shops and about halfway through the week cut it all up and freeze it into those icy-pole sipper sucker containers. I call them fruitsicles and banana and kiwifruit are my favourite. There are never any leftover mangoes.

Christmas
I’m a sucker for cheesy holidays – decorating the tree, novelty mistletoe earrings, listening to cheesy Christmas music, putting lights in the windows, inflatable Santa’s in the front garden. I always go completely overboard. Tacky=Good

That point when you are running when you get into a rhythm and it gets easier for some reason. The first ten minutes I’m always puffing and my legs never feel quite right (like one is longer than the other or something) and little things like shoelaces and bra straps are so annoying you almost can’t continue, then about ten minutes in suddenly something clicks into place and running is as easy as walking.

Yum Cha
I love having to line up to get a table and then the excitement of all the trolleys – What’s in that one? Will the lady with the deep fried tentacles come back? I especially love going with my Mum because of the look on her face when I eat chickens feet and spit the little bones out on the plate in front of me (and she can’t complain because it is the ‘proper’ way to eat them).

Rediscovering old habits – like writing ‘things I love’ lists.

Lawyers, Testicles and Flesh Eating Stone

I’m particularly fond of words and languages. I studied a little bit of a linguistics degree once, I enjoyed a lot of the subject matter but the course as a whole was not for me. I couldn’t see how what I was learning was going to lead me anywhere so I dropped out. I can’t really see how what I’m doing now is going to lead me anywhere either but at least I’m earning money and not pissing it down the drain at some university. I’m not against studying – I just can’t do it without purpose and a clear goal at the end.

Anyway – words and languages. I’ve always liked patterns. I like looking at how things relate to other things and one of my most favourite topics at uni was etymology – the origins of languages. I like seeing how a word originated, what it originally meant and how different cultures have taken that particular word and made it their own with different nuances and occasionally entirely different meanings.

Like the word ‘bot’ which today in German apparently means message. In archaic German the word ‘bot’ was used to describe a peace offering a family clan would give to another to end a feud, this word ‘bot’ is where we get our current word boat – as the peace offerings were carried on boats and through time the vessel carrying messages became known as the messenger or ‘bote’ in German.

The English word Avocado and the Spanish word abogado – meaning lawyer - both stem from the Aztec word ‘ahuacatl’ meaning testicle.

The word sarcophagus comes from the Greek sarko, meaning “flesh” and phagos, meaning “to eat”. So sarcophagus means flesh eating. This stems from the discovery that limestone helps bodies to decompose faster so coffins were made out of limestone for this reason. To eat the flesh of the bodies quicker. Yum.

Now I come to a word I will not write down. A word that – when mentioned within 5km’s of my mother (hears like a bat I tells you) will result in the speaker being banned from her house for all eternity. Luckily this does not apply to her children or I would not be able to visit.

The ‘c’ bomb.
Now this word has been around for a very very very long time. A word with a similar phonetic base appears in Egyptian hieroglyphics and refers to, surprisingly, the vagina. Similar sounding words appear in early Aztec, indo and African languages. It then appears in Latin on the form of cunnus – meaning sheath. Most European languages today have a form of the word, all with the same meaning, some derogatory, some not. It is believed it was the early Germans who added the T – because they liked T’s at the end of words and this is the reason why the English form of word has the T and the Spanish, Italian and French do not.

Different forms of the word show up in literature – apparently Chaucer used a form of the word in Canterbury Tales, “Pryvely he caught hir by the queynte.” Guess how those ye olde English dudes pronounced the word ‘queynte’

By Shakespeare’s time the word was a lot more derogatory, so he had to use his clever way with words to sneak it in and get a giggle out of only the knowing members of the audience.

HAMLET
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
OPHELIA
No, my lord.
HAMLET
I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA
I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET
That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
OPHELIA
What is, my lord?
HAMLET
Nothing.

Hamlet you cheeky bastard. (not in the born of unwed parents way but in the more modern ‘asshat’ kind of way)

I also once heard a story which may have some truth and fits with the Latin word cunnus – meaning sheath. I heard that the c-bomb was once used to describe a spot on a saddle where one could store a sword. Fits doesn’t it?

BTW don’t quote anything I’ve written here as truth, my sources are varied, unconfirmed and untrustworthy.



And yes I know I’ve broken my self-exclusion period. But it’s Saturday somewhere.

like, in the future.

So....

It is Saturday yet?

Bloggorrhea

After noticing the first stages of addiction and blog related obsessive behaviour I have decided to apply a self-exclusion period for the next few days. I will not blog again until Saturday at least (unless something really exciting happens - like I break a nail or need to go grocery shopping again)

Starting now.

The Birth of Venus

I was at the gym last night for the first time in, like, a week and I was amazed at how unfit I was. Then I stopped myself, jumped off the treadmill, put it on pause, threw my hands in the air and screamed – “WHAT HAVE I BECOME??” Actually I just paused, had a sip of my water and my eyebrows moved into their slightly surprised position. I had become one of those horrible lycra wearing gym people, who use words like 'rep' and 'set' and 'rpm'

I’ve never been into fitness. At school I used every excuse possible to get out of sport. Forget my uniform, forget my shoes, forget one shoe, forget to put the laces in my shoes. Later on I milked the women’s issues thing – my sport teachers would be surprised that I still have a uterus considering the amount of problems that it apparently gave me.

I hated sport, I wasn’t good at sport, people giggled and snickered when I ran.

Mine was always a body that was built for lying horizontal being fanned and fed grapes by giant, good looking men wearing loin cloths, a little bit Botticelli, I was pretty happy with it, it never did me any wrong.

It was the whole wedding thing that made me decide to get fit and skinny. The dress, the photos, the fact that I was getting a new name and becoming a whole new person – may as well be a shit hot one.

I started mission:shithot by going to Jacob’s Ladder after work and on that very first day I didn’t tell anyone I was going. If it ended in failure I made sure it was going to be a private one.

That first morning I put my sports shoes in my car and some "workout clothes" I bought a few years back that had since turned into "hanging out on the couch clothes" To put this in perspective, the sports shoes I put in my car were the same ones my mum bought for me back at school ten years ago and they were still in "as new" condition.

So I got there after work, parked the car in the carpark, shoved my keys in my bra and got going. As I was walking up the hill to the stairs I saw a group of guys in front of me powering down to the bottom step and turning around without even hesitating and going right on back up - chatting the whole time. I mounted the first step and got into rhythm about 5 steps behind the group of guys - this isn't that hard.

Thirty seconds later there is sweat on my brow and im huffing and puffing, the rhythm was gone and the guys had probably already reached the top and were on their way back down.

I did make it to the top without stopping. I had a drink from the fountain and went right back down the stairs.

As I was heading towards the bottom step I had every intention of turning around and going back up but my body revolted and a trotted ungainly towards the car. As I reached the car I had a biggest loser moment and had a little throw up. I was so proud - imagining Jillian patting me on the back - "thats enough pig, thats enough."

I went back the next day. But not the day after that because I could no longer walk without making loud whinging noises and I was absolutely positive my ass was going to fall off – and not in the good way.

I did ‘the ladder’ for about four months before joining a gym, there were many ass falling off, biggest loser spew moments. By my wedding day (last week:)) I could run 5km without stopping and had lost 12 kilos and almost two dress sizes. Feels pretty good. Can’t believe I’m one of those gym people. Lycra and all. Pump it.

Just quietly...

After writing that muffin joke down it's been popping into my head all day and making me giggle. I'm so easily entertained :)

The First List

So I couldn’t sleep last night, and when I did it was crap and then I woke up really early and couldn’t get back to sleep. So now I’m in a bit of a mood. When we were a lot younger a friend and I started making lists of things we loved – at the time it was because the world was such a wonderful place filled with such magical things that it was great to write them all down so we didn’t miss anything. I remember reading those lists in later years and they always made me feel good. So here is todays list...

Things I love

When you first dive in and the cold water hits you and it makes all of your senses suddenly become really alert
Leftover curry for breakfast, especially when hung-over
Green food
Banana pancakes
Driving to the airport
Those first few warm days after winter when suddenly everything smells different and everyone seems just a little bit happier
Getting things in the mail that aren’t bills
Sunbaking
Remembering that you have something just when you really need it
Finishing things – tick!
When a stranger pays you a compliment
Building ikea furniture
Puzzles
Word games
Scrabble
Planning holidays
Planning things I’m never going to do, and then doing them
Unexpected big nights
McBreakfasts
When you hear a song that reminds you of a particular time, event or feeling and the memory just hits you in the face – in a good way
Late night phone calls that last for hours
When you start giggling and can’t stop – especially when you have someone giggling with you.
Stupid jokes that no one else finds funny

Two muffins are sitting in a tray in the oven
One muffin turns to the guy next to him and says – Wow it’s hot in here!
The second muffin looks at the first and says “AHHH A TALKING MUFFIN!”

When you hear a song that reminds you of a particular time, event or feeling and the memory just hits you in the face – in a bad way.
Singing in the car
Karaoke
Nightcaps
Cocktails
Tapas
Olives
Remembering to take sunglasses out with you in case the sun comes up while you are gone.
Having a flat pair of shoes in your handbag


And that’s it for today.