I am not an animal

Who was it who said that insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results?

I can’t remember but I think he or she has a point.

How many times, for instance, I have banged on, both on this blog and to friends, about the time my skin reacted to some under-eye cream and blew up? How many times have I described the absolute disgusting state of my face at that time? (Seriously, to those who didn’t see me then… small children would have run from me if I’d actually made it out of the house. Think of the Elephant Man’s less attractive twin sister and you know where I’m coming from).

And how many times SINCE THEN I have discovered that my under-eye skin has become super sensitive?

So why, WHY did I decide it would be a brilliant idea to put some hardcore pimple cream on a harmless wee pimple just below my under eye area yesterday? And, more importantly, who do I have to blame when I wake up to find my treacherous skin has swollen one side of my face up so that half my left eye is effectively smooshed shut?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

How not to give your company good PR

Me: (Introduces self, paper etc) I was just calling to talk to (managing director) if he’s available.
Fuckwit receptionist: Uh what was your name?
Me: (Repeats it).
FR: (Managing director) is in a meeting at the moment. What were you calling about?
Me: (Explains I want to have a chat to him about a company project to do with a story I'm writing.)
FR: Is it to find out the reason for the trading halt.
Me: No. I already know about that. I just want to talk to him about the project.
FR: Uh huh well he’s really busy so I’m going to have to ask you to be a bit more specific.
Me: (Through gritted teeth) I just need. To talk to him. About. The project. I want to get some idea about what's going on now and what's coming up and how significant this latest upgrade is. So I can write A STORY.
FR: And is this story likely to be in the next couple of days.
Me: (Barely controlled anger) Yes. It’s for TOMORROW. Look, could I just leave a message and ask him to give me a call when he’s got a minute.
FR: Well look I just don’t think he’s going to call you back. He’s very busy.
(Silence)
Me: Right. Do you have, maybe, a PR who could help me out?
FR: He’s in Sydney for a few days.
Me: Does he have a mobile with him?
FR: No.
Me: (Almost weeping) What about email? Would he check his email.
FR: Maybe.
Me: Okay: CAN I HAVE HIS EMAIL ADDRESS.
FR: Oh. Okay.

Just wondering...

Anyone got my copy of The Line of Beauty? A jolly good read but I have NO idea who I lent it to. Bueller?

From the dictionary of Those Couples

Dramers (desc): Drama loving couples who equate screaming rage with passion. Generally can’t keep a full set of matching plates and tend to explode into fights at dinner parties while everyone else makes awkward small talk about which region of Margaret River the wine is from and is that lemon on the asparagus because it tastes a bit like lemon, cough, cough. Later, while the hostess weeps into the sink over the fact only one teensy piece of the chocolate flan has been eaten said couple will retire home to have hot monkey sex.

The Corrections

This is not a post designed to endear myself to my literary blogging colleagues or to make myself sound particularly brainy but I don’t always like, er, very thick books. They put me off. I’m sorry – pop a dunce hat on me and I’ll sit in the corner....

But every now and again there are exceptions and Jonathan Franzen’s truly divine The Corrections is one of them.

You can read the full entry at the CNG Lending Library blog.

An open letter to my colleague

Please, please, please shut the fuck up. No please, I'm begging you because I'm literally running out of ideas to avoid being engaged by you. The ipod? The ipod doesn't work - the white earphone in my ear apparently means nothing, presumably I'm just waiting about here for you to ask an INNANE question you could find out the answer to by in about ten seconds if you just looked it up. Sporadic monosyllabic responses appear only to confirm your suspicion that I'm a little deaf and a simple answer like "I don't know" destined to kick-start your daily prattle about... I have no fucking idea what.

So what's with the laughter? You are not the doctor from The Simpsons, you are not required to punctuate EVERY sentence with nervous laughter. I know that slamming someone for, well, laughing, sounds well harsh but Jesus Fucking Christ that is no ordinary laughter. It is, to appropriate Dylan Moran's lovely description of the Geman language, not unlike the sound of a typewriter being thrown down a flight of stairs.

Which brings me to... the questions. So far as I know, friend, we are on roughly comparable wages. Meaning we are both expected to earn our respective pays with hard work. Reasonable questions about things I might actually know about are perfectly fine, welcome even, but what is up with the endless string of questions about things I couldn't POSSIBLY deliver a proper response to? The worst thing is that you have only to look them up on the computer: it would, quite literally, take you less than five minutes. I have no idea what you're doing when the keyboard is banging away over there but, so help me, it's not work.

I know that you are harmless, I know you are probably a sweet person just trying to reach out to someone and, God help me, I have tried to be nice and friendly and patient over the past months but you are KILLING ME. By which I mean that if someone doesn't change I will have to kill you. Then possibly myself.

From your bitter and twisted colleague.

Baaaaaa

Oh readers. I am, I fear, in a smidgen of a pickle. Yeah, yeah it's one of THOSE posts.

I dramatise, naturally, but not entirely without cause. You see, I have a performance review at work this week. I'm dreading it, naturally, but I'm dreading it for one particular reason: I know my boss is going to ask me what I'd like to be doing in a couple of years and I have no idea what to say. The truth is that I don't know. I don't know if I want to be in the same field I am now - I don't even know if I want to be at the same paper. Of course I could be non-committal and say I don't know about three years but I'm happy where I am now. Except...

...just at the moment I am NOT happy where I am. The past week has been, frankly, shit. I am bored with what I'm writing about but the problem is that I can't actually imagine what else could possibly write about: there isn't anything else that appeals. At least not in this country. And I know that I have bad weeks and good weeks and I'll probably love it again next week but just right now, feeling like I couldn't give a toss about it, I'm dreading being asked to lie and pretend I don't want to fuck off to London and work for The Guardian writing... well okay I don't know what I'd write but, jesus, something.

This is nothing new, of course. It's exactly the same sort of wistfull gaze I get sometimes when it comes to other people's new relationships - because everyone's doing it, don't you know? I am frightfully happy, of course, that a handful of friends have recently found love. Honestly and quite sincerely happy for them. But at the same time... weeeell once you've been in a relationship for that many years, almost regardless of how lovely it is you've pretty much said goodbye to the days of having your organs clutter together in excitement when they text you or the giddiness of wondering if you should use the l-word or not. There are loads of plusses for established relationships too, of course, but it's hard to see them when you've been so close to them for so long: like some sort of selective short sightedness.

And that's exactly how I get about jobs. I currently have a job I like, that regularly genuinely excites and interests me, but that's not enough, of course. Seven months in it's all a bit familiar and I no longer have the giddy highs and crushing lows of the initial love-in period. Plus, I'm pretty sure the grass is a bit longer and greener over yonder. No, seriously, I'm pretty sure it is. Shall I just pop over there and have a quick squizz, eh? Yeah, yeah, I'll totally just be two minutes...

To conclude: I'm an idiot and my main job, come performance review day, should be to conceal that fact from said boss.

Elementary

Audio books: you either love them or you've never listened to one in your life.

Personally I've been a massive fan since I was a young 'un with problems sleeping. Instead of tossing and turning and fretting about my inability to sleep I would simply whack The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me into the tape player and let Roald Dhal's prose lull me to sleep.

These days I use them sometimes for exactly the same purpose but also for a range of others: to keep me entertained on those rare occasions I dust off the running shoes for a leisurely stroll and to entertain me when I'm driving about/cooking/loafing about.

There are pros and cons, obviously. For a start, sometimes you get a complete freak reading a book and it doesn't matter how good it is you just can't stick with it. I believe I've recounted on here once before the classic Italian lessons I once downloaded, only to discover they were being read by a man who sounded like he was having a stroke. Good times. It's also somewhat easy to lose the thread of the story if you drift off or let your mind wander. I tend to drift off in bed only to wake up with the ipod in the small of my back, my earphone wrapped about my throat and no idea where the audio book left off and my dreams began.

On the other hand, there are fewer great delights like listening to Mr Dahl himself read that children's story classic Fantastic Mr Fox, ditto for hearing Stephen Fry plummy-tone his way through Harry Potter and fuck me if I wasn't captivated just the other day by Steve Martin reading some of his rather good short stories (yeah, who knew?).

The only real problem is that I have exactly the same bad habits with audio books as I do with regular books. By which I mean my ipod is currently cluttered up with Faulkner and Burroughs and plenty of brainy non-fiction type of books that I do honestly INTEND to read. However I tend to go in for relistening to old classics (while my electronic bookcase sloowly fills up) or (my current fetish) listening to the truly awesome (and often unintentionally hilarious) 1950s BBC adaptions of the Sherlock Holmes books.

Which brings me to my final point: the role of the audio book as An Event. No longer do we sit about the radio, darning socks while listening to a serialised drama. And a bloody good thing, too, because no doubt it would be enough to make one go out and contract bloody consumption just for something to do in the evenings. But although I may be reclining on my couch, rather than sitting in a straight backed chair, and I may be fecking about with cards, rather than doing anything at all with a sock, there is something truly delightful about putting on a Sherlock Holmes serial, dimming the lights a bit and leting oneself be carried away by the shoddy production values of the 1950s. Ahhh.

Sunshines, rainbows, etc.

I've been avoiding blogging properly for the last few days because I've just been in such a foul mood. And, regular readers will be well aware, listening to me in a bad mood is about as much fun as watching an emo cut him or herself. Or actually, um, probably a bit less fun. Aaaanyway, because my desire to protect my readership from the pain and sheer dullness that is Kate In A Bad Mood has, for today, been beaten by Kate's Extreme Boredom I present to you a list of things I hate more than being at work right now...

• Having to get out of bed on cold, rainy mornings
• People who use the word "lover" (unless they're singing along to The Smiths, as in "but I don't want a lover, I just want to be tied to the back of your car")
• People who use the phrase "make love"
• The fact I can't eat and drink exactly as I want and still look like Zoey Deschanel
• The fact that I'm not called "Zoey"
• Children whose parents allow them to leak snot from their nose - get the child a motherfucking tissue PLEASE
• The reality that I will have to get out of bed tomorrow, probably on a cold, rainy morning and come to work AGAIN
• Ponies*

*I don't mean it - I'm sorry Princess, please take me back, baby.

It's going to be a good one

Some days wake you up by taking a giant dump on your chest, thus letting you know it's going to be a truly shit 24 hours. Others prefer to start as Just Another Ordinary Day before hitting you with the bad news. The fuckers. But every so often some lovely day decides to kick things off by giving you a shiny present. Such as having the person you have been DREADING meeting this morning because you've not prepared for the interview call up, super apologetic to cancel on you at the last minute just as you are weeping into your soy mocha. Thanks, day - much appreciated.

UPDATE: No, no, no , bad day, why would you lie to me like that? Someone please kill me now and put me out of my misery.

Backburners

I’ve never been a fan of that Cosmo-slash-Sex & The City habit of coining annoying little phrases to describe certain types of relationships we have with other people. You know, like, um, a “frenemy” or, um, okay that’s all I can come up with at the moment but there are loads. And they shit me.

Nevertheless I seem to be intent on coming up with my own lately, having previously discussed the concept of a relationship Placeholder (someone who, funnily enough, holds the place in line until someone better comes along) and more recently having become consumed with the concept of a Backburner.

We probably all have Backburners and they’re a bloody comfort: those people we know (or perhaps misguidely believe) have always sort of fancied us, or been a bit fond of us, and who, we assume, will sort of always be there in the way a childhood toy or a sweet, sweet 4 litre emergency cask of wine will be. Perhaps we once went out with the Backburner and fancy we broke their hearts, or maybe they’re just a friend whose always wanted to be a bit more…. Either way, as I say, it’s comforting to have them about. They reassure us we’re fanciable when we don’t think we are and their mere presence convinces us we won’t die alone in an apartment with our face being eaten by hungry cats.

And, as I am finding out, it’s a bit disconcerting when the relationship you thought you had with them is forced to change. This has happened to me twice in recent weeks and it’s a strange thing.
Firstly an old friend of mine is getting married (and NO it’s nobody who reads this blog because I know a fair few people getting married, some of whom DO read this blog, but none of whom have any reason to panic, honest) which is lovely and nice. In theory. But a tiny bit of me thought, when I heard the news, Oh… really? Because in my arrogant way I’ve always thought this friend was a bit sweet on me. It never got off the ground for a number of very good reasons but I have, from time to time, thought fondly of him and even, at off moments, wondered if, years and year down the line when I’m a toothless spinster, it might be game on. Now, apparently, it is Game Over.

Another friend has recently fallen in head-over-heels in love (and nope, not you either – this is another non blog reader, I assure you) and is currently giddy as a schoolboy. Again, on the one hand I know this is lovely and I am genuinely happy for him. But on the other hand… well I’d sort of liked to imagine he might have been nursing a soft spot for yours truly. And apparently… well, he’s not.

Now I’m not suggesting either that I have been nursing dreams to run off with these two boys, nor obviously, that I expect them to sit about mooning after me for ever, doodling Mr Emery on their spiral notebooks. But. Still. Well it’s put my nose a little out of joint. More worryingly it’s left me distinctly short of Backburner material. I’ve lost contact with ex-boyfriends and most of my own fanciables have long since become coupled up.

Granted I do have a very dear boyfriend all of my own but a relationship without a Backburner is like abseiling without a harness and rope to break your fall: bloody stupid and dangerous too.

And fuck me if I’ve not got a terrible feeling I’m in line for a broken neck - somebody throw me a bloody rope.

And don't come out until you're ready to say you're sorry

That’s it facebook, that is just about IT.

I’ve had it up to HERE with you young lady and if you think you can sit there and look at me with that SMIRK on your face then, let me tell you, you’ve got another think coming.

I have put up with fending of friend requests from people I have never MET before, I have dealt with numerous fucking irritating requests to be a pirate, grow a garden or write something on someone’s super fun super fun wall but this may be the final straw.

Not only have you spent weeks – WEEKS – inundating me with a running update of exactly how my facebook ‘friends’ rate me compared to everyone else (ie: you are the 18th best dining companion – whatev) now you have had the gall – yes THE GALL – to compare my results to a random selection of facebook ‘friends’ - and yes that’s right I said ‘friends’ and I’m putting air quotes in there - and tell me who I am most like.

Who I am most like, apparently, are three ‘friends’, all of whom, admittedly, I know but none of whom I have seen in, say, six months. At least. First up we have a former school friend whose one claim to fame I seem to recall was that she once wore a really crazy pair of PANTS to school on a free dress day. That is, quite literally, all I remember about her. Yet apparently she shares, with me, the dubious honour of being a hard worker and, apparently, not very trustworthy. Again: whatev.

Second we have somebody I actually dislike in an I-would-almost-not-brake-if-she-was-crossing-the-street kind of a way. I have met her… oooh maybe three times and, frankly, I didn’t care for her. Not actively evil, so far as I know, and possibly perfectly nice but Not One of Us. Nevertheless she along with me is super confident (gosh, it’s like you’ve known me all my life) and, like me, isn’t a very good dinner companion.

Lastly, and don’t even THINK about answering that call, Missy, you will stay where you are until I have finished, we have a vague acquaintance who, apparently shares my misfortune of being low on the ‘nicest smelling’ list. Oh now come on – that’s just CRUEL. Really? I mean, I do bathe every morning, admittedly it’s in a piping hot bath so I’m pretty much surrounded by my own filth but I am OUT there and I am putting in the effort. What more do you want – BLOOD?

Now I want you to go up to your room, scrub that SHIT off your face and think about what you have done. Mummy’s going to have a drink and a long lie-down.

And I'm pretty sure this wasn't what the Velvet Underground had in mind either...

I’m having a bit of an emotional dilemma at the moment. But before you get concerned I should explain: I’m not in a crisis or trying to make a life-changing decision or anything like that it’s just that I, quite literally, am not sure I am feeling or, perhaps, how I SHOULD be feeling.

The reason for this is simple: I have been asked to work Sundays in my job. Now this, clearly, is not a cause for celebration. I love my two-day weekends, I live for my two-day weekend. Try to take my two-day weekends away from me and I will cut you. However, in this case, in my particular job, working on Sundays means working alone and putting my section of the paper together for the next day on my lonesome. It is, therefore, something of a show of confidence in my abilities. Given that I am pretty sure most of the time my boss thinks I’m an incompetent boob this makes me happy.

But at the same time: Sundays? Really?

So. In one corner we have: my crippling lack of self-esteem and a sad, desperate desire to feel I am good at my job. While in the other corner we have: my desire for long lie-ins, trips to the library and afternoons watching DVDs in my towelling robe.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

Though I could live without the biting...

Most of the time I do not long for a life much more exciting than I currently have. I do not, it is fair to say, live a craaaazy life. I am in bed before midnight on school nights. I read books in the bath. A lot. I do not Have A Haircut. I do not live a romantic bohemian lifestyle in any sense of the words. And, as I say, most of the time, I’m happy enough with it.

Even so, listening to a friend recount a story of breaking up a fight between his new girlfriend and her ex-girlfriend, complete with, I’m assured, biting, gave me just a twinge, a little pang of envy.

I thought these sorts of things only happened to the French?

Quotable Quotes

"News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to

read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead."

(Evelyn Waugh)

This question time is OVER...

Sometimes it's nice to be realise, unexpectedly, that your non blogger friends do read this thing. At other times it reminds me I should be careful what I write.

Case in point, mere MINUTES after putting up my (ahem) Mark Hamill post I received a text message from my lovely sister being not so lovely: "Mark Hamill? I can't let that one pass - ew" or something along those lines. Fine, fine, I knew there would be people who could never understand our love. Then onto dinner at a friend's house where, between snickers, another friend recounts for the benefit of others, my little Hamill fetish.

The thing is that, explained on the blog in my own voice, I almost certainly say things I wouldn't generally make public knowledge. I have not, for instance, ever been known to shout "break me off a piece of that" during Return of the Jedi, nor discuss my breakdown in the frozen food section with those near and dear to me lest I sound like a)I have extremely suspect taste, and b)I am losing it.

Remove the context, though, and it all sounds a bit grubby. Listening to someone else explain it I slowly start to realise that a fair chunk of the people I know and see regularly, at least those who are computer literate, now think I'm some sort of weirdo who attends Star Wars conventions and dons a gold bikini in the bedroom to live out some weird Jabba the Hut fantasy.

Not that I could possibly comment on that.

What, I need a reason?

I call it the potato gem lining...

There is very little good to say about having a really shit day. They are, well, shit, with little silver lining.

Occasionally, however, a very bad day sandwiched alongside a very good day can give us a helpful lesson in the fact that maybe, just maybe we're overreacting.

Yesterday - which began with me in a mood of unbelievable smugness that I had written some good stories and worked super hard the previous day, and ended with me crying in a supermarket - is a case in point. Ridiculous, of course. I neither deserved to be so smug at the start of the day, nor feel so shit at its end but it does rather help one to remember how quickly things can turnabout.

Today, for instance, has so far begun with that horrible feeling that I just can't go into work, not after yesterday, please no. I would give, at the moment, almost anything to have the guts to pull a sickie. Or even to be, you know, genuinely ill. But if I learned anything from yesterday it's that the mood in which you start the day does not have to set the tone for what's left of it. I could certainly continue to feel sorry for myself and embarrassed at everything that transpired yesterday, but I could also suck it up, remember I'm 25 and no longer actually an actual baby and put a little spring in my step.

Of course just in case I'm ensuring things start off on the right foot by having an uncharacteristically lavish breakfast of veggo sausages, avocado and (wait for it) potato gems. Pretty classy AND healthy, I know, but then you can never be too careful.

And is there anything worse?

Than feeling absolutely, completely useless at your job? Negatory on that one too.

Is there anything sweeter?

Than receiving unexpected gifts? Surely not.

10,000 is…

• The number we mean when we say “a myriad”...
• The number of neurons to which each neuron in our brain is thought to be connected...
• The number of square metres that make up a hectare...
• The number of bird species thought to exist worldwide...
• The name of a movie so trashy even Thom said “enough!”...
• Also (almost) the name of the intrigingly titled movie 10,000 Black Men Named George which I have never seen but now really want to...
• The number of angels referenced in Reveleations in that great work of fiction known as The Bible (actually it’s “Ten thousand times ten thousand…” but when do facts matter when we’re talking about the bible?)...
• The number of hits on this blog. Shite. Hurrah and thanks to my long-suffering readers who deserve more than listening to me wank on about Mark Hamill.

Token Smokin Hottie: Luke Skywalker

Oh fine, you just wipe that smirk off your face right now will you? I won’t have my love mocked like that.

So presumably you, like everyone else, think Han Solo is the Star Wars hottie young girls lusted after, with his rogue act and improbably tight pants. But Au Contraire, friend. Once a nerd lover, always a nerd lover and for some weird reason, though I can understand the appeal of Han, with his leather jerkin-waistcoat thing rejected by Sir Elton as ‘too gay’ and all the best lines, I have always have a huge crush on Mark Hamill-as-Luke Skywalker. Sure he spends most of the trilogy flouncing about the desert in an ill-fiting ju jitsu outfit and a bad haircut, ill-advisedly fancying his twin sister, or being jammed inside the belly of some dead beast of burden but Come On. Return of the Jedi? You wouldn’t go there?

The fact that Luke gets to be cool is what makes Return of the Jedi, as I was forced to explain in great detail at the weekend, the best Star Wars movie. Yes, yes, while The Empire Strikes back may be TECHNICALLY the superior movie of the three, Return of the Jedi will always get me because it’s the film which marks Luke’s Turn to kick some arse, while the superficially much cooler Han fricks about either being frozen in carbonite or being blind. I mean that bit where Luke comes in to recue Han, all dressed in black with his Jedi mind tricks? And then out in the desert where he saves their arses while remaining cool calm and collected? Oh yeah – you’d TOTALLY go there. And so would I.

Schmorn

I have never had a particular problem with porn. I have had friends, and boyfriends, who like it, and friends and boyfriends who do not like it, and neither bothers me. I can understand the appeal and I can understand the arguments against it but I've never been able to articulate either side of the argument. So thank goodness for Naomi Wolf, who offers her own take, and a pretty fascinating argument on porn right here. Interesting readying whether you're into Debbie Does Dallas or Not and big thanks to Mike for the link.

Gladiators: the live blog

6.40pm: So I have come home a bit drunk and all I want is some trashy Sunday night TV viewing. Oh Gladiators. Hmm brilliant. I mean I haven't seen this since I was about 10 or whatever but surely it offers some schlocky fun... no? no?

6.55pm: This is, um, I mean, this is meant to be funny, right? I mean I thought so, given the ridiculous gladiator smack talk and the general, you know, RIDICULOUS concept but I'm no longer sure. Maybe I need another drink.

7.05pm: Instant replay? Yellow card?? So they're um, taking this seriously are they? Riiiight....

7.08pm: I don't know why people rag on wine in a cask. It's bloody brilliant.

7.17pm: Oh fuck this show is really, REALLY bad. I mean, it demeans everyone involved. Where the flip is the control? Somebody PLEASE...

7.30pm: (The sound of demented weeping)

What a tit

The inimitable McPhee has beaten me to it but I was going to blog about boobs and, more specifically, last night’s viewing: Trinny and Susannah Undress the Nation. Actually I’m probably not qualified to comment on the latter, given that I missed the first half entirely and had to watch the second half with a barrage of alternatley lascivious and bemused remarks coming from the other side of the room. But I do feel I am qualified to comment on the former because, indeed, I do have an ample bosom.

Okay maybe not as ample as some of my dear friends but the girls are hanging in there, bless them, and I’m not sure I’d want it any other way. Having appeared myseriously when I was about 20 (yeah I know) they’ve since become about as part of my identity as, say, the fact that I have brown hair. I could dye my hair, of course, or get a boob job, but you’d all know I was faking it.

At least the girls would… and by that I mean there should be more shows like Trinny & Susannah but pitched at men so they can see what a real boob looks like. Okay so Trinny is annoying as fuck and I wouldn’t like Susannah fondling my rack, particularly, but they do, bless them, have their hearts in the right place. And quite frankly looking at a pair of giant, saggy cans onscreen instead of glimpsing an improbably perky pair peaking out from the chest of some waif or other, is rather nice. Boys should be forced to look and to study to avoid scenes like my frustration when a certain boy I know insists the perky boobs adorning a certain woman on TV or in a magazine are real.

“They’re NATURAL,” he has been known to insist, like a 15-year-old refusing to admit Santa Claus is a sham, despite the fact the nipples have their eyes to the ceiling and that D-cup is clinging tenuously to the emaciated torso of a 25-year-old twig.

I couldn’t care less if people want to have boob jobs and would try hard not to judge anyone who wanted one, whether going up or down, but the idea that everyone’s boobs should look like that, and should look like that without the help of a surgeons knife, is disturbing. My girls may end up around my belly button one day, and they may never have quite the sky-high gaze of their silicon sisters but they are a part of me: they are filled with fat and blood and my DNA. Plus, you know, they do distract the eye.

How to bag the rock and clinch the deal

F*cking mothers day again and the bloody Red Rooster ads start. Come on, kids, your Mum’s alright eh? You love her eh? So give her a break from the cooking she presumably does every night and come down to Red Rooster. Sure she’ll clean up afterwards and make your breakfast in the morning but just this once as a super special treat why not through her some some battery hen chicken, artery clogging chips and sub-par peas cooked from a packet? You know you want to. Or if that’s not her cup of tea why not buy her an iron? A saucepan? Just don’t go crazy and buy her something she doesn’t need to use in the kitchen cleaning up after her three ungrateful shits. Or, fuck me, why not just put a bullet through her brain instead – arguably cheaper and probably a fuckload more fun for Mum.

Yes, as regular readers will know, I’m not a massive of the bullshit sexist advertising that surfaces this time every year but this year it’s particularly got me ticked off and I have my reasons.

Partly it’s my slightly ill-advised decision to see chick-flick extraordinaire Made of Honour this week. If by ‘extraordinaire’ you mean ‘takes existing chick flick stereotypes to a bad place you never even dreamed existed’. The movie is dire, of course, but the attitudes it displays are much worse. The film’s insights into the female psyche include the fact that all women want to marry, preferably before they’re 30; that marriage to a man you barely know is preferable to ending up a spinster; that no woman can make up her own mind without a ridiculously stupid ‘romantic’ gesture and that it is better to deceive the object of your affection to woe them away from her fiance than to have a proper talk with her because she has a brain the size and consistency of a peanut. Whatev.

My fragile mind, already inflamed from the aforementioned ads and, now, the movie has been further incensed by a report from a friend, let’s call her Girl A, that a third party, let’s say Girl B, was outraged that Girl A’s boyfriend hadn’t proposed to her on a recent romantic jaunt. Actually angry outraged. Despite the fact that Girl A has no desire to get engaged or married and has never, in my hearing anyway, said anything to suggest otherwise (clever girl). Even so the assumption seemed to be, to Girl B at least, that she MUST have wanted to get engaged and was just waiting and HOPING her boyfriend would pop the question. Ew.

Last but not least I spiralled into The Black Rage while reading a very trashy magazine that told me, quite calmly, that women know within 6-9 months of going out with someone if they wanted to marry them while only men, bless them, dragged their feet and weren't sure. Uh huh. Of course we do, why wouldn't we? Let's face it, ladies, once we hit a certain age and the call to nest overpowers us all we're looking for is a mate. Hell according to this I knew FOUR AND HALF YEARS AGO (allegedly) I wanted to walk down the aisle to some cheesy fucking Pachebel's Cannon bullshit with Andy, right? Coming from the girl recently described by a dear friend as a massive commitmentphobe (thanks Johnsy) and who took two trips to the shops today to decide she didn't really know what she wants for lunch that's pretty fucking impressive. And surely the kicker must be said magazine's handy hint for, effectively, snagging yourself a husband. Hey, you can't spell love with ultimatatum - am I right or am I right?

So all this has been rattling around in my brain, stewing and festering until one day, quite possibly tomorrow when the advertising reaches fever pitch or during Better Homes and Gardens’ mothers day special (faaawwk me) I shall snap and go completely postal. Whether this will take the form of a ranting, raving 3am visit to my local red rooster, or merely a calm iron through the TV who can say. Only one thing is certain: there will be blood. Er probably mine, unfortunately as I'm either escorted off the premises or impaled by a large shard of flying TV screen but, eh, I have my principles...

The ghost of blogs past

Dead baby blog carcasses clutter up the files of my computer. And Jesus there are a lot of them. They are the blogs I started writing but tired of, the ones I just couldn’t make work and, worst of all, the truly dire rants that you – dear reader – were fortuantely spared by virtue of the fact I took another moment to read it and thought ‘hmm this might actually be complete bollocks…’.

Anyway, for shits and giggles I’ve dragged a few of these sad little dead bodies together and strung them into this blog to present to you a random snapshot of The Blogs That Never Were…

1. In which I tried to blog about business. Faaaawk me. That’s what happens when I get delusions of business competency.

2. This one starts simply “Nobody who describes themselves as ‘outrageous’, ‘witty’ or ‘unconventional’ is ever any of those things”. In fact it ends that way too – there’s nothing else. It barely even qualifies as a blog corpse - more like a finger that turns up in a McDonald beef pattie. Where was I going with that slightly banal universal truth? Eh, who knows-slash-cares…

3. Here we have approximately 300 (eh give or take) incredibly earnest ‘gosh there’s so much hardship in the world’ kind of baby blogs that made me want to take myself behind the bike sheds for a beating.

4. A blog about blogs. Billed as a scathing expose of a handful of really shit proper, fancy blogs around it was actually just a vehicle for me to rag on a certain blog written by a certain woman, mostly with the intention of allowing me to make a very stupid play on words and take the piss out of her Sex & the City lifestyle. Hmm, can’t think why it didn’t work out.

Thought for the day

When you're still feeling a bit sick, generally tired and sorry for yourself sometimes there's nothing to do but make yourself a giant cup of tea, buy a generous bag of chips and blog about it.

And sometimes when he comes through the window he's not wearing any pants...

Anticipation is a great thing. In fact it’s often the best part of life, in a way. Days of looking forward to a big occasion, for instance, probably add up to more happiness than the occasion itself. Similarly in the wonderful world of anticipation there’s (not yet) any disappointment or failure. When you’re only looking forward to something it can be perfect.

Which brings me onto Iron Man. I saw the movie at the weekend – while doped up to the gills on cold and flu meds – and days later I’m still not entirely sure what I think of it. Before I went to see it I mentioned as much to someone or other and they said they too were planning to see it in a hope-it’s-so-bad-it’s-good kind of way and all I could think was ‘hey it’s going to be so good it’s good, bitch’.

And that, right there, is my problem, I think: I expect too much. Bloody anticipation, eh? I knew there must be a drawback.

Because my problem is that I love superheroes and I always have. My brother and I used to record the X-Men cartoons every day as, er, youngsters (I hope) so we could watch them after school. Not only do I have a comic book collection I may or may not have tried to write MY OWN COMIC as a teenager about a group of crime fighting mutants who had come back in time to…. Ahem, aannnyway... I might also have died of pleasure when I heard there was going to be an X-Men movie and I even saw (god help me) Spiderman TWICE at the movies. I am, then, what scientists call (so far as I know) a dorkus maximus.

I also love, love – as has been well documented on this blog – Robert Downey Junior. I yearn for him. I pine for him. I dream of him flying through my window at night. I occasionally fantasise about his arrest however many years ago, driving naked down Sunset Boulevard with a gun and a stash of heroin and cocaine. He is, as some might say, a stone fox.

Put together this love of superhero movies and a love of RDJ and what do you get? Well unfortunately you get a little bit of disappointment. I think. Maybe. I’m not sure. Andy loved it, and he’s not as prone as me to a fit of the RDJ’s and the reviews I’ve read are pretty much the same. The thing is I really enjoyed it too. I thought it was a genuinely well put together, well crafted and funny movie. It’s certainly the best superhero movie I’ve seen since… um, frick, probably X-Men. RDJ was brilliant in it. And yet. I don’t know. I don’t know what I expected. I remain confused. Is it the meds? Possibly.

This isn’t to say you should see it – you should. You should go right now just to line RDJ’s pockets, that he might snort them up his nostrils and/or claim the position among Hollywood royalty that he so richly deserves. Just come and talk to me about it afterwards – we can workshop it and you can tell me what to think. I’ll bring the comics.

Lessons learned etc

Things I have learned from being sick

- I hate being sick
- I am actually a huge pussy who requires constant pampering
- I miss my cat, who used to sit on my belly when I felt ill and breathe fish breath in my face
- I am actually a huge pussy who requires constant pampering

Thing Andy learned while I was sick

- I can be a smidgen extra sensitive when not at my physical peak - approach with caution
- I may or may not be a huge pussy who requires constant pampering
- Fetching my cold and flu tablets is more important than picking up the bike parts…
- … but a pumpkin pie and toblerone at lunchtime heals most wounds

I'm meeeelting

Many years ago my talented doctor Father saved somebody's life. Presumably doctors do this all the time, I don't know, but in this case it was quite something as the guy happened to be a friend of the family who had been over for dinner that night. He had left dinner early, feeling a bit poorly, and gone home. Later that night another fellow happened to drop past this guy's house and found him rather ill. Being (again) another family friend this guy called my parents. So my Pa trotted over there to check him out, was mildly worried and said something along the lines of it probably just being a bad cold but just to be on the ultra safe side he should go to hospital. As it turns out it was meningococcal and had the guy not gone to hospital he would have died.

I tell this story now not to talk up my Dad but to mention the fact that this little incident has made my life hell. By which I mean that every time I come down with a cold I believe I am on my deathbed.

Yes today I am home sick and it is my first sick day in... I can't even remember how long. I hate taking sick days - I always feel really guilty like I'm faking it, I always feel too rubbish to do anything anyway and it just means more work when I get back into the office.

Even so this one is particularly bad because I've got an achy cold that makes me feel super sorry for myself AND as though I'm not long for this world. Tingles up the arm? Oh I'm having a heart attack. Aching joints? Bloody meningococcal again.

To top it all off I don't even have a sympathetic parent floating about the house administering medicine and baked goods. All I have is an outwardly sympathetic boyfriend who has, it must be said, currently fucked off to buy bike parts.

Put a fork in me, kids, I'm done.

DEATH WATCH UPDATE THE FIRST: It is about oooh an hour and a half since the boy left with a promise to fetch me some drugs, a newspaper etc. Still he has not returned. Fearing the worst I call his mobile, wondering if I will be able to break up with him if he's been hideously disfigured and not be shunned everymore by society. He is well. He is alive. He is also at work. He forgot.

DEATH WATCH UPDATE THE SECOND: The time is approximately 2pm. I look at the cold and flu tablets to figure out when I can take another one and what do I discover? They are herbal pieces of shit with not a hard drug in there. Fuck me.

Er, do you come with the car?

As some of you know I have busily recruiting single Perth hotties over the past week or so - strictly for work purposes you understand. Friends, friends of friends and complete strangers have been on the receiving end of my pitch, which no doubt sounds incredibly sleazy and as though I am constantly on the pull ("Hey you're pretty hot - tell me, babe, are you single?) Even so yesterday I was chuffed to receive word back from a particular hottie I barely know but have always vaguely fancied to assure me he thought I qualified as well. Complete shite, I'm sure, dreamed up by my too-kind conduit, but it did it for me. Jesus it's lucky I use my powers for good.

Scenes from a morning hangover

ME: (Emerges from bedroom, bleary eyed with a throat that feels like something died in it. The scene is one of disorder, with a weird assortment of cheese and curry strewn about the kitchen. There is the smell of ginger, curry paste and potato in the air and an improbably high pile of dishes, indispersed with empty wine bottles/boxes) Did we... have curry last night?