2011, we hardly knew ye

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Then it was the best of times again.

2011, you were a year of shenanigans and beer and life lessons and beer and good friends and beer and sexually harassing innocent men. Then having another beer.

Last year I wrote a blog on why I hate New Years Eve, and in that blog I included a resolution or five. Let us revisit those and see how I did.

1. Don't eat so many chips that I get chest pains
SUCCESS. I did, however, on more than one occasion eat so much bacon that I got chest pains. But there was no such bacon related resolution.
2. See Europe
SUCCESS. And it was amazing and brilliant and magical. Apart from when I vomited in Greece.
3. Stop typing my Facebook password into every other website I try to log in to
FAIL. Old habits die hard. Or die not-at-all.
4. Stop trying to deactivate the house alarm with my pin number, and stop trying to get money out of the ATM with the alarm code
50/50. I have cut back on how often I do this, but it still happens.
5. Finally become the proud owner of the complete box set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Thanks to Santa Claus, this was a last minute Christmas SUCCESS.

So last year I whinged about it, but this year I feel no such ill-will towards December 31. Usually I hate it because the changing of my wall calendar just reminds me that I’ve wasted another year of my life, but this year was pretty kick ass. I saw some awesome shite, laughed so hard with some great friends that I cried/snorted/peed my pants a little, and learned that making angry playlists on your iPod will get you through anything.

Popular opinion is that the blonde hair I’ve been ABSOLUTELY ROCKIN this year makes me look a lot less like I’m dying than the black hair did; that the stupidest thing I’ve said all year is ‘This apple juice tastes too much like real apples’ (if I wanted to taste a real apple, I’d eat a freakin apple); and that my hatred of people misusing the word ‘ironic’ has grown to such proportions that I’ll either stab someone or have a rage-induced stroke in the near future.

So what are my resolutions for next year?
1. Keep surrounding myself with good people
2. Don’t get porky again because it took five months to drop the weight I gained in Europe. Needless to say the food there is quite good
3. Try to be less of a pervert (men will have to agree to be less attractive, though)
4. Stop playing Florence & The Machine’s Shake it Out on repeat, because other songs are good too
5. Watch the entire boxset of Buffy The Vampire Slayer

And if you still need reasons to look forward to 2012, there’s a possible apocalypse and a new Muppets movie.

My grownup Christmas list

Dear Santa,

As the festive season is upon us once more, I can’t help but think about the many years we’ve known each other and how you have betrayed me on each and every one.

Santa. Mr Claus. ‘Saint’ Nick. What happened to you? Growing up, I was led to believe that if I was good, and if I behaved myself, I could write you a letter at the end of the year and you would bring me some lovely things.

Well, I have one question for you, Santa. Where exactly is my monkey army?

Year after year I was the picture of the perfect child. I did well at school. I behaved myself. I didn’t swear, I didn’t answer back, I only bit my brother that one time. And yet, no monkey minions.

You’ve clearly dropped the ball. Christmas 1995 there was a Kmart price sticker on my Barbie. Kmart, Santa? I realise the world is far more populated than it used to be, and the elves are busy trying to make iPods instead of dolls and hula hoops, but what the hell, man? What. The. Hell.

I don’t mean to criticise. Well, I do, but only because I want to give you the chance to improve. It’s like you don’t even care anymore. The kids hold up their end of the bargain, what with the being good and all, so you should hold up your end and bring them their monkeys.

To get you started, here’s my wish list for this year:
-An attractive man wearing nothing but boxer shorts and a Santa hat.
-A unicorn. With a rainbow mane. And a glittery coat. I shall name him ‘Captain Clip-Clop’ and we shall be the best of friends.
-My freakin monkeys. Better late than never.

An open letter to attractive men

Dear attractive men,

Hello. You don’t know me, but my name is Lauren and I have been finding it harder and harder to ignore you of late, as you insist on parading around in front of me wherever I go, with your faces and bodies and lovely, lovely smiles.

Despite the positive attributes of your kind, I have to admit that I have a complaint or two about the way you insist on living your lives.

Complaint the first: The pace at which you walk.
If you’re going to walk past me, all I ask is that you do it slowly. This will increase my perving time and I’m sure there’s some kind of advantage in there for you somewhere, too. Walking slower will reduce the chance of sweating? Maybe? Yeah. Let’s go with that. Sweating.

Complaint the second: The wearing of those shoulder/messenger bags.
These tend to cover your amazing backsides. This is unfortunate. Please put your belongings elsewhere.

Complaint the third: Some of you don’t wear glasses.
I had a theory that men, meaning all men, meaning 100% OF THE MEN look better in glasses. I have tested this hypothesis and it turns out that I am correct. If you do not wear glasses, please obtain some in the near future.

Complaint the fourth: Sometimes you can be so attractive that it’s unattractive.
I know this sounds stupid, but there is something I like to call the ‘Cycle of Attractive-ness’ and it looks like this: The cycle goes counter clockwise, beginning at ‘Total-freakin-ugmo’ and moving all the way up to ‘Dear-god-please-help-me-now-I-can’t-help-but-swoon-over-this-ridiculously-good-looking-person’. Occasionally, you can become so attractive that your features become comical and off-putting and you jump from the sexy side over to the not-so-sexy side. Please don’t do this, as it is a tragic waste.
(Note that the cycle only flows one way. No one is so ugly that they’re attractive. No one. It’s science.)

Thank you for your time and cooperation. I hope these issues will be remedied in the coming days.

Lauren

Surviving the office Christmas party

I haven’t been very good at attending the work Christmas party. I went once a few years ago, where my then manager got a bit too excited about the bar tab and decided that even though we were sitting outside, it would be a good idea to go back into the pub to vomit. On the floor. Right by the door. Like a champ.

Last night I made my second appearance at one of our Christmas parties. My manager felt obligated to go, and talked me into accompanying her with the following three points:
1. There’s a bar tab.
2. Tab = free beer.
3. Free beer is good.

So the Christmas party was at a pub by the river. I only had one drink on account of having to drive, which really wasn’t enough alcohol to deal with not remembering the names of people from other sites, being reminded of just how many years of my life I’ve spent working for these people, or awkward conversations with one of the company’s slightly intoxicated owners:
Him: ‘How are you? Good?’
Me: ‘I have beer. Beer is good.’

Manager lady has a massive amount of Grinch-y-ness in her tiny, blackened heart.

This has been a recent source of amusement for the two of us who work under her, as we’ve been entertaining ourselves by slowly building up ‘Operation Christmas Bombardment.’
Next week I’m starting the carols, and yes, I’ve got Mariah Carey. And Wham. And Celine Dion. I know I can’t force cheer down her throat, but since I don’t like to lose, I plan to lose in the most annoying way possible.

Manager lady’s initial anti-Christmas comments of ‘I’ll stay for an hour at most’ and ‘One drink and I’m out of there’ were a big, fat fail. I left before her and received some slightly scrambled text messages later in the evening. She stayed about six hours longer than planned, proving that the spirit of Christmas is alive and well after all.

Or the spirit of Jack Daniels.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Happy December! My Christmas tree is up and decorated. The Christmas CDs have been dug out of the cupboard. My Santa hat is… too small for my head and I have to buy a new one.

For those of you not yet feeling the Christmas spirit, I give you 11 reasons to love the festive season:

1. Tinsel: It’s shiny and everybody loves shiny things.
2. Food: It’s delicious and there’s plenty of it.
3. Presents: Not just receiving them, but using a ridiculous amount of sticky tape when you wrap gifts for other people so you can watch their frustrated attempts to free whatever it was that you found on sale at the last minute.
4. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is on TV: Classic.
5. Summer (for people in the southern hemisphere only): Beer and BBQ. ‘Nuff said.
6. ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’ as performed by Alvin and the Chipmunks: It has never stopped being hilarious and never will. Check it out here (skip to 0:53 for the LOLs and an enormous dose of cheer).
7. Christmas songs in general: The only time of the year when it’s acceptable to belt out a Mariah Carey song.
8. Fairy lights: The only time of the year when it’s acceptable to put brightly coloured flashing lights all over your house.
9. Photos with Santa: The only time of the year when it’s acceptable to let your child sit on a strange, old, beardy man’s knee and tell him what toys they want.
10. Sneaky mistletoe: The sexual harasser’s greatest ally.
11. That rare moment when a bird lands in your Christmas tree:

Just like the movies

Last weekend I learned a valuable lesson: don’t spend the day watching horror movies if you have to spend the night in your house alone.

Ages ago I promised my brother that since his fiancée hates horror movies, I would see Paranormal Activity 3 with him. He texted me on Saturday reminding me that we still hadn't been, and that I still hadn't seen part 2, so after a quick DVD watching session we headed out.

The cinema was empty when we walked in, and after we shuffled over to the seats we wanted, something caught his eye. And now I present to you: 'Dodgy ways to make sure no one sits in front of you at the cinema' with my brother.

Tip 1: Move the wet seat sign over to the seat in front of you and hope that no one sits in the actual wet seat.

He then informed me that he has tried convincing his fiancée to keep a piece of paper that says ‘Wet Seat’ in her handbag so he can whip it out whenever they go to the movies. Strangely, she's not keen.

Anyway, thanks to my shoddy body clock, I was too tired to stay awake all night thinking that every noise I heard was a *PARANORMALACTIVITYSPOILERALERT* demon named Toby who lives in my ceiling and wants to move objects in my bedroom EVER SO SLIGHTLY. Then possess me and make me kill people. Because that would be unfortunate for all involved. Except Toby. But he's not very nice.

Hipster-Tickle-Me-Elmo: A day in the life

Catching up on some reading Then catching up with Hipster-Minnie Mouse ...and Hipster-Ralph Wiggum...and Hipster-Angry Bird Talking down to regular Tickle-Me-Elmos to assert his superiorityTrying to impress the ladiesTaking up the bagpipes because guitar is too mainstream

Customer Service 101

I’ve been working in hospitality for just over four years now. Needless to say, I’ve learned a thing or two about how to handle people.

No matter what is going on in your life, how tired you are, or how surly your disposition may be in general, you are required to transform yourself from the regular you, into this freakish being:
Once you have become a smiling, happy-go-lucky scamp, there is a certain type of behaviour that is expected from you.
For example, you will occasionally have to deal with a customer who wishes to make a complaint.
Correct response: Listen, and apologise if any wrong doing has been done on your/the business’ part.
Incorrect response: Tell the customer that you wish a young Johnny Depp would ring your doorbell, all lost and confused after being in some kind of accident that involved him losing his memory. And his shirt. And his pants. But we can’t always get what we want, so they should bugger off.

Sometimes a customer will get angry while they’re waiting. They’ll make a point of telling you how they don’t have time for this, and how very busy they are.
Correct response: Kindly tell them you’ll be with them in a moment.
Incorrect response: Give them a death stare and point out that, as they can see, you’re currently quite busy yourself. Then slow down. A lot. Completely stop, if that takes your fancy.

Occasionally a customer will come in and start hassling your manager, who is trying to take her lunch break, about the prices of every single item you have on display. He will be rude and aggressive and will ask, in a rude and aggressive manner, what is in the Cajun chicken wrap.
Correct response: ‘We get our food items delivered, sir. I can’t tell you 100% for sure what all the ingredients are.’
Incorrect response: The scenario I could see going through her head:

And if that really good looking guy comes in, try not to do this:

Well done

I realise it's Sunday and this isn't a real blog. I'm sorry for not being organised enough to pull something together last week. BUT: my mum and I went to get a head start on our Christmas decoration shopping (we go nuts for Christmas. I think we just like shiny things and twinkly lights) and I present to you, this photo: 'Take photos here with Santa'. It's gonna be a good Christmas this year. I can feel it.

Um... uh... SEX!!!

School is winding down for the year, and that means the classes are starting to get… odd.

In my novel class this week we were discussing sex scenes. Romantic sex scenes. Explicit sex scenes. Sexy, sexy sex scenes.

The whiteboard was divided into three categories very maturely named ‘Boy’s Bits’, ‘Girl’s Bits’ and ‘The Act.’ Our job was to fill the entire board with as many words as we could possibly think of to describe these things. It took almost a quarter of a century, but finally a moment occurred in my life where it was socially acceptable in a room full of people to yell ‘WANG!’
Now for homework I have to write a sex scene. I do not wish to do this.

They were making out and touching each other and stuff. Then he put his thingy in her whatsit and they, like, totally did it and that.

The day after this class, I went to see the Queen. She was in Melbourne. It was a beautiful day. I got quite badly sunburnt because I’ve inherited my mother’s fragile British skin. I didn’t get to see the Queen. I didn’t even get to see the Queen’s hat. But still, I was there. My point is this: standing in a crowd in the sun waiting to see an old lady doesn’t inspire you to write about the sexy times.

Thursday night was slightly more successful. I saw QI live on stage. If you don’t know what QI is, then you should Youtube it and fall in love. I had Stephen Fry, Alan Davies, Arj Barker* and Shaun Micallef all on the same stage, and even though Fry prefers the company of gentlemen, I’d have a crack at all of those blokes. Sadly, I got home too late to write anything.

After work today I spent the remainder of my afternoon doing ‘paperwork’ (if you haven’t read past blogs, ‘paperwork’ doesn’t mean paperwork, ‘paperwork’ means sexual harassment. But I can get away with it because I’m a young woman and not an old man. Double standards effing rock sometimes).

Still nothing. Then I remembered that earlier this year I purchased Kristen Schaal and Rich Blomquist’s The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex. Why? For the same reason I do anything: shits and giggles. I had forgotten about this book, and pulled it off the shelf to see I had left a bookmark on the page titled ‘Things you can do with hairy palms’. I’m choosing to believe this is just the page I was up to, and not one I thought I might need at a later date.

So how’s the sex scene going? I haven’t started it yet. I ate noodles and wrote this instead.

*I was in the same pub as Arj Barker once and he busted me staring at him and he winked at me and I lost my miiiind.

An open letter to Mary Shelley

Dear Mary Shelley,

Let me begin by saying that yes, I do realise you have been dead for quite some time now. However, I feel the need to take issue with you on the grounds that it has only recently come to my attention that your classic novel Frankenstein is, in my opinion, not very good at all.

I am a student, and I had to read Frankenstein for my English Literature class. It took me four months to make my way to the end of your ‘masterpiece.’ I found that each time I picked it up I would read a few pages, then genuinely lose the will to live and have to go do something else for a while.

You see, Ms Shelley, I too would like to be a writer. When I finished your novel, I couldn’t help but think ‘I can do better than that.’ The idea of plot is quite often missing, replaced by page after page of fanciful descriptions of mountains and rivers and trees. I’m quite lazy, but you, my dear, take the cake.
‘So how did Victor Frankenstein create his monster?’ your readers may very well ask. And your response? ‘Hey look, some more scenery!’

At no point in your novel do you ever explain what the monster was made of, how it was made, or how Victor brought it to life. Even at the end of the novel when another character flat out asks Victor how he made the monster, you dance around the issue with this piece of waffle (that I‘m confident the copyright has expired on…):
“‘Are you mad, my friend?’ said he; ‘or wither does your senseless curiosity lead you? Would you also create for yourself and the world a demonical enemy? Peace, peace! learn my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own.’” Or in other words: ‘I dunno. Leave me alone. I’m dying. Shut up.’

Ok, so maybe I’m a couple of years older than you were when you wrote it. Maybe you were just young and naive. The thing is, were you still alive today, I know how you would respond to my grievances: ‘Well Lauren, you see *insert long winded description of a lake here*.’

Also, I’ve seen portraits of you, and you were weird looking.

Sincerely,
Lauren.

Great days in history: October 14

Work. Classes. Dealing with the recent development of finding out that Sexy Customer #1 thinks I'm Sexy Barista #1. Not knowing how to deal with that recent development because I'm an awkward fool. Other things.

I haven’t had much free time this week. To show you how much free time I haven’t had, here’s a breakdown displayed in a brightly coloured pie chart:

What does it all mean?
Last time I looked at a great day in history, it was my own birthday/the day Michael Jackson rudely decided to die. This time, it is our dear friend the 14th of October, when in the year 19somethingheprobablywouldn'twantmetopostontheinternet, my dear father was born. Happy birthday to him!

He has the honour and privilege of sharing his special day with the likes of R&B star Usher, the in-no-way-questionable Cliff Richard, one of the Dixie Chicks (I’m not an expert, but I think it’s the good one) and everyone’s second favourite James Bond, Roger Moore himself. You can't ask for a better bunch of people than that, surely.

October 14 1982: Ronald Regan officially declares a war on drugs. Those American presidents sure know how to win a war, am I right? AMIRITE?

October 14 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis begins.

October 14 during the WWII years: Some stuff happens with Nazis...

Ok, so this isn't going very well. And I've left this to the last minute and have to go get ready for my Dad's birthday dinner. So I'll just say a big fat happy birthday to the man who taught me to ride a bike, taught me to drive and most importantly of all, taught me to love the genius that is Mr Billy Joel. And if you laughed at the Billy Joel thing, we will both come after you.

For reals.

I would STILL like a bite of that donut

If you have read this post, then the following ramblings will make sense to you. Otherwise, here’s the gist of it: I work in a coffee shop. We have a lot of regular customers. ‘Donut’ is the codeword we use for ‘beautiful, beautiful man.’ My manager and I have a thing for the same three donuts. One donut in particular. Mmm. Donut.

And now, the progress report:

Tomorrow I will be working a split shift. I’ll be working from 6:00am to 7:00pm with two and a half hours off in the middle. Why did I agree to do this? Because there’s no one to do the shift and I want to help my supervisor out, of course. That’s the honest truth. Part of the honest truth. A tiny part of the honest truth. About 5%. 10% is for the money. The other 85% is for the chance of some sneaky afternoon pervy time.

Since finding out that the donut we placed at number one has been buying coffee in the afternoons, my manager (the one who challenged me to a death match) has been hanging around for almost 3 hours after her shift ends to ‘do paperwork.’ ‘Paperwork’ that seems to involve a lot of sitting around while looking out the window. ‘Paperwork’ that she conveniently seems to finish about 5 minutes after this guy comes through. ‘Paperwork’ that doesn’t seem to involve very much paperwork at all.

Then there’s the poor supervisor stuck in the middle. She’s in a relationship and is therefore blind, apparently. The phrases ‘I don’t find him attractive, but I guess I can see why you would’ and ‘I just don’t see it’ have been thrown around a lot lately. This is generally followed by me throwing a world class tantrum.

When my shift finished this afternoon I decided that perhaps I would do some ‘paperwork’ of my own. This mostly involved reading MX (it’s paper…) and drawing the two of us in all our tragic glory (on paper).

Relationship-y supervisor lady: ‘Do you know how funny it is that you’re both doing this?’
Me: ‘Doing what?’
Supervisor lady: ‘Just sitting there, waiting for this guy.’
Manager: ‘I’m not, I’m doing paperwork.’
Me: ‘And I’m… watching her do paperwork.’

This is what life has come to. We’re too young, too funny and too attractive to be dirty perverts. And yet, here we are. As tragic and pathetic as the whole shenanigan is, it’s a constant source of entertainment that has led to many bouts of hysterical laughter (hysterical laughter directly in donut #2’s face, once. But he keeps coming back, so that means we’re meant to be together, right? Also, last Monday, I’m pretty sure #1 busted me giving him the googley eyes. But he still comes in, so that means we’re meant to be together, right?).

One day in September (or October, this year)

Before I start ranting about that which I wish to rant about, for the sake of the non-Australian people who read this blog, here is a quick summary of Australian Rules Football:

So there’s a ball, right?

And a bunch of muscle-y men who look amazing in little shorty shorts.
And a big, grassy oval.There are four posts at each end of that oval. If you kick the ball between the two big posts, you get six points. If you kick it between a big one and a little one, you get one point. If you miss the posts completely, you can’t kick for shite and you should go home immediately.

It is socially acceptable to support any of the following teams:
Essendon
Whoever is playing Collingwood.

And this last point brings me to my rant. Today was not the best day to be in Melbourne. The Grand Final parade was on, and the world’s most liveable city (for reals, we won that) was filled with a rare subspecies of human. I was at work and one of my customers mentioned there were a lot of people in the city today, to which I almost replied, ‘They’re not people, they’re Collingwood supporters.' Yeah. That's right. I’m racist against Collingwood supporters.

In my mind, this is who they are:
Then I look around and see that in reality, that is indeed 100% who they are. Is it ok to make generalisations about people if your generalisations are correct? Am I a bad person? Is it ok to be a football team racist?

I’d feel bad about the chance of a Collingwood supporter reading this, but we all know they can’t read.

FAQ part deux

Hi, Lauren.
That’s not a question, but hi.

What was the highlight of your week?
THE NEW SEASON OF GLEE!!! And I got a haircut.

What are you afraid of?
Everything.

Can you be more specific?
Pretty much everything.

Such as?
Space. The concept of the universe and galaxies and the nothingness. Can it really be endless? How does the earth stay floating there like that? If it fell, would it fall forever? Did you know the moon is constantly moving closer to the earth? Did you know that our galaxy is on a collision course with another galaxy and they’ll eventually collide and everything will go kaboom? I mean yeah, it’s not going to happen for millions or billions of years or something like that, but it’s still terrifying.

Stuff like this is why I’m not allowed to watch documentaries anymore.

I like your shitty drawings. Can you draw a dragon for me?
Apparently not.

What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done this week?
I downloaded a Lady Gaga song then danced alone to it in my bedroom. Please don’t tell anyone. I also stabbed myself with my keys again, but at least it wasn’t in the neck this time. There was a lot of blood, though.

What do you think about the new changes to Facebook?
They blow. Everyone reckons they’re going to use Google+ now, but let’s face it, we’re not going anywhere. Zuckerberg knows we’re his bitches.

Did you watch the season premiere of Two & a Half Men?
Yes. I believe the show will survive if Ashton Kutcher keeps walking around naked. Or half naked. Either half.

Are you just doing this Q&A thing because you couldn’t think of anything better to write this week?
What? No. Of course not. Shut up. Who are you?

Ode to cake

Wikipedia says you’re a form of bread,
but you are far more delicious, it has to be said.
You are, by far, my most favourite baked good.
If I could marry you and have your cake babies, I most definitely would.

A wooden spoon, a bowl and an egg beater;
These things belong to every cake eater.
Flour, sugar, butter and eggs,
it all goes straight to my jiggly legs.

As your ingredients are mixed into a batter,
I think of how this will only make me fatter.
Fill up the cake tin and put it in the oven.
I’d rather eat you than have me some lovin’.

You’re better when you’re chocolate, but then again, what isn’t?
I check the oven again to see if you’ve risen.
I know some people don’t like you when you’re rich,
but don’t worry, dear cake. These friends I shall ditch.

To try and quell my growing impatience,
I head off in search of decorations.
I think of my second birthday as I walk around the house,
of that magical year when Mum made you look like Minnie Mouse.
First someone puts candles in you and ruins your icing,
then they stick a knife in and begin their dicing.
I eat you and you taste magical, my dear cake.
It’s totally worth the belly ache.

Mmm. Cake.

I would like a bite of that donut

Work has been quite interesting since last Friday. Sometimes when you’re mentally and physically exhausted, your mind starts to wander. You start to find things funny that wouldn’t otherwise be funny. And most important of all, you start to have conversations that you probably shouldn’t have with your manager, eg. whether or not my month of single-ness is directly related to the fact that my wrist injury has finally started to heal (This is purely coincidence. I promise).

After that thrilling discussion, the topic of conversation moved into a dangerous area. The area of ‘which regular customers do you find attractive?’ Many workplaces have a codeword that you use to inform other staff members that there is a particularly attractive individual that they need to come and look at right effing now. Ours is ‘donut.’ But we would only ever point out random customers, not our dear beloved faithfuls.

It was surprising how quickly and easily I slipped back into the single woman mindset where you walk into a room and instantly rank every male in order of… well… yeah.* Point is, I’d been making a conscious effort to flirt with these ‘donuts’, but since baristas are flirty in general (flirting is how you get tips, and we spend our tips on bacon. I will gladly flirt for bacon), I don’t think they’ve noticed.

So our workplace discussion led to this revelation: We’ve been flirting with the same three donuts.

This was unacceptable. This was war. This needed to be settled, and since we’re both mature adults we decided that the only logical solution was a fight to the death (it was either that or rock/paper/scissors, but that’s for the weak). We prepared for our battle by engaging in threatening Facebook taunts:

Then when Monday morning came around, by some spectacular coincidence, we both appeared to have left our weapons on the train.

Things we know about the donuts at the root of our conflict:
They drink coffee
They are very attractive
…do… do I need a third? Surely this is enough.


*Appreciating the scenery doesn’t make you a sex fiend. It’s not until you start touching the scenery against its will that you become a sex fiend.

What I’ve learned in the two weeks I’ve owned a smart phone

1. Smudgy fingerprinty touch screens are not made for people with obsessive compulsive tendencies. I spend more time trying to clean the screen than actually using the phone and have, on more than one occasion, used my knuckle instead of my fingertip to avoid smudges.

2. People who get out of bed at 4am do not benefit from being able to access the current temperature. You would think I’d learn from my mistakes, but I am a curious bastard.

3. Words with Friends should come with a warning about its addictiveness.

4. Words with Friends should come with a warning about its ability to make you want to want to stab a stranger in the face.

5. Words with Friends makes my phone do a vibratey alerty thingy when it’s my turn, and yes, I will wake up and deal with it in the middle of the night.

6. Getting a HTC instead of an iPhone makes nerds think I’m the shizz.

7. Auto correct makes your friends think you're rather odd, and is truly the devil.

8. It’s scary that Google knows where I am at all times. I was already paranoid, I don’t need this.

9. Having access to a decent camera means I will photograph all kinds of pointless crap then put it on Facebook and make my friends look at it.

10. I can’t delete the racist jokes my slightly racist friend sends me on occasion.

11. I can Google things to prove to people that no matter what we’re arguing about, I’m always right. Always.

12. I found out yesterday there are books on there. Actual books. And I’ve even heard of most of them.

13. I don’t care what anyone says, the game Teeter is impossible past level 29.

14. Despite having an addictive personality and zero willpower, I somehow managed to avoid downloading Angry Birds. For now.

15. People make fun of me less now (about my phone, anyway).

16. Seriously. The fingerprints. I’m not coping.

17. I still don’t really know how to use a smart phone.

Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

If you haven’t read last week’s blog, go do that now, because this here be a sequel!

After last week’s blog, a certain someone decided to break his vow of silence towards me and said he’d be happy to talk if I wanted to. There was a lot of stuff I was confused about, and I needed some kind of reassurance that he was a good guy who just made some mistakes, something along the lines of ‘Sorry I lied to you and treated you like you were something I stepped in. I handled the whole thing really badly, and you didn’t deserve that.’ Sadly, this was not the result I got. Sorry? No, just selfish and capable of mass dickheadery (you’ve been using that word this week, haven’t you? Of course you have!). It turned out that ‘I’m happy to talk to you’ meant ‘I’m happy to talk to you on Facebook chat as long as you agree with everything I say and as soon as you start asking questions that I don’t have a pre-prepared bullshit answer to, I’m going to tell you I have to leave and delete you from Facebook. Because I’m classy like that.’ So those questions I said I was never going to get an answer to will forever remain unanswered. But the good news is I can listen to Adele again. I realised that Someone Like You doesn’t relate to my situation at all, not unless you replace the line ‘I wish nothing but the best for you’ with ‘I hope you get VD.’ Good luck to him. As if he’s ever going to find another girl with my wicked drawing talents. My manager, who gave me the lovely piece of advice about having pizzas delivered to his house, informed me that if you order from the Dominos website they will let you pay cash upon delivery. I think the ultimate revenge there would be the fact that Dominos pizza tastes like balls. Here’s how our Monday morning shift panned out: I can get pretty revenge-y, but never the ‘I can’t find a pulse’ kind of revenge-y. Also, I’m gonna be sOOper nice to that chick from now on.

This afternoon I was stuck at the traffic lights belting out the words to Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know, from her greatest hits CD that I felt the need to purchase on Sunday and take everywhere with me ever since, when I decided that she was truly one of the great poets of our generation. Then I decided my brain had officially given up on me and I needed to seek help immediately. I found this help at the bottom of a bag of potato chips.
What have we learned? Some people suck. Some people can’t admit when they’ve done something wrong. Some people don’t care if they hurt someone else as long as it means they get what they want. But we’ve also learned that some people are none of those things. Good friends, good chips, and Alanis Morisstte compilation CDs can lift anyone’s mood. And I have a lollipop in my mouth right now, so life is good. Gosh darn it.

Modern Romance

(100 points to anyone who got the Yeah Yeah Yeahs reference. You can have those points. They're yours to do with what you wish. High five!)

Apologies for the lack of blog last week. I was planning to do it Friday afternoon, but on Thursday night, much to my surprise, I got my heart smashed into a million pieces by the only guy I’ve ever really loved. Needless to say I was struggling a tad on Friday. To add insult to injury, he chose to do this on a night when I had to get up for work at 4:00 the next morning. Via Skype. Because some people are classy like that.

Here’s how my sleepless night panned out:
10:00pm

1:00am
4:00am (aka ‘time to get up, fool’)

I got to work just before 6:00 with glazed and bloodshot eyes, looking like somewhat of a stoner, and told my manager what had happened, so she wouldn’t think I was a stoner. It was at this point I started to tear up again and had to go hide in the toilets for a while. When I came back I said that I’d be fine as long as we didn’t talk about it or play anything by Adele. She offered up this mature piece of advice:
Her: ‘Get a bunch of pizzas delivered to his house.’
Me: ‘But he’s in Sydney.’
Her: ‘So call a pizza shop in Sydney.’
So much wisdom.

My customer service skills were somewhat below average that morning. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not amazing at the best of times, but I can usually keep my fake smile on. Last Friday, I had absolutely no tolerance whatsoever for what I like to call ‘dickheadery’ (meaning: the act of being a dickhead).

Yeah. Inanimate objects can be dickheads too.

So that sucked balls. And it still sucks balls. I’ve got questions that I know I’ll never get an answer to, but on Tuesday, I woke up and I didn’t feel sick anymore. The whole experience has just reminded me that I’ve got an amazing family, wonderful friends, and a great ass. And isn’t that all a girl really needs in life?