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?