I'm not dead (yet)

It’s been a long time between drinks (blog drinks, not actual drinks. Actual drinks have been going ok) and I’m sorry. Mostly it’s because of laziness, but I also have the following excuses. I have been busy:

Trying to sell my book (which you can get here by the way…).

Trying to finish my school work.

Freaking out about that fact that in less than two months I have to go be lonely in New York, which is now under water thanks to a stOOpid storm.

Helping a friend stalk an attractive man.

Helping a friend drink.

And thinking about the big issues.

LOOK AT MY BOOK! I HAVE A BOOK! BOOK!

GAAAAAAAAAAH!

After a massive amount of blood, sweat and tears (mostly tears), the book-ified version of this blog is now available to buy and keep and love forever. If you click on the little link below, it will take you to the place where you can begin the emotional journey that is book ownership.

http://au.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3560026

Thanks heaps to everyone who has been reading this thing. I hope you're all still laughing.

Much love,
Lauren

What happens when I try to work on my novel

Wake up in the morning with determination and good intentions.

Open Microsoft Word.

Take a well deserved coffee break to celebrate my opening of Microsoft Word.

Come back to the computer. Write twenty words.

Have a three hour long lunch/Buffy break to celebrate my genius.

Return to the computer. Reread my twenty words. Think they’re shite.

Do a blog instead.

Curse of the food hole

Food. We love it. We consume it every day. It’s either bad for us and delicious, or good for us and like licking a piece of cardboard that a sweaty monkey has rubbed all over itself. Then set fire to. Then taken the ashes and peed on them. Then served it to you as soup. And of course you took the soup because the monkey was dressed as a waiter and that’s how monkeys get you - they wear people clothes and it’s so funny that you forget you can’t trust them.

The issue with deliciousness is that once you get the taste for it, it’s hard to stop shoving things in your mouth (by ‘things’ I mean food things, stop thinking that other thing you were thinking). ‘I’ll only eat one Tim Tam’ turns into an empty packet. ‘I’ll just have a light dinner’ turns into the pain of trying to digest an entire dead animal. ‘I’ll just have a quick sandwich’ turns into a quick sandwich followed by an apple and some 2 minute noodles and a bigger sandwich and some chips and eating Nutella off anything else you could find. Generally a spoon. Or your finger.

This anti-will-power phenomenon is something I like to call ‘opening the food hole.’ It’s like opening the floodgates, except the gates are your mouth and the water is fried chicken.

For many years I excused my behaviour with the old standards ‘but think of the starving children in Africa!’ even though me having another piece of cake was never going to help a starving child in Africa, and ‘I better eat it before it expires’ when the expiry date was months away. I thought I was doing fine until late last year when I finally decided to do something about the couple of kilos I gained in Europe. I came up with a brilliant idea: I was only going to eat when I was hungry.

This plan lasted longer than I expected. I dropped two dress sizes. I had to buy a lot of new clothes. I can walk up stairs now. Well, some stairs. More stairs than before. Stairs are hard. But recently, I started to slip. I allowed donuts back into my life, and they brought their friends with them. Their cake-y, chip-y and deep fried-y friends.

I’m trying. I really am. My jeans still fit, but I’m constantly faced by the struggle of working around baked goods and having lunch once a week with that friend who never finishes her food.

It’s not my fault. I blame the deliciousness.

All by myself

I’ve been on my own in a rather large house since the 25th of April. Here’s why I should never be left alone for long periods of time without proper adult supervision:

I’m not good at killing spiders.
There’s no one to vent to but the stuffed animals.
I refuse to unclog the shower drain because the hair monster smells. Bad. Ignoring the dishes doesn’t make them go away.

I have no self control when it comes to food.

FAQ part trois

Hey, Lauren! How’s your novel coming along?
Yeah, alright. I wrote almost 400 words three weeks ago.

That’s… that’s not a lot.
It’s not like I haven’t been writing, I’ve just been busy working on other things.

Such as?
I wrote a pretty kick ass greeting in a birthday card last weekend.

Ok…
I’ve also been responsible for some rather amusing text messages.

Right. I heard you’re living on your own at the moment, how’s that working out?
There’s a hair-monster living in my shower drain that I’m too much of a princess to remove, so now I play this game I like to call ‘Can I finish showering before the bathroom floods?’ So far I’m winning.

Uh huh. And how many times have you had ice cream for breakfast this week?
Not once!

Does 'not once' mean 'twice'?
No.

Three times?
Maybe.

I was looking at some of your older blogs this morning. They’re great. Why aren’t you funny anymore?
Shuddup. You write something better, genius.

Ok, I will.
Good.

Good.
I look forward to reading it.

I look forward to you reading it.
And I look forward judging you, Judge-y McJudgeface.

That was mature. How old are you?
How old are you?

I don’t know. I don’t exist. You made me up.
Oh yeah.

You’re a strange lady.
Your mother’s a strange lady.

Good luck with the hair-monster.
Good luck with your FACE.

So... then what happened?

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sunshine and dried up all the rain,
so the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.

This is just a pattern, he never learns from his mistakes.
All these pointless antics just make his wife’s head ache.
Like his gambling problem or that pyramid scheme,
or the time he woke up naked with half a football team.

The question is; why does he want to stay out of the house?
And the answer he will tell you is his really annoying spouse.
She’s mean, she’s cold, she’s a little bit ditzy,
then there’s the fact she calls him ‘Itsy Bitsy’.

She puts their 200 kids to bed while he’s at the pub.
He returns home to her angry hubbub.
Itsy turns back to the door, ready to walk.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she says. ‘We need to talk.’

‘You’ve been talking to your ex on Facebook, I only just found out.’
‘I don’t have time for this,’ he says. ‘I’m gonna go climb the spout.’
She throws a glass vase and yells ‘How dare you walk out that door?’
He says, ‘My dear, to be honest, I’d rather climb up that spout than yours.’