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.