Things I am average at no. 290: Providing

My housemate and I purchased steak the other day. I’ve been feeling a little under-meated of late and the sheer size of the mammoth porterhouses selected had me significantly giddy. I chose a day when I knew several people might be home so that we could all enjoy the meat planks and the marvellous assortment of freshly sauteed and gorgeously presented seasonal vegetables that I would have lovingly prepared.

This is what happened after work today.

Got steaks out of freezer, placed on bench. Left the room.

Came back ten minutes later, looked at steaks, contemplated pizza.

Looked more at steaks, still irritatingly frozen and completely uncooked

Sat on bed, whinged aloud about steaks.

Finally opened pack, put steaks on plate and put in microwave. I am Martha.. someone.

Despondently sipped a cider by the sink wishing a housemate would come home and tell me how best to construct a meal/construct a meal for me

Success! Josh home and roped into cooking steaks on BBQ! Things looking up.

Huge steaks still defrosting

Josh is cleaning the BBQ and I am now sitting on the floor of kitchen imagining a teeny race of people who might worship at the foot of our White Pages stack

This is why I shouldn’t have children.

 

Note: while writing, Josh made the salad and politely didn’t tell me to get off the floor.

Things I do less well than other people no 3*

Manage to make headphones ‘work’ for me.

I listen to music sort of all the time. Fortunately headphones exist so I don’t have to be as unpopular as the wankers who listen to their Rhianna or LMAO streaming tinnily from their phones on the tram OR suffer the crippling back problems that surely inflict all who popularized the boombox back in the eighties.

Currently I roll a pink set of $20 sony’s or something like that. They’ve got those rubbery little inner ear bits which does make listening a much more enjoyable and more-likely-to-get-me-killed-by-fixies experience BUT they will insist on sliding casually and incrementally out of my ears with beyond irritating regularity.

So as I strut along to the Black Keys or Band of Skulls or S Club 7 I also have to squish the ear-buds back in every twenty metres or so. This as I’m sure you can understand is exponentially more complicated if I have anything at all in my hands to hold whilst squishing. So I’m rocking along, minding my own business, when I feel the tell-tale tickle of my stupid buds wriggling out to the cusp of my ear where they’re held in place by only the slightest amount of touch and a good feeling and will linger for almost as long as it will take to lift my hand from pocket or shift my coffee to the other hand and then fall merrily away. This is even more hateful than the stupidly intricate knots they manage to weave themselves into whilst sitting quietly in a bag (HOW DO THEY DO THAT).

Also it seems I must wear clothes embedded with series of hooks, snags and clever little wire pinchy parts because with the slightest schaffe or flail or regular arm or head or neck movement headphones are yanked violently from my ears leaving me outraged but impotent in the face of the certainty of its happening again.

I feel like other people are able to walk and wear these things and have it not be a huge friggin deal. Like, they manage to make it down the road without grunting in frustration and jamming the buds back in their effing ears for the eff-hundredth time, or swearing brutally as one errant bud swings glibly to their waist, inevitably pulling their twin down to join the fun. Am I so uncoordinated that I am magically transmuting my awkwardity to inanimate objects via spazmosis now? Yes. It seems so. This would explain why my gloves keep falling out of my pockets.

*this is one of the grossly outdated ones I mentioned a couple of posts ago. I now have huge fuck off yellow noise cancelling, ear owning ones that have rendered all previously mentioned issues redundant, have excellent sound quality, keep my ears toasty in the icy Melbourne wind and have also given me a healthy dose of “hey look at me, I’m the shit”.

Things I do less well than other people no 2

Not get thoroughly and unhealthily attached to people I find on talk shows and somehow fall in love with and who are, for all intents and purposes, famous.

I wanted to watch videos of Catherine Tate and Dave Tennant this one time, because of course I did, so I googled and was rewarded with a clip of the both of them on the Graham Norton show. I’ve watched him before and find him quite the hilarion (I’m trying it out. Shut up). Also on the show was Josh Groban, fine, and this dude with dimples and a fantastically dry wit called Jon Richardson. I instantly was a wee bit smitten and so as we do when we like a boy, bought his book from the Internet without haste or really knowing a lot about it or whether it was actually any good. Two weeks later it arrived and three days after that I was in love with the man.

He’s fucking brilliant, right, but also, quite human, quite insane and sort of manages to deal with his problems with the state of the world by hating on it a little.

Such was the state of my obsession with Jon Richardson that I began the thought processes necessary to a. meet him or b. become a weird, sad stalker lady with spaghetti stains on my moo-moo. I was legitimately believing that something would be made better by our getting to meet.

The most worrying part -my firm and unwavering knowledge that we would be like, sooo perfect together aside-  was when I tweeted him.

Oddly, he did not tweet back. There’s probably a back-log of single women who’ve found him on the YouTubes and who have come the realisation that they are what he needs to fix him make him happy that he has to work through, so I’ll give it some more time.

Side note: I managed to work this into a half-true performance in the style of a blog entry by a sad lonely woman about her meeting comedian Jon Richardson (except she didn’t she made it up because she’s crazy) for a subject at uni. Here’s to life imitating art.

Things I do less well than other people no 1

Actually when I have a blog, keep said blog in any sort of state even passing vaguely by what could be called “regular” or “interesting”. 

I haven’t posted in roughly twelve years, it seems. A lot has happened (a lot for me, so like, I’ve gone interstate and seen a concert) and a lot has been thought, arranged into sentences and then not posted at all. Mainly cos I’m lame, but also because I’ve been a touch busy and also watching a lot of Gilmore Girls, which I suppose could come under the first excuse.

I started writing this hilarious list of things I’m crap at (because innovation is for chumps and Steve Jobs) and that was several months ago and so now the majority of my witful anecdotes are horribly outdated. But, I am low on ideas and big on promoting my own inadequacy, so here they come anyway, enjoy.

Sorry once again for my tardiness.

This is not a diet blog part two: How I cried in the kitchen and lived to tell the tale

I have an awful habit of comparing myself to other people.  I do it with near obsessive constancy. I compare my writing ability to anyone who as much as composes a sentence on Facebook about their baby’s hair, I compare how I look in a t-shirt, I compare funniness, ease of conversation, walking ability, nonchalance, taste in literature, I’m not really picky. You do something that I also might want to maybe do, and chances are I’ve wondered if you do it better.  I have another awful habit, that of being so obscured in my vision by others achievements (or indeed, basic daily functions) that I become convinced incrementally, every time someone does something* that I am the most stupidly average person in the world. That by comparison everything I do must be fairly shit. I have a third awful habit. This one I think I’m only just learning I do (my friends will be face-palming in their lack of surprise but I’m pretty slow, alright) as I watch myself tell me I’m probably naff anyway, all the time. Here’s how it goes:

  1. I do something/think about doing something.
  2. I assume it is/will be shit.
  3. I make verbal pronouncements to that affect.
  4. I hereby save anyone who would have been disappointed/angry/embarrassed at my efforts  the bother of saying so, having cleverly circumvented their criticisms with my own.

Hahahaha. I am the most nefarious mastermind of all time.

It’s not like I spend my time crying about my lack of philosophy skills or not-quite-right skinny legs or am completely unaware of any mote of skill I might possess (my playlists, I kid you not, are award-winning**), I just am super good at pre-empting the sad faces I feel I’m sure to receive by trying my bestest at some stuff and very aware of people that are good at stuff that I dig. Which is normal. Maybe.

To whit:

I read Marieke Hardy’s book You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead (several months ago now, I’ve been brewing this for a little while) and I dug the shit out of it.

I had assumed the book would be funny and shoot-from-the-hip-honest, but to find it soft and elegant in parts and so bleedingly straightforward you wanted to call her up and say “thanks for being so sweet I’m also a right spaz” was a little unexpected. I found it totally mesmerizing and obviously hilarious.

After I read it I was a little desolate. She is just… so… good. AND she’s only a few years older than me AND she’s been writing columns for everyone for ever AND she’s written a TV show AND started the successful and entirely whimsical and lovely “Women of Letters” thing AND NOW A BOOK.

I began to resent my life. How have I ended up this bland and irritatingly unprovocative woman, at only five years Ms Hardy’s junior? How am I not writing columns for some such over a glass of wine or laughing loudly in public places with my roughly-the-same-amount- of-famous artist/writer/musician chums? I blame my friends. Why, as a middle class Australian attending a private Christian school I could not have had the decency to fall in with a crowd of no good, up all night, lets do whatever the hell we want, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt types is beyond me. How’s a girl supposed to accumulate ex’s like empties and anecdotes that would make your nostrils sting when the gang she hangs out with is PG at the most?

I at several points during and after reading thought “OK. We’ll just have to drink a shit load more. It’s not too late for that at least”.

I was also at several points during and after reading, when my disgust at my stubborn refusal to be anything but a regular, non-alcoholic person had stepped out to have a smoke, convinced that Marieke and I would be magical and life-long friends, should we ever meet (you see, in a secret cavern in my mind lurks the stupidly confident Carlynne, the one who still believes she will one day appear as a telepath with mad fighting skills in an indie superhero flick and who fortunately (or not, depending on viewpoint) takes over when I’m on the dance floor. Now, having read Marieke Hardy’s wonderful book, the weeny, inner, vim filled Carlynne cheerily tells me that one day, Marieke will stumble across this blog, be both stunned and chuffed by my skillful wordplay and humble affectations of hero worship and ring her publisher to tell them they’ve got another hit on their hands. She (inner sociopath Carlynne), was responsible for my 11 year old “Mark Gosseler’s limo breaking down out the front of my house and he has to wait for a tow but I’m not phased by his celebrity or blindingly white smile and he’s really impressed by that so we fall in love” fantasy and I suspect this one will be as unrealized) but mostly it was “aaaiii- my blinding lack of publishable material! Woe” and the gnashing of metaphorical teeth etc.

Now you see I write a little bit, but my only semi regular outlet (what you’re viewing. Gorgeous isn’t it) is a blog dedicated to how undeniably pedestrian my efforts are. Also note that I was here comparing myself to a woman who has actually attempted to do things that I’ve never tried. So of course I haven’t had the same level of success, publishers outside of my brain don’t ring unknown bloggers and ask permission to publish them. But by reading and bemoaning how much better she is, I got to remind myself that I’d probably never have her level of success anyway just to keep drilling the point home. You dig?

This is obviously all very amusing and Carlynne-like, but actually the last couple of months of the year, despite my powerhouse 30-is-still-alright-with-me performance got a little shit. I was both busy and exhausted, I was in the throes of a bout of loneliness to rival any I’d had for a few years that was kicked off, unfortunately, by a really lovely wedding and only exacerbated by the hideous timing of my first viewing of Jane Eyre, I had thrown a sort of unsuccessful weekend party a couple of weeks ago, I had put on weight and felt fat and inelegant most of the time, I doubted myself in social situations; I was for once, almost convinced that what I say about myself a lot is true.

It all culminated one night when faced with icing a mountain of gingerbread that I’d rather ambitiously constructed the night before and that refused to be iced either well or expediently in my bursting into tears over biscuits cut into the shapes of trees, bells and ninjas. Not a high point.

I went home to Adelaide shortly after and got a lot of rest, which was what was dearly needed, and also a lot of thinking time. I began to breathe again and found myself at the beginning of a new year, rather hopefully musing on the changes I wished I could make.

Wrapped in the protective cocoon of my mum’s house, far away from most responsibilities and the pressures I’d placed on myself, I decided that as no one else could claim to be in charge of making my life more palletable to me other than… me, that I would seize the dubious power of the Yule-Tide and make the new year an opportunity to be better. And not in a “you’re shit- be less shit” way.

Firstly I realised that being so thoroughly convinced of my shittitude was very, very unhealthy. I would need to work on that. Secondly, if I want to be healthier, in a physical sense, then I can choose to do that! I am a capable, mobile woman! If I want to eat better and exercise more, than by jove what’s stopping me? Huzzah! And finally, if I want to be a writer, then I probably need to fucking write! There’s no conceivable point lying around moaning about how successful someone else is when you don’t even update your blog regularly. Being good at something has to be worked on. Surely. So I resolved to be better, and while I was at it, better at being me.

And so, 2012 began, and with it a slightly more updated version of Carlynne.

More on that later…

Ps. I was planning on writing this closer to the start of the new year, but luckily enough, I’m hideously disorganized and have therefore had time to heal even more thoroughly than I did in my post-horrid-times time.

Pps. I honestly don’t write this stuff in the hope that people will read and feel sorry for “poor badly self-esteemed me”. I really do find this the best way of processing my thoughts, need the drive of a published medium to push me to write and also figure if someone else who thinks they’re naff reads it then maybe they’ll find something better to do with their time than think they’re naff.

*It has to be something I enjoy/feel is important. I am in no way envious of any athletes, sports players or producers of dub-step, reggae or trance music.

**Of course I’m kidding. There are no awards for playlists. Or are there?! Oh my gosh. If there are, that’s weird but please nominate me. I’ll enjoy another chance to be self depreciating.

The Sound of My Gentle Failure or The Art of My Gentle Revolution part 2: the reckoning

I posted a list a little over a year ago, of things I would attempt to do before I turned the “give up on your teen whims” age of 30. Below are the results. Forgive me.

 

1. Start dancing lessons– nope. Thought about it a lot, even googled things, but not one. Sigh.

2. Practice self control (particularly as regards eating, spending, wasting and watching)- look. I lost this one for a while. Nearly a year, actually. But, in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been controlling my appetite for the junk food, walking to work and walking other places too. This counts. Money I’m still bad at. Sigh.

3. Bake a Pie– HA! Hahahahaha! I baked TWO! In your face 30!!

Pie the first- pear tart; lumpy yet satisfying
Pie the second- Pecan; possibly ill-advised yet flavoursome

4. Start learning French– je ne comprends pas? Je suis fatigue. Yes these are phrases from a learn French iPhone app. But, if someone French was to ask me- in English- if I would like more food or the cheque, I could respond with l’addition s’il vous plait. Counts.

5. Save money-…. cough. Oh GOD why am I so crap? In my defense, a lot of stuff came up this year that was somewhat unexpected and further to this, I am really really shit with money. I did buy plane tickets to a whole other country for next year, so I’d better figure it out soon.

6. Read at least half of the books currently unread on my shelf and do not purchase new ones until that has happened Secure second bookshelf and make every effort to purchase every book I like, love and think possibly looks interesting or pretty to fill said bookshelf (important caveat, books can be purhased for me)– Doneski.

7. Watch less TV –hmmm. Tricky. I did watch less TV shows actually on the TV set. And I was a whole hell of a lot busier than I have ever been before so I’m going to assume this means I had less time to watch stuff and call this a check.

8. Take more chances – why do I do this? Stupid vague and inspirational goals. How is this quantifiable? Well, I talked to boys I liked, I got my hair cut very short on one side, I submitted pieces of writing to the uni mag Farrago, I wrote honestly and sometimes embarrassingly on my blog, overtook large trucks on a highway and allowed myself to be awkwardly auctioned off for charity. Done? Sure.

9. Give one night a week to writing– straight up, didn’t happen. I did write more… This is something I need to get amongst. Onto it, accountability matrix.

10. Walk daily– Yes! …iiin the last two or three weeks. But I did it before I turned so, counts. Ha.

11. Talk less and listen more– I sort of have this covered on account of my job, although it can be startlingly easy to get through a day at the drop in without having a decent convo. I try to make listening a priority (but could still do with some more work on the “I have the attention span of a spaniel and am frequently caught out not actually listening to my friends” front), and I am finding I’m enjoying it more. I still talk a lot, though. A lot, a lot.

12. Be increasingly comfortable around new people– I think that it’s easier to feel other people will think you’re a freak, if you think you’re a freak. And so conversely, if you git on down with your own unparalleled you-ness and how good that is, then you don’t mind other people copping a load of you. You dig? I’m so at the top of my game (still a ways to go before I’m channeling Beyonce style diva confidence (frankly, I think it would make people uncomfortable (just cos, they’re not used to me being a douche(in that way) and it would definitely come out like that))) in terms of liking Carlynne, which is nice. A few things have fallen into place mentally and that’s really helped, and so I think whilst I can still be intimidated when I meet new people, particularly those of the good looking persuasion, mostly I’m of the opinion that if you’re going to assume someone will think something about you, you may as well assume they’ll think you’re a fucking rad-ball. Or something.

13. Sing frequently– oh man. All the time (In my house, obviously (Possibly to the irritation of my housemates (although my latest, Joe (so excellent) sings actually, ALL THE TIME, ALL THE TIME, which is great and means he can’t be angry about mine, which happens significantly less than his))). I also tried to be put on the singy roster at church, which happened once, and was fun. How good are multi brackets.

14. Take more photos– I took so many photos. Ludicrous, annoying amounts. And I stopped doing my photo a day business, but then I missed it so I started again. More on this later.

15. Catch a barramundi– Alas. I caught no fish this year. I did, however, catch several colds, at least one flu, gastro, and several people’s drifts.

16. Do not use cynicism as a crutch– I feel the annoyingly positive side of me has grown in power and fluffiness this year. Perhaps my cynicism was in my hair, and the shorter it gets, the brighter the bright side. Or, I’ve just been a little happier. –side note, Carlynne, the dark side of the split personality that inhabits my frame, wishes you to know that I am still in the possession of a very healthy portion of cynicism. I just don’t choose to assume the worst when I can about things like religion, other people, and where possible, myself. Still working on assumptions about the state of the government, the state of the environment, certain activists I know, and one of my parents. We’re only human.

17. Throw out one thing a month– yes! (does this count if it was done like, in several big piles scattered throughout the year that surely added up to more than 12 things) (I think it does)

18. Buy clothing and footwear only from vintage/recycled shops where possible– eep. Mostly, yes. Totally beautiful dresses, MIND BLOWING jumpers, even perfect jeans (op-shop holy grail). So much purchased from oppies that I had to impose trade embargoes on myself and Savers. There were exceptions, though, which I feel I was mostly driven to by fat days and wedding attendances. I’m sorry. Honestly.

19. Understand what it means to grow up – I believe I covered this in one of a series of self indulgent word vomits.

20. Eat at this allegedly fantastic Japanese place my mate Brad went mental over– Bam. With two days to go- locked down.

21. Make my blog look a bit nicer- woo hoo! I think it does. I don’t know about the blog fanciness, alright? It’s not my bag. But I gave it a red hot go.

22. Judge less– again. Judge less? Less what? Judge who less? It’s such a subjective, cloudy thing. Look, I generally think that if one of us is shit, then we’re all shit. Because you know and I know, all the shitty things we’ve done and are capable of doing, deep down. So, if I get to walk around and not be kicked in the face or spat on or sneered at or sent to prison or whatever, then I don’t think that I want to do those things to other people. I think I put this in because sometimes I can get all neggo about Christians and socialists, and ladies who wear leggings as pants. And I still do, way more often than I should. But I’m trying not to, and I’m thankfully arriving more often at the conclusion that maybe everyone is at least a little broken, and that compassion doesn’t actually cost me anything, and that everyone can do what the hell they like and it’s not up to me to make decisions about their pants (but seriously, leggings are essentially an undergarment, I’m telling you this for your own good).

23. Send more postcards, inc’ to people I don’t know

I violated several postcards with several cheerful and possibly inane messages several times, then left them to be taken by other folk. Counts.

24. Talk to people I recognise instead of acting like I don’t see them– this has also become easier because of my work, and the fact that I spend a lot of time near where I work. If I see Mr Talks to Himself in the street, or Mrs Smells of Pee, it’s flat out not nice if I pretend I don’t. Plus they’re fun to talk to. And even when they’re not, when I’m tired and I don’t want to “work” it’s easier. I don’t every time, for every person I know, but mostly, and with peeps from other scenes, I say hi.

25. Spend more time chatting with my Grandma– this one is a little rough. She died last month and one of the reasons that is shit for me is because of this list and the fact that I obviously registered a need to do this because maybe she wouldn’t be around forever, and then I didn’t do it. The most I learnt about my Grandma, I think ever, I learnt in the week following her death from talking to my family and watching them bury their mother.

26. Buy film for my polaroid and use it – I tried. It’s sooooo expensive, I just could not justify $40 for like, 8 photos. But, I did buy one of those cool oldie looking plastic cameras and some film to get developed and I will be doing that a lot from now on. Sah Indie.

27. Go out dancing at least once a month– Probs not once a month, but, I have shook what my mama gave me on the dance floor well over 12 times this year at least three different clubs (six or seven times), three houses (three or four times), three different weddings and once, three times in the same weekend.

28. Develop less irritating and useless crushes – don’t even get me started.

29. Attempt to make dolma – just.. just move on.

30. Learn to play that Turin Brakes song/ any song on guitar– what? What do you want from me?! Guh.

31. Figure out how to get around hating on church in general – Bam-a-lam. Covered a little in this entry, and only progressing really. Still a lot about traditional church that doesn’t gel with me, a lot I find extraneous and irrational, but I like mine. Despite the fact that it sort of doesn’t suit me at all. They’re good people, my church.

32. Get to know family I don’t keep in touch with– please to refer to overly long blog post here.

33. Jump out of a plane bed– done! I’m sometimes a lot better at mornings now. Sort of.

34. Take an interest in the world both around me and across oceans and not hide from the truth of it – this actually really happened. This was the year I took larger interest. Fortunately I know a lot of passionate, intelligent and interested people who help me learn and stay involved. My interest has only so far extended to some ABC watching, some reading of news articles and some protest attending, and what I don’t know about could still fill a lot of scarily large books, but I’m not content to not think about thing any more, despite the fact that it’s a giant cesspool of awfulness and mean people and oil-spills and greed out there (I don’t really believe that. Now more than ever I think, I KNOW there is the capacity for GREAT LOVE within people. Yes).

35. Talk to strangers– like a dinner, baby. Plane guy, Irish guy, old lady on tram 1, Irish guy 2, drunk people on street, drunk guy at pub, guy on tram who looked like a bearded Dylan Moran (Oh Lord), old lady on tram 2, drunk Canadians x 2, tram driver, several ladies in ladies bathrooms (you know how that goes), girls on dance floor, dude on tram 2, many café staff and I’m assuming several retail assistants in several workplaces of theirs.

36. Knit things– two parts of scarvey things later, I’m a knitter again. Getting better too. I want to branch into crocheting now. But I won’t like, make a dramatic list about it or nothing.

37. Be kind – who knows. God I hope so. I feel like I like people a lot, and am fortunate enough to keep on meeting them. It’s often hardest to be kind to yourself and those close to you though, and I’m still working on that.

And this of course is the end. I could ad several things to the list that I did do this year, but it’s late and I have even bored myself.

So the tally stands at:

Carlynne- 27 or 25 or 26.5 or something;

Doing Things-10 or so.

Victory is MIIIIINE.

 

thanks for listening. I promise I’ll never do this again.


Things I’m Average at No. 7: Being in any real way a “grown up”.

I am ageing.

I know this comes as a shock, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am awkwardly side stepping out of my twenties now, something I’d so infrequently thought about when reading the Babysitters Club or fatting my way through high school. I’m courting age, something that is outside of my control, moving stubbornly alongside me (or standing stock still as I run in stupid meaningless circles around it, depending on your perspective) stuck to my skin like a fungus (ew?). It’s a hand perpetually on my arm, blah blah blah, ooh inevitability, blah blah, happening to us all blah bliddy blah.

It’s the circle of life blah.

But- despite the continuous and unpermissioned propelling toward my grave, my adult self has, in an alarming display of self sabotage, largely refused to play and is sullenly sitting in a tree house, batting half dressed barbie’s heads together and muttering about how “it’s a dumb game anyway”.

I grow older, but not up. While I inhabit the body of a 29 year old, my old skool, puerile habits rear their heads with shocking frequency. Honestly if they continue to just let people grow older without any sort of standardised testing, there’s really no one to blame but the system.

Here’s what I mean.

I will continue to like boys

Boys, though. Like, why, when all other women over 25 started dating bankers and marrying and having children I completely missed the memo and thus am still mooning about, glaring at my phone, whining to my friends about how I just don’t knoooow and giggling over text messages, is of course beyond me. And, how many 21-23 year olds can I possibly meet, you know? A constant parade of kontiki aged males who go to uni and maybe shave a bit does not a mature, Austin-esque heroine make.

I will continue to giggle inappropriately

This guy in one of my classes last semester would insist on pointing out the surname of another girl in the class which was, unfortunately, Wang. I wanted to tell him to stop and that it was not cool, man, but I had to wait till I stopped snickering like a child first.

I will continue to be stunned that I have a job that carries any sort of actual responsiblity

Seriously. Who’s idea was this? I’m not like, endangering anyone, and some days I actually feel like I’m doing it well, but just the whole “do the things when they need to be done”, “best attend to those emails now”, “Oh I’ve got another meeting that night” thing is something that’s taking a lot of getting used to. It’s odd for a girl who’s used to filling her hours with a variety of dalliances with a variety of characters from a variety of fictional media and the assembling of an occasional sandwich. Very odd.

I will continue to throw my money away

I just love to spend money! Or more accurately, I just don’t care. I’ll just spend it. I shouldn’t go to brunch again, but I will, because I don’t care. I shouldn’t buy another stack of paperbacks from the second hand book store but I will, because I don’t care. I shouldn’t use my phone as a modem without pausing to think about the cost and then end up paying a $1300 bill. Whoops. Other people I’ve heard of or read about, they keep some of their money all together in a pile of some sort and sort of, save it, if you will. From the spending. Heroes.

I will continue to like candy

I gave up sugar for about two months. Then I started eating it again because my life is infinitely better when I can have the odd chocolate bar, gob stopper and bowl of vaguely sweetened breakfast cereal. I don’t know if I’m supposed to stop liking junk food at some point and move on to just nibbling daintily on olives and pesto or whatever but I just can’t see how that will happen without some sort of combined tongue/brain transplant. Presumably when I’m 40 I’ll get the package containing my new tastes in fashion, television and food along with my Opinions and Responsibility that got sent to the wrong address about five years ago. Then I’ll eat it.

And I will continue to HATE homework

Because it suuuuuucks sooo harrrd. I don’t WANT to research. And everyone knows it’s lame and whose idea was this anyway and no one ever says to smart people “prove you’re good by making a totally sweet sandwich or playlist” so how is it faaaair? Huff.

So… Done now.

Just wanted to get this all registered (you know, on the internet) before I’m actually a 30 year old. Ludicrous.

 

 

 

Things I’m average at no. 763: Being Academic

(I wrote this after assignment time around two months ago and was unable to finish due to shame induced blog amnesia so it’s a little out of date now. Here it is.)

 

I’m having essay regret. Not the regret that comes around every assessment time shaking its head saying “what the frick are you studying for anyway, you should have stayed stupid”, although I get that too, this regret is the regret that comes from handing in a piece of work you know is shoddy, you know is under researched, you know is basically a ramble of thoughts and words so loosely related to a topic they may as well have just brushed past it in the shops. I’ve handed in a pile of Arial fonted shite.

Oh God Oh God Oh God. Why.

Every time I think about this essay my mouth does this thing. It goes into a line, a thin tight line that pulls a little to the left. Like a wee little stroke of shame. My mouth is trying say “oh god oh god I can’t believe I handed that up oh god” but all that  is appropriate for most social occasions is the slight twitch.

Also, I liked my tutor. I don’t want him to think I’m a git. We had drinks together, he listened when I spoke, and now, inevetably he’ll read my essay and think “why in the hell is that seemingly intelligent girl handing in what is essentially a tenth grade book report?” Oh man.

You need skills to be good at this study thing, I guess. Time management and all that shit, but also, the ability to do it. To put down the remote, or the novel, or the table tennis bat (I don’t know) and turn to What You Need To Do and friggin DO IT. I have a very limited grasp of this skill. Even now, I’m on holidays and I’m not doing that right. I have books I want to read and stuff I want to write and I’m watching a shit load of Greys Anatomy because I am so crap at telling myself to fucking DO IT.

I honestly believe I have some undiscovered form of learning disability that manifests in a squirrels attention span, a large lump of brain play-dough that sits in front of a concept I need to grasp making it nigh on impossible and a near complete inability to express thoughts that I do understand.

And the thing is, is I did understand this. I listened to my tutor and read the books and got it but when it came time to get down.. holy shit. Everything broke and I submitted the academic equivalent of Twilight.

Oh God oh God.

Anyway, sorry to whinge. It’s not so bad. Luckily for me this grossly malformed learning gene hasn’t stopped me from memorising copious pop-song lyrics, hundreds of movie references and the way to the toilet. I’ll be fine.

Sigh.

 

how i suck at the sleeping, or things I’m average at no.87

Sleeping seems to be a sort of straight forward, normal person thing to do, along with breathing in and out, not falling off the earth and eating through your face. Generally at the end of the day people lay on a sort of comfortable soft version of the ground, with a squooshy softer thing under their heads and fall asleep, adding or subtracting ingredients like foot out of blanket, cuddable bear/unicorn/Jesus/partner.

The following is an account of how I do things.

V1. Scene: I am in bed, having felt very tired. I read till I can’t keep my eyes open any more.

Enter brain:

Brain: You are tired.

Me: Yup.

Brain: You should sleep now.

Me: Well, yes. Ha ha. That’s the idea. So…uh… G’night!

Brain: Night! … … Doo doo doo..

Me: Um. Is there something wrong?

Brain: Oh, heavens no. Just thinking. You sleep. Go on!

Me: O… k, night..

Brain: Oooh. What are you doing tomorrow again?

Me: University. I have TV and Popular Culture.

Brain: Oh Yeeeah! You didn’t do the readings for that did you?

Me: … no.

Brain: oooh. Hope that’s not a problem.. no, you know what? It won’t even matter. You’ll hear the lecture, so.. yeah. You’ll be fine.

Me:… ok.

Brain: So, what are you going to wear tomorrow?

Me: Oh my Lord.

Brain: I think it’s going to be warmish, so maybe a dress? Your red dress? Although.. it’s tight across your boobs. So maybe your black one? Although.. that is very short. So maybe your green one? That is so cute. Although.. you should probably shave your legs first. So you need to make sure you get up in time to do that. Ok?

Me: Sure. Whatever.

Brain (presumably lying on its stomach, twisting its hair around its finger with one leg kicking back and forth by now): You know, tomorrow, you should really hit the library and get some books. Really get going on those assignments. You always leave them till the last minute.

Me (glaring at pitch black ceiling): yeah. I know. I will. Just shut up.

Brain: Ok, ok! Don’t need to tell me twice… Do do doooo… hmmm…

Me (I utter a sigh of frustration that comes from my very soul): What. Do you. Want now.

Brain: Hhmmm? Me? Oh nothing. Just thinking about how much time you wasted today. You wasted a lot of time. A lot. A lot lot lot lot lot. Yeeeerp. A lot.

Me: Dude. I know. I’m sorry. I’ll do stuff tomorrow.

Brain (sounding considerably brighter): yeah! Cos tomorrow is a new day! Yay! Although, to be fair, you said that yesterday as well.

Me (sounding like I’ve ground my teeth into oblivion): Yeah, but tomorrow will be different, ok?

Brain: Wait a minute. Oh man. You’re not going to be able to get up are you? You’re going to sleep through uni again aren’t you?!

Me: What? No! Of course I’m going, if I can ever get to fucking-SLEEP!!

Brain: Oh, right. Ok. Say no more. I’ll be quiet as a mouse. Ssshhh. You sleep now.

Me: Ok! Good night!!

Brain: …

Me:…

Brain: Dude. Do you remember when you had that dream about the whirlwind of leaves that morphed into a faun and the faun had the upper torso of Ryan from the OC?! That shit was AWESOME!!

Me: … It was pretty cool.

…..

V2. Scene: My bed, around four in the morning. I am suddenly Awake. I am more Awake than I’ve ever been ever before in my life. I am aware of all things and a part of all things.

Me: what.. the hell..

Brain: MORNING!!

Me: oh.. dude.. What time is it?

Brain: I don’t know, but hey, you’re up! Ready to go?!

Me: .. I.. I just.. (checks time)

Brain: That was a weird party you were at in your dream. There’s not usually rollercoasters at parties, right?

Me: WHY AM I AWAKE? IT IS FOUR IN THE MORING!

Brain: Hmm? Oh I don’t know. Maybe the rooster next door or something. Anyway, about that dream, who was that guy? He was nice. Did you make him up?

Me: … I hate that effing rooster.

Brain: Maybe you should just get up, yeah? Make use of the early morning? You could write! Or go for a run!

Me: Are you high? If I get up now in fifteen minutes I’ll feel like I’ve died and I’ll sleep all day and I’ll never wake up again. And run?! Who did you think you’re talking to?

Brain: Fine, we don’t have to run, you could just-

Me: I’M GOING BACK TO SLEEP!

Brain: Ok, ok, geez. Calm down. No wonder you can never sleep properly. So uptight. … Hmmm… Do de doo…

Me: WHAT?!

Brain: Do you think it’s one rooster, or many roosters? What is a bunch of roosters called anyway? You should definately google that.

Me: I just.. I just hate you so much..

…..

V3. Scene: My bed, I have just awoken, having presumably been in a sleep coma for several hundred years.

Me: buuugghhwwhh…

Brain:fuugg?

Me (attempting any sort of body movement at all): Ugh. Uuuuugh.

Brain (speaking through several dozen cotten balls): Mangh.. Muungh.. jjyyoush..

Me: I.. eeeiiuu.. I yaamm uppp …

Brain: Duuuude. What time. Is things. Oh DUUUDE.

Me: that air is loud and stingy.

Brain: I are too not sleep now.

Me: I am too not sleep now also.

Brain: I. I think we sleep through clesses.

Me: Shit.