I SHOULD PROBABLY GET OUT OF THE HOUSE SO I HAVE MORE TO WRITE ABOUT BUT, ON THE OTHER HAND, IT MIGHT NOT BE SAFE

I have a friend who keeps hurting her back through no fault of her own. She'll be going along fine and then she'll just move ever so slightly and bam! she's thrown her back out. Then it'll start to get better and she'll have a good couple of days and then bam! out again. What's worse is that every time it happens she can't work and she's currently trying to save for both a wedding and a house and doesn't get sick pay because she's only employed on a casual basis. It's almost enough to make me believe that there really is a god and he really fucking hates her.

Basically my point is that every time she hurts her back she has legitimate cause to ask 'why?' and there doesn't seem to be an answer. I, on the other hand, tend to cause injury to myself through my own stupidity.

A couple of weeks ago I tried to pry an e-tag holder from my windscreen with my fingers. A plastic holder. That's been exposed to the sun through the windscreen for about five years and could therefore be reasonably expected to perhaps be a bit brittle. So probably to no-one's surprise, rather than managing to remove the holder from the windscreen, I instead broke the plastic and took a chunk out of my finger that still hasn't completely healed three weeks later and that didn't stop bleeding for about twelve hours. Also, I didn't actually find the missing chunk of finger so it's possibly still somewhere on the floor of my car. I wonder if I should warn passengers before they get in?

Then on Monday I over-reached for a medicine ball and even though my shoulder was already protesting from my forcing it to turn into a go-go gadget arm without first saying, 'go-go gadget arm', I nevertheless used it to pick up the medicine ball. Because I apparently felt that if I was going to injure myself I may as well do a decent job of it. And then, perhaps because it was getting better, I decided the best thing for it was most likely to continue to do push-ups and a prone bridge and other exercises that would put extra pressure on the injury. You know, for fun.

I would probably stop injuring myself if I just gave my actions a bit of thought before blithely undertaking them. But if there really is a god and he really does hate my friend, then I've a feeling that I wouldn't be his favourite person either, so really, why bother?

I DON'T WANT TO BE KILLED BY MACHETE-WIELDING DOLPHINS, SO HERE

So I knew when I decided to start a blog that there was no way in hell I'd be able to post daily so I didn't even try. I did, however, think that a weekly post was achievable but - turns out - that's a bit out of my reach also. It's all right though - I'm used to having unrealistic expectations of myself so whenever my tendency to procrastinate stops me from achieving my goals I just put it down to that. I'm so good at convincing myself that I was aiming too high to start with that I don't even bother stopping to consider whether it's actually true. I'm pretty much the perfect procrastinator and, frankly, I think I deserve some recognition for that.

A big part of the problem is that I've been pretty focused on some other stuff for the past couple of weeks so I haven't had a lot to write about. I actually had a dream last night that I was back at school (a common dream of mine that I have yet to categorise as fantasy or nightmare as it usually seems to be a combination of both) and was assigned the task of writing something about myself. That's easy, thought I, I already write a blog. I've got heaps to say. But then I went to start writing and I had nothing. At all. Which basically means that I am now having nightmares about blogging.

Oh sure, it's not so bad now. Not exactly the type of nightmare that has me waking up in a cold sweat afraid to go back to sleep in case I find myself right back in the jaws of whatever death I woke myself to escape from. Yet. But just wait. It won't be long before I have the same dream again. Only at the same time I realise that I have nothing to write about, I'll also realise that I'm not wearing any clothes. And I'm on the toilet. And there are spiders. And then suddenly I'll be running down the street from an army of dolphins that have learned how to walk on land and are all carrying machetes and yelling at me in their dolphin language that this wouldn't be happening if I could just find something to write about only I won't understand what they're saying because I don't speak dolphin and even if I did it wouldn't help me anyway since having to run away from machete-wielding dolphins is probably the worst source of inspiration ever as well as being the worst time to try to compose anything that isn't "oh god, somebody help me, I'm going to die!"

But it's Christmas in a couple of days, and then New Year's Eve, so there'll surely be something to keep the dolphins away. I hope.

I'M NOT AN ALCOHOLIC. BUT MY NEIGHBOURS MIGHT THINK I AM.

I once went for a job where they wanted to know how many drinks I would have in a week and I answered three to four, which is a lie because three to four is just the number of drinks that I have on a Sunday when I go to my mum's for dinner.

Now I'm not embarrassed by how much I drink and I certainly don't consider myself to be a problem drinker, but saying that I have eight to fifteen drinks a week, or more if I have a "big night", kind of makes me sound like I'm an alcoholic. Which I'm not. Even though there was that one time that I tried to give up drinking for six weeks and only lasted two.

Actually I probably should have known that I was going to fail because it was only about a week after I'd spent the last few Saturday nights drunkenly informing everyone within earshot that I loved drinking so much that I considered it a hobby. This may also be why I drew a blank when I went for an interview for the aforementioned job and they asked me what my hobbies were.

Anyway, I'm thinking of putting the empty bottles into the rubbish because I think there's more in there to cushion them than there is in the recycling and at the moment every time I empty the indoor recycling bin into the outdoor recycling bin it sounds like we've had a party. Which would be fine if we ever had people over to the house. But we don't.

Actually, there have been a few times this year when I've had people over, but that resulted in even more bottles and having to make more than one trip out to the recycling bin so probably now they just think that all my friends are family are alcoholics as well.

So I guess what I'm saying is that the judgmental attitudes people hold towards alcohol are turning me into a liar. And they're also bad for the environment.

Or it could be that I'm worried I might drink too much.

But I'm pretty sure it's the first one.

I DON'T REALLY KILL DOLPHINS

Yesterday I had the doctor check out my ganglion since I was there anyway and because I wasn't entirely certain that I'm not growing a second head on my hand. He asked me if it hurt or if it had hurt when I first noticed it and I said that it didn't and then he looked at me strangely as though I were some kind of lying freak who wouldn't admit that her ganglion hurt so I felt compelled to tell him that it did hurt when I first noticed it after I poked at it and pressed on it for about ten minutes. But that didn't seem to help.

Today I sent a Facebook message to my friends asking them to save the ring pulls from their cans for reasons I refused to reveal to them. But then I realised they would probably assume I wanted them for choking dolphins, so I did tell them and then my friend sent me this

which I thought was so hilarious that I had to share it.

Then I thought I should probably explain that neither of us would actually feed anything to a dolphin that would make it choke (even though I don't really like them because of that one time when I was swimming at dusk and I saw a dolphin in the waves, but I thought it was a shark) and that, in fact, she's actually a vegetarian so she wouldn't even kill a dolphin to eat it. I probably wouldn't either, but that's mostly because I don't like seafood.



They're practically the same

Also yesterday I shared this post by The Blogess on my Facebook page and ended up accidentally implying that the reason I don't have Christmas tree is that I hang babies from them and my cats eat them. Which is much more interesting than the real reason so I decided to go with it.

3 REASONS IT'S OK TO WISH SOMEONE DEAD (THAT DON'T MAKE YOU A SOCIOPATH)

If, as a child, you ever said aloud that you wished someone would die (and I'm not saying that I did, just in case you didn't) you probably had some adult tell you not to say such things because you would feel really bad if they actually did die. That adult was an idiot.

Now I'm not talking about those times when you were wishing a parent or a friend dead and you didn't really mean it but were just really angry with them at the time. Obviously if any of those people died you would feel bad. But you would feel bad whether you had just wished them dead or not, and even if you had wished them dead that still wouldn't make any of these less true.


1. You didn't kill them. That's retarded.

About five years ago I had a landlord that I, and all of the people I lived with, hated. Because he was an arsehole. Every single one of us wished him dead at least once. (It was definitely more than once.) Then, a few weeks ago, we found out he'd died earlier in the year. I was not struck down with guilt. Maybe it is possible that we all wished him dead and then five years later it finally happened as a result of those wishes, but- actually no. Just no. It's not.

I don't know how many wishes you've made in your life but unless they've all been incredibly realistic (in which case, what the hell is wrong with you? Don't you get this whole wishing thing at all?) then you've probably noticed a general trend towards them not coming true. If you have been making fairly unrealistic wishes and they have been coming true then we need to talk about why you've been wasting this power on wishing random people dead. Though really, if you're aware you have this power and you're still wishing random people dead I probably don't want to talk to you. And you're also probably in the wrong place since you obviously already don't feel bad about what you've been doing.

2. You probably weren't the only one.

I can only speak for myself here, but wishing someone dead is not the thing that comes immediately to mind when someone's behaving like an arsehole. Punching them in the face, roundhouse kicking them in the head and stabbing them in the eye with a pen (it's always a pen) are all things I visualise before wishing them dead ever crosses my mind. I should probably stress here that I only visualise these things - I would never actually do them. So if you're anything like me (sicko) then the person you're wishing dead has probably pretty consistently been an arsehole over a period of time before you start wishing for their immediate demise. If that's the case then you're most likely not the only one who's wished them dead. So even if you do believe that wishing it is enough to make it happen (it's not but hey, there are Scientologists - people will believe anything!) it might not have been your wish that did it!

3. Congratulations on making a wish that's guaranteed to come true!

I don't want to spoil the ending for those of you who have been living in a cave and have had absolutely no contact with another human being ever (welcome to the internet!) but everyone dies. Literally everyone. Seriously, no one gets out of this alive. Look it up. So if you wish someone dead you will, one day, get your wish. Remember my landlord - yeah, took awhile but it happened. Wishing someone dead is the only wish you can make where you never have to fear disappointment. Yeah, you may not live to see it, but you still know it will happen.

Spiders. I just don't like them.

I don't like spiders. I'm not as afraid of them as I used to be but I think it's safe to say I'll never be keeping one as a pet. In fact, I know it's safe to say. I will never keep a spider as a pet. There. It's in writing. I'm that confident. So here's a look at how last week started according to my Facebook statuses:

Monday at 10.14pm: "I will tolerate you, Mr. Spider, but I kindly request that you relocate from your current position above my computer chair. Your co-operation would be greatly appreciated."

(The spider did relocate from its position above my computer chair, which was nice, except that now I don't know where it is. It might be one of the other spiders I saw after that, or it might be A COMPLETELY FUCKING DIFFERENT ONE AND IT IS JUST MISSING INSTEAD OF GONE.)

Tuesday at 9.20am: "A spider is not faster than a cat."

(It may be the previous spider that was killed by my cat who heroically defended me when it came to murder me in my sleep, or it may have been a different spider that was coming to murder me in my sleep. Also, as it turns out, a dragonfly is not faster than a cat either, but I'm pretty sure the dragonfly wasn't out to murder anyone.)

Tuesday at 6.07pm: "I just fought a spider for my mail only to find it was nothing but election propaganda. Fuck you state government. Totally not worth it."

(I now approach my mailbox with my heart in my mouth, ready to drop the door in less than a second if necessary).

Tuesday at 10.35pm: "Another one? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Fine. I give up. You win, spiders. Have the house."

(There was some suggestion of burning the house down. I considered it).

Thursday at 8.45am: "Good news - no spiders yesterday. Bad news - I'm almost definitely dying."

So I didn't die, which is great I think, but I was hit with the horrifying realisation that just because I haven't seen the spiders lately does not mean that they're not there. It's nice to think that they just decided to move next door instead - possibly because they knew they were unwelcome in my house and were far too polite to stay somewhere they weren't wanted - but it's more likely they are simply hiding somewhere, probably waiting for the best possible moment to jump out and cling to my face like the facehuggers in Aliens except they'd be holding on with their fangs instead of with tentacles.

I might go buy some kerosene and matches.

POWER OVER PLASTIC. NOT MUCH ELSE.

Today I tore open the plastic wrapper on a new ream of paper. Then I looked up at my co-worker and said, in a mock-threatening voice. "This is a demonstration of my power." Then I had one of those moments - after a long, awkward silence - when I realise that I'm not quite like other people. I am, in fact, so not like other people that the level of my abnormality can still surprise someone that has worked with me for over six years.

I'm actually pretty sure this is a big part of the reason why we've been working together for six years and why I can't get a different job that I am in all other ways qualified for. Though in fairness, it's probably more likely to be my less than perfect portrayal of the character 'normal person' that I play when I don't know people very well. In my defence though - if I really knew how to act like a normal person I probably wouldn't tear open a plastic wrapper and declare it a demonstration of my power.

Then I started thinking about all those people who say "Just be yourself". Yeah, great advice, thanks. Because clearly that's working out so well for me. Then I wondered whether anyone who really knew me had ever actually said that to me because, you know, maybe it's just that it's not general advice but advice that is only meant for people who can have a conversation without veering off onto some strange and often unintelligible tangent that frequently consists of odd voices and bizarre facial expressions. But when I really thought about it I realised that they had. Which forced me to wonder whether they were just being nice or if they actually hate me and sit in a corner rubbing their hands together and cackling whenever they see me fail. (Yeah OK, so I guess they probably DON'T do that).

Anyway, I wondered if maybe there was something I could do with that. Like maybe I could be the poster child for conformity or something. There could be a series of ad campaigns consisting of me just talking to people and being myself, maybe with some kind of lead in or voiceover explaining that this is what not to do and ending with a warning to only be yourself if you're reasonably certain that you're normal. I think it could work.