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Tuesday 25 October 2011

It's like fucking Woodstock up in here.

“Heeeey maaan! Wanna have a jaaaaaaaaaam sesh?”
Oh, Stoner Kid from Next Door, that’s lovely of you but, no. It’s 11 o’clock on a Sunday night. I would very much like it if you got the hell off my front step.
Stoner Kid has appeared on our doorstep on more than one occasion with a joint in his mouth wanting to chat and jam with us, usually quite late on a week night. Stoner Kid has also stuck his head over the fence to have awkward pot fuelled conversations with us regarding such subjects as why small boy dog “looks mental” and his upcoming trip to Vanuatu with his mother.
Stoner Kid from Next Door likes to play the drums in the early hours of the morning from his garage. He likes to smoke bongs and then throw the bongs over the fence into our yard. I don’t like this at all.
Stoner kid constructed a hot box in his back yard behind the garage against our fence, out of sight from his parents. Apparently, this was not a sufficient hangout space since recently he has moved into a caravan in the driveway. This caravan is parked directly opposite our bedroom and our front door, approximately 4 feet away in fact. Stoner Kid and Stoner Kids friends like to play drums in the caravan in the early hours of the morning. They like to play guitar and have parties and smoke bongs. I like this less than I like the garage antics.
They have also erected a shade gazebo in front of the caravan to hang out in front of before they sleep in the caravan.
While this is amusing on some level, it’s mostly just annoying. Since Husband and I are real people with real jobs that need to function like adults in the world, this is bothersome to us.
Husband and I wondered if he was allowed to live in the shared driveway so very close to us, so Husband asked the council if this was permitted.
The council did not know, so had to come and stare at the caravan in order to make a decision.
According to Stoner Kids mum (henceforth known as Shouting Woman) this is a grave crime. Apparently, we are not allowed to ask questions of the council. She decided to inform me of this one afternoon.
There was an energetic knocking on my door punctuated by some robust doorbell ringing.
I opened the door to a short, angry, profoundly peroxided woman. Unsurprisingly to you, dear reader, she was in fact Shouting Woman, the mother of Stoner Kid. She introduced herself and demanded to speak with me. I was not completely enamoured of this idea, since I had been about to get in the shower and had only thrown on a very long shirt. I always feel more comfortable being yelled at when I’m wearing a bra and some underwear. Call me crazy, but I do.
She proceeded to berate me for making an enquiry to the council in regards to the Stoner Van.
I was a bad neighbour. A bad, unfriendly neighbour. Lady… Last time I checked this wasn’t Ramsay Street.
Apparently Stoner Kid needs to live in the caravan. Not wants to, needs to. Why, you may ask? And you may, because I certainly did. Apparently, his bedroom has no windows. They’ve been living in a house for 7 years with a bedroom that has no windows. He is apparently, also schizophrenic. Now, while I completely understand that this is in no way his fault, and is a terrible and debilitating disease, I would like to suggest that the first step on the road to mental health is, oh, I don’t know, GETTING OFF THE FUCKING DRUGS, and is perhaps not moving into a caravan in the driveway.
Shouting Woman was true to her name and shouted a lot at me. She shouted that we were bad people. We were old before our time, stick in the mud bad people and if we didn’t withdraw our question to the council they would have to move. Apparently Shouting Lady was a comedian and was on tour a lot which is why we had not met her on any of the occasions Stoner Kid came visiting. I was hesitant to believe this claim as she clearly wasn’t very funny. She made lots of other claims that I also found hard to believe. She said that they were quiet neighbours who never made noise and never created problems.
I would beg to differ. I brought up the fact that Stoner Kid frequently has parties on Friday and Saturday nights that go on into the wee hours and never once had we made a noise complaint. The fact that they can’t put up like Christmas lights like everyone else, but have to put on a full on Poison-esque light display show for 2 months that never gets switched off, and shines directly into all of the windows in our house is apparently a “quiet neighbour” activity. Honestly, I expected Brett Michaels to appear on the roof last year instead of Santa. The fact that they leave all their blinds open all the time and stand in front of the windows staring at me while I wash up is apparently a friendly gesture and isn’t creepy at all. Not even when they’re apparently naked.
I mentioned that Stoner Kid frequently played his drums until 2 or 3 in the morning on week nights also. He similarly came over and knocked on the door wanting to chat when we were already asnooze in our beds.

The previous weekend, I had woken up on Sunday morning with a thumping hangover, as I tend to do. It took me a little while to work out that not all of the thumping was coming from my head, but some of it was coming from the drum kit set up next door.
I mentioned this to Shouting Woman when she said that I couldn’t possibly have heard drumming as Stoner Kid had left his drums in the forest.
Firstly, what? How in the name of all that is good and holy do you leave an entire drum kit in a forest? And secondly, no, I’m pretty sure I know what drums sound like.
She then told me that it was not Stoner Kids drums I had heard but the drums of one of the homeless kids currently also living in the caravan.
Apparently Stoner Kid has Stoner Homeless Kid friends that are now all living 4 feet from my bedroom. They also all play drums.
Fantastic.
This is where I tell Shouting Woman that she will need to leave now and stop shouting at me and calling me names because I have better things to do, like shove bamboo slivers under my nails.
Shouting Woman has come over to our house a lot since then. Banging on the door, demanding to talk to us. Writing us letters to tell us how mean we are…  She’s shouted over the fence to Husband numerous times as he’s been working in the garage. Once to tell him that if he didn’t withdraw the question to the council, she would complain about small boy dog, and small girl dog, then adding “It would be a shame if something happened to them.” She’s told us that we’re boring, that we don’t appreciate music, that we have no sense of fun. She’s told Husband that he’s a sad old man. As he’s at least 40 years younger than her, it’s kind of funny. Maybe she could be a comedian after all. 

Friday 7 October 2011

Sexual Chocolate

Spray tans are fucking retarded. This is not the first time I’ve said this. Anyone who had anything to do with my wedding will know that I hate spray tans. I tried to install someone with a squirt gun of tan remover at every entrance to politely mist all of the orange people. I think people who get spray tans are stupid. However, I also think that people who sunbake are stupid and people who go to solariums are stupid. Just be the colour you are.
This being said, I have a big night of dance performances tomorrow, and everyone else would be a nice shade of terracotta. I decided that I would give the lightest colour of spray tan a shot, just so that my translucent thighs wouldn’t reflect the spot lights.
My friend is bridesmaid in a wedding tomorrow and she is the same caspery see through white that I am. I convinced her to join me in a spray tanning escapade. We discussed it and decided we would feel weird about having a perky leathery painted lady see our bits in all their naked floppy glory, and then apply a coat of varnish to them, so we would go to the automated booth and hope no one had cut a spy hole in it to laugh at us.
My friend went in first and came out looking relatively unscathed. She said it wasn’t bad, just noisy and hot. I was second to go for the privilege. I stripped down in the hot little room after the man explained to me that you have to put the barrier cream over your hands and on the tops of your feet. I stepped into the booth and placed my left foot on the number 1 and my right foot on the number 3 and held my arms like I was a dingle dangle scarecrow. I got sprayed from top to bottom and rotated, then bottom to top and rotate, then put my left hand in and took my left hand out and then put my left hand in and shook it all about. I felt like I was in the person version of Pimp My Ride.
I then towelled off and got back into my loose fitting dark clothing and no bra. It was a uniquely awkward experience. When I arrived home, I grabbed my book and set myself up on the sofa to read for a while. Then I decided to paint my nails. Painting my nails is very relaxing to me. As I had just finished putting the final coat on of a colour I like to call “Who the fuck makes nail polish in this colour green?” I happened to look down. I was sitting cross legged and happy in my own little bubble of nail painting glory, and what do I see? Actually, I have no idea.
I stare at my feet a little longer and still can’t make sense of what I’m seeing. Why are the bottoms of my feet the colour of Tim Tams? I don’t understand. Some days I’m a little slow. Then, I realise... The fucking spray tan. It’s on the floor of the booth. The booth I was standing in with my feet. Now, at this point I am sitting on my sofa and laughing. I am staring at my feet and laughing, like a baby, or a numpty. Tears are running down my cheeks I’m laughing so hard. I go to look in the mirror to see if all of me is a sexy sensual chocolate delight and realise that no, I am still white. I’m white everywhere. Everywhere, that is, except the bottom of my feet. I am in fact, a reverse black person. I’m like Oprah in the negative, a turned about Whoopi Goldberg... It’s always been a secret dream of mine to be black, and now, through the bottom of my feet, I’m finally living that dream.

Tuesday 4 October 2011

My heart is made of puppies.

I have dogs. A small boy dog came into my life in August of last year. He’s a snorting, snoring, snuffling little flat face. I mean, the poor guy looks like he’s struggling to live.



 He could never survive in the wild. He has dainty little cat feet and is pretty much the strangest dog ever. He’s incredibly sweet and almost freakishly devoted to me, he loves everyone and I can count the number of times he’s barked on my hands. He sits and licks his paws and wipes his face with them. He will sit like a human and scratch his poor empty ball sack with a tiny paw. I think possibly he learned this behaviour from watching Husband do it. He also tries to wee in the toilet if we ever leave the door open, but being 9 inches off the ground, it doesn’t really work out for him. I taught him a bunch of tricks and I make everyone who comes over watch him. He can sit, shake with both hands, drop, crawl, and if you put your fists up and say “FIGHT!” he will box with you. Husband found out that if you lay on the floor with him, he will lick your face for 15 minutes without a break. The dog that is, not Husband. Boy dog has a curly piggy tail and most of the time, is pretty unaware of it. However, if you straighten it out and show it to him, he will chase it madly until it curls up again and he promptly forgets it ever existed.
He loves me more than husband, which makes me incredibly happy. He’s pleasant and fuzzy and warm and is perfectly content to sleep on my stomach while I read. He follows me from room to room and will guard my feet from his position directly on top of them. I don’t ever have to clean up after him, because he’s particular about where he goes to the toilet. He didn’t wee for the whole drive from Melbourne to Sydney, even when we stopped every hour and walked him through grass. When we finally hit our destination, and put down newspaper, you could almost see the look of relief on his little squashed face.
Small girl dog is not so particular. She came into my life in March of this year. She has been nicknamed many things, among them fart-face, little vom-vom and ninja pooper. She is honestly, the most disgusting dog I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. She burps, she farts noxious gases that can clear a room in 10 seconds, poops more frequently than a binge eater with laxatives and eats her food so fast, it makes her sick, so she throws up and then eats it too fast again, so throws it up and then finally manages to eat it the third time. She has been known to eat poop, both her own and that of the small boy dog. You don’t want kisses from small girl dog. She’s lucky she’s so damn cute, or I’d have sold her ages ago. When the dogs took sides, small girl dog took Husbands side, which is ok with me. My special muffin headed dog is elevently three million times better behaved and a whomping great forty seven bajillion times cleaner and less stinky than she is. She’s also stubborn. Oh, is she stubborn! You can call her til your voice gives up and she won’t come unless she wants to. She’ll sit if she thinks there’s food involved. She can shake, but only with one hand and again, only when she wants to and when there’s a possibility of food. You have to tap her leg all the time and say “SHAKE!” but most of the time she tilts her head up and away and ignores you perfectly.


She has an incredible sense of smell and I have found her more than once licking containers inside the recycling basket. She can hear a packet open from the end of the back yard. She’s hard headed and trundley. She’s the boss and she knows it. In the mornings when I wake up and go see them and let them outside she wags her little nubby tail and jumps all over me. If I’m ever sick, she scratches and whines at the door and shoves her head in the gap trying to get to me because she worries. Husband won’t hold my hair back or pat me, but small girl dog will curl up on my lap and  cock her head and give conciliatory licks on the shin.
I love those tiny weird little creatures with my whole heart. I want to squeeze them so hard their little eyes pop out more than they already do. They make every single bad day okay again. When you feel like the world is a shitty place and that you’re struggling just to achieve basic tasks because people seem to be put in your way just to fuck with you, go and get sneezed on by a flat faced dog, watch it chase it’s curly piggy tail. Be jumped on with such joy and excitement it’s barely containable and watch a stocky little bitch wag her nub at you. Cuddle them, get covered in hair and licks and paw prints. Chase them around the yard, teach them a trick, blow raspberries on their warm hairless puppy bellies. Love them, because they love you and I guarantee that if you have something broken inside you, they’ll fix it.