Get Over, Get Over The Third Of October

OK, that's it!

If anyone else wants to celebrate their plans to be happily entangled for the rest of their lives they will have to offer me bribes or hold the celebrations in my backyard!

Look, I know that people face far more complicated and serious dilemmas every day and that I'm a huge crybaby but I get a bit stressed about other people's exciting days going right and like them far apart so I can help, can go months without any big events or demands on my time cropping up and then this happened...

Saturday was the day of my cousin's wedding - aw! *cue ecstatic aunts!*

It was also the day of my mate Awesome's engagement party - aw! *cue overexcited friends!*

Both events were on at almost exactly the same time... in two different towns... two hours apart... *cue freaking out and screaming!*

Crud! Crud! Crud! Crud! Crud!

I didn't want to miss either event but going to both was going to be a bugger.

Not to mention I was in charge of organising the cake and signature book for the engagement party from a third and completely unrelated town and was doing the Prayers of the Faithful during my cousin's wedding ceremony.

Things sort of shilly-shallied about for a few weeks leading up to the wedding/engagement party weekend.

The cake was fine.

The people at the shop decided that the picture that was to go on top of the cake was too dark and wouldn't turn out.

I found a new picure.

They were no longer accepting pictures by email, the picture had to be printed on photo paper and brought in personally.

Oh and the day you leave work early and drive an hour to bring the photo in we will have closed early.

Eventually I got the bloody cake squared away, found a dress for the wedding, hand-cut 80 pieces of ornate cardboard for the engagement party signature book and bought metallic ink pens and badass stickers for them to decorate them with, explained the situation to both occasion-stressed women without being torn a new one, looked at transport options and then began Operation EVERYBODY STOP TELLING ME THAT THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! WHAT ARE YOU A BUNCH OF QUITTERS!?*

Step One. Wake up, get preliminary dressed, go pick up cake.

Step Two. Drop off cake with another friend, hand over cards, pens and stickers.

Step Three. Drop car off at the train station, get sister's fiancé to pick me up and drive us back to the house.

Step Four. Collect clothes and sundries for the wedding, herd entire family into cars and drive for two hours.

Step Five. Get changed into wedding clothes at a relative's house, herd everyone back into cars, have argument about best way to get to church, misidentify church, have another argument, find the right church, get everyone out of the car.

Step Six. Find the other cousin who I am doing the readings with, find a seat, sit down and make chitchat.

Step Seven. All agree she looks lovely and he is probably not a serial killer and can be let into the family, realise the priest is mental as he starts rambling about changing the wording of 'what God has joined let no man put asunder' to gender-neutral because 'people are running off with all sorts these days', ruins part of the service by trying to make comments addressed to the the groom and bride separately gender-neutral and then forgets to ask the bride to say her vows before being reminded by the wanting to be happy couple.

Step Eight. Deliver prayers without saying a swear or making any embarrassing noises, agree everything went very well except for the mental priest.

Step Nine. Get back to the house, change again, drag my father away from all the cheerfully enthusiastic family shouting, say goodbye to my parents as they happen to be flying to Italy after the reception, drive to a train station, get a bit lost, use logic to find track, use track to find station, get out of the car, leg it through construction works, find ticket counter, buy ticket, get to platform at the same time as the train, get train, collapse.

Step Ten. Spend two hours thinking 'this is stupid, if we had teleporters I would be there by now'.

Step Eleven. Arrive at station, get changed in the bathroom, get into car cleverly left at station earlier, drive to engagement party, spend the whole drive hoping I hadn't confused the location with another.

Step Twelve. Arrive in time to preside over the revelation of the cake, be crowned Dëity Mønarch of Cake and join the party.

Step Thirteen. Help pack up, drive people out to the bottle-o for some travellers as I'm the only person who hadn't been drinking**, drive back to Awesome's place and spend the rest of the evening*** having a drink, eating chips and watching Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2.

Step Fourteen. Finally relax and realise that I've enjoyed myself.


*sigh*


...


OK, OK, I'll probably come to your bloody wedding/whatever but at least have it in an area well served by public transport!

Remember! No teleporters yet!



PS. An engagement party might not seem very important compared to a wedding but it is going to be a few years before Awesome and her fella can afford the wedding and what with all the going out of her way she does for other people she deserved something nice dammit!



*I'll be the first to admit it doesn't really roll off the tongue...

**Or eating, no time dammit!

***And some of the morning

That Old Familiar Song

Ricochet?

Er, yes Always Slightly Accusatory Voice That I Hear Inside My Head?

Remember that talk we had?

Er, which one? We have so many.

The one about the short term relief of wussing out versus the long term benefits of following through on doing things that you've always wanted to do?

Oh, yeah. That one.

You're having a panic attack, aren't you?

It's hard to say...

You're having a panic attack about being abroad by yourself.

Well it's somewhat perilous being a broad by yourself.

None of your smart mouth.

But it's the only one I've got...

You're getting all nervy about being overseas by yourself even though you love travelling and this way you won't have anyone whining when you want to spend an entire day in a museum or being whimsical and giving yourself airs in a particularly fancy lookin' café.

I do like doing that...

So you're going to stop moaning about only having two weeks to get ready, remember that you've already got your ticket, your passport and at least a week's worth of clean underwear and open a can of harden the eff up.

Hey now, steady on Always Slightly Accusatory Voice That I Hear Inside My Head! No need for strong language! They don't appreciate that kind of thing on the internets!

But you get my point?

Yes, Always Slightly Accusatory Voice That I Hear Inside My Head, I get your point.

Excellent. Then I think we're done here.

Good.

See you tomorrow morning when you don't want to get up for work then?

Yeah, see you then.

The Cat Piano

The Cat Piano from PRA on Vimeo.

Smoke, shadows, jazz and the sultry sounds of Nick Cave.

Sure this is a cheat post but it's a beautiful cheat post!

Ambivalence And Rejection: A Modern Finance Story

This week I did something I really didn't want to do.

I applied for a credit card.

Not because I'm out of money but because I'm going overseas soon and I'll need it.
Apparently hotels aren't willing to accept bookings or take it on the honour system that you aren't planning to wreck up the place or leave little 'gifts' behind the ventilation panels without some way of chasing you up if you don't turn up/do and they wish you hadn't.

I've never wanted a credit card, I hate the idea.
I don't like owing people money, I don't like complications and I don't like filling out forms.
But I had to.
So I did.

And I was knocked back.

I was knocked back for a credit card based on 20 or so questions on an initial form on their website.

I was stunned.

I'm in a secure full time job.
I am responsible with money.
I have savings which prove that not only am I responsible with money now I've been responsible with money for a long time.
But apparently I do not fall within their current parameters for approval.

So I rang them up and I asked them in polite, measured, mature tones what the dealio was.

It seems they've tightened their approval policy up of late* and all the little points my answers warranted didn't add up to enough to get me through the door with this particular provider.
I asked if there was anything on my application that had disadvantaged me.
The guy sort of danced around the subject but from what I could tell it was because I'd only been working in my steady full time job for 2.5 years and had only been renting my well-maintained flat for the same amount of time.
That and possibly my age.
Oh and my marital status is single.

Yep.
I'm a single girl in her twenties.
I must be crazy with the monies.
Any minute now I'm going to get onto the internets and buy a llama on eBay because it was for cheaps and I can't resist a sale.

The thing that really grated was that this same provider had given my now 19.5 year old sister a card almost without waiting for a signature only 1.5 years earlier when she was in part time work and 18!

I know we don't want to just throw credit cards at people like they're candy but I'm one of the few people I know who I'd actually trust to manage one of these things.

And when I don't want to do something and then somebody tells me I can't do it... well dammit who are they to tell me that I can't have that thing I don't want!

I've applied for another dang one through my bank this time and in about a week I'll find out whether I get one or not** and when/if I receive it I will be able to hold it on high with a strange mingled feeling of victory/satisfaction/dread/resignation!

At least I'll be able to book my own concert tickets then.
Every time I ask Mum if I can use her card to book a ticket she wants to know all about the band and inevitably she ends up comparing them to Dethklok.
According to Mum all metal bands sound like Dethklok.
Who she thinks are cute.
I love my Mum.



*Gee I wonder why *coff global economic crisis coff*
**If my own bank knocks me back I will be so very cranky.

Summertime

We're only friends in the summertime.
When the evening light is soft and a cold drink tastes as it never does any other time of the year.
Then the words flow and the memories are made and the nights last until the morning.
When the seasons turn and the cold creeps in, silence begins to outweigh speech.
In the dark months when the outside is too cold for you and the indoors too close to share.
We're only friends in the summertime.
And I miss you the rest of the year.
But not as much as you might think.

It's Like A Party In My Mouth And All The Guests Are Chained Together...

Steak.

Popcorn.

Nougat.

Toffee.

Lollypops.

Chocolate.

Chewy crust breadrolls.

I'm going to miss you...

Some time ago *coff May coff* my dentist told me that I should see an orthodontist about possibly getting braces.

In my usual efficient manner I put it down as 'To Do Next Week' and it kept 'Jam Tomorrow, Jam Yesterday, But Never Ever Jam Today'-ing* down the list until a few weeks ago when I finally made the appointment.

Then this Thursday at 9:45am I went along for my first consultation.
It all started out fairly routine.
They took a few hilarious photos of my teeth and asked me a lot of questions including 'Do you ever grind your teeth in your sleep?' to which I replied 'I don't know, I'm asleep' which seemed a perfectly sensible answer to me but which exasperated the dental technician who was taking notes.
Yes I need braces.
Yes they'll need to stay on for two years.
Yes I should make an appointment.
And the next available appointment is... Oh we've had a cancellation, would you like to come back at 2pm?
Uh... I... guess so...?

So in the three hours between the end of the first appointment and the beginning of the second I had to go down to the bank to withdraw cash for my first payment**, get into a favourite café for my last steak sandwich for two years and give my teeth a vigorous scrubbing.

Because I would usually have a longer first consultation or possibly a follow up consultation before the procedure in normal circumstances I found out about a lot of the do's and don't's whilst my mouth was propped open and the orthodontist was messing about with glue and wire.
On the one hand it was good that everything came together so quickly because it gave me little time to dwell on or worry about things.
On the other hand I didn't have time to go on a last forbidden food orgy and will now have to wait two years to eat quite a few things...
Probably on mature reflection this is plus as well, I've had a few too many forbidden food orgies of late without anything to justify them.

I've had the braces on for three days and despite the logistics of learning to chew with the dang things on and all the extra tooth brushing, they're not that bad.
They were slightly uncomfortable to begin with but they feel exactly like I thought a mouth full of braces would feel and it already seems as if I've had them on forever.
My completely erratic grasp of temporal reality and the way my imagination interacts with it has allowed me to adapt to the feeling ridiculously quickly and apart from the part where I keep going around telling people 'I'm a Piranha' and gnashing my teeth at them it's business as usual.
It has however confirmed my suspicions that I should never get a tongue piercing, I have been messing with the dang things with my tongue ever since they were put on and I predict that I won't stop for approximately 24 months.



*For anyone who has never seen the 1985 version of Alice in Wonderland, which stars Sammy Davis Junior and Carol Channing among many others, and has no idea what I'm talking about I give you this.

Cynical Poetry Reading

Don't tell me what you once believed
And how ditching it has made you free
Because no one cares what you think now
And you'll ditch your new brain any how