Mamihlapinatapai

It's 'a look between two people that suggests an unspoken, shared desire,' and if I could pronounce it, it might just be my new favourite word. (I've decided that I'm going to pronounce it ma-meelya-piñata-pie until someone corrects me. As it's a Yaghan word (the Yaghan are a race that I have never heard of before and initially thought someone made up a rather obscure race who live near Tierra del Fuego, which is by Sweden under South America) I do not expect it to be corrected any time soon. Nevertheless, if you think you know better than ma-meelya-piñata-pie then don't let that stop you trying.)

I found 'mamihlapinatapai' on yo mama's face a list of foreign words the English language needs (full list here), along with some I already knew (because of my enormous vocabulary) and some I didn't. My other favourites are 'backpfeifengesicht,' a German word which means 'a face badly in need of a fist' and which I am not even going to try pronouncing, and 'nunchi' (noon-chee) which is a Korean word that's kind of hard to explain - it means, more or less, the ability to properly judge a social situation and behave appropriately. When Mrs. Obama hugged the Queen, she was showing a decided lack of nunchi; so was that boorish acquaintance of yours when she decided that a clothes swap party was the perfect occasion to peddle her hideous home-made Christmas cards.

Andrea also introduced me to two other excellent and bonafide English words recently: 'aeolist,' or someone who thinks they are highly intelligent but actually spends all their time talking out of their arse; and 'arsle,' which means 'to leave a room backwards' and is where the word 'arse' comes from. Dictionary.com doesn't believe in either of these words; I bet when they read this blog their no-good backpfeifengesicht-featured aeolist of an editor will arsle sheepishly out of the room.

Here is a treat! Something not created by me.* It is from an excellent comic and I think it pretty much says what every art critic since the dawn of time has had enough nunchi to not quite say:

Anything else from me today? Nah. That's kind of about it. I applied for some jobs.

I'll leave you with the Pun of the Day**: my mother walks inside carrying a handful of runner beans. "Sadly, I think these are past their prime...they're has-beens." I guess it puns in the family is passed down from generation to generation.

EDIT: Pun of the Day has been revised, thanks to Antiques Roadshow! (I wasn't watching it.) One of their experts is examining a (presumably antique) antique dead dog carcass which had been hollowed out, covered in tar, had the leg ends (stumps?) sealed with (I think) cork and used to indicate where a fishing net had been dropped. Kate: "Who thinks, when their dog dies, 'I'm going to make this into a buoy?'" Me, appraising our dog: "Charlie would make a good buoy." Kate: "Hahaha! Good buoy, Charlie." (Is only funny if you pronounce 'buoy' 'boy' and not 'booey' as, apparently, some do; may not be even funny then but I am still cracking up about it.)


I have no idea why I didn't stop this post after the comic; how about you pretend that I did.


*although really I've been pretty educational today

**I promise this won't become a regular feature

This Week In The News

Things That Happened This Week (in no particular order):
Disclaimer: the following items are not 'real' news on either a domestic or an international scale, just, well, Things that Happened This Week.

1. I am currently having a Romance (I say Romance because I'm not sure if it's a Fling (probably, but now he is Emotionally Attached so hard to extract Self), or a Fledgling Relationship (Gah! Hope not that one)) with a friend of a friend. Have just been (harshly and undeservedly) labelled "a spring-loaded baby" by Sister Flatmate's boyfriend, as the other key player in the Romance is 7 years older than me. "Spring-loaded baby" appears to be the reverse application of cradle snatching. Oh, he elaborates - "launching yourself from the cradle to latch to some poor unsuspecting man! Doing! Zat!" ('Doing' being the noise of a spring, to rhyme with 'boing'. 'Zat' is presumably the sound of me hitting my intended victim.) So yes - love life interesting, at least, although don't want to get accidentally stuck in Serious Relationship. Perhaps Romance ill-advised. SIGH.

2. I am becoming more maudlin and grouchy by the day - am still trying to decide if am going to move back to Chch or not. Probably not, to be honest - the idea has NO merit except that it would be something to do over a week or so at the start of November (which is when I will be resigning - VB resigned on Friday, it's obviously the season for it). Maybe I could go on holiday for a month or so? (My commission bonus is paid at the end of October). Oh no wait that's right, I will be going to job interviews. I shouldn't quit until I have another job, and I'm much more likely to get a decent job within the company, but - and this is the million dollar question - who really cares?

Not I.

3. I'm watching Becoming Jane, which I've seen before. It annoyed me then, too. Why can't movies display people having realistic emotions? Is all idealism and romance and feet-sweeping. Bleh. Realise quality of blog decreasing rapidly, but then so is mood. Also had a rehearsal this afternoon which went badly as had to sing songs which I didn't know and which were out of my range. Solo! Yay how could that not make my day awesome. I am going to the fridge now and getting a beer out because I've worked myself into quite a rage! Haha.

Not sure where sudden surge of irritability came from, but it's not adding a lot - think might sit quietly fuming to myself and shouting at the telly, rather than blather incoherently on, incensed about nothing easy to describe. Although, it is quite nice to have a rant, and so I shall continue! You know, I have one all lined up.

4. Our Team Leader had his last day at work on Wednesday just been. This is not something bad or rant-worthy as it is good for everyone (him included) that he's gone. Really nice guy, lovely guy, but poor people skills and just in the wrong role. Goodbye, Pigling Bland! Never darken my pod again! ...anyway, now that he's gone his manager is doing the day-to-day running of the team (because hiring a replacement within a sensible timeframe would just be unthinkably well-organised). The only flaw in this plan is that a) she's too senior to know the systems we use and b) she's too senior to be familiar with how we spend our time and c) she's too senior to, um, be in the office for more than about an hour a day. So she's delegated responsibilities (when she's out) to one of the guys in the team. However! Doubt about his competency is widespread in the team and the FIRES OF MUTINY are spreading fast! No-one is keen on Not Being In Charge, and so we have a classic case of too many chiefs, not enough indians. Or, to be more precise, we have a classic case of 'too many chiefs who spend all day running about with their heads up their arses, whooping and hooting and shouting and essentially not doing any of the work that they're meant to be doing, and about two indians.' I seem to have become the unofficial Actual Person to Ask Stuff & General Contact in My Team (for people in other teams), (because the guy who's officially the second in command, as it were, is, um, not overly helpful or for that matter knowledgeable). This would be OK except a) I still have a lot of Regular Stuff to do, which is gettin' all interrupted and backed-up like some hideous overflowing Paperwork Toilet, and b) it is intensely frustrating when someone asks me a question (to which I know the answer), and three different people pop up from their desks and start shouting answers, at least 2 of which will be conflicting and probably wrong - and even if everyone's right, there's no point in 4 people being right at once. Especially not when two of them dislike each other, and every tries to explain at the same time, actually shouting each other down in their manic fervour to prove that they, and they alone, have drunk from the Fountain of Temporary Leadership!

Ooh, I do like to rant. To rant is grand! (Rhymed better in my head.)

So work is frustrating at the moment. Have re-read post and decided Romance definitely ill-advised - oh I feel another rant coming on. I feel like one of those really bad stand-up comics who does a two-hour show and every joke starts "So you know those SUV's/cheap airlines/reality TV shows? What's up with those?"

So you know those people who come across as normal, rational human beings but are actually so emotionally bizarre that you wonder how they manage to function on any deeper emotional level? Yeah, what's up with those? It's really irritating when someone decides that their emotional issues don't only involve them (which would seem like the logical conclusion) but are also somehow your problem. And then they begin to tell you about every nuance of whatever emotional mess they have gotten themselves into (because it is invariably an emotional mess of their own creation). But they do not realise that actually their emotional mirage (as in, I am mired in this emotional um swamp, not as in lost in the desert or what's on a Chinese odometer (am I allowed to say that? hmm)), where was I, their emotional mirage is actually pretty boring and a little pretentious. This in itself is ok. Everyone is allowed their emo moments, even people who are hideously self-indulgent and mawkish about it (and also expect you to realise that no-one else has ever felt like this before, and not lose your temper and shout SHUT UP YOU SILLY FUCKER THIS IS YOUR OWN FAULT AND I AM BORED OF LISTENING TO IT, ALSO STOP TELLING ME ABOUT YOUR DREAMS BECAUSE THEY ARE ALSO BORING, YES THAT'S RIGHT YOU KNOW THAT DREAM WHERE YOU WENT TO THE SUPERMARKET BUT EVERYTHING WAS IN THE WRONG AISLE OH NO, THAT IS NOT INTERESTING, AND WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT WE BOTH KNOW YOU'LL NEVER WRITE THAT NOVEL SO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP TELLING ME EVERY TIME YOU MAKE A MINUTE CHANGE TO THE PLOT WHICH BY THE WAY IS A TOTALLY CRAPPY PREMISE I MEAN WHO WRITES ABOUT A DYSTOPIAN FUTURISTIC SOCIETY SET ON THE MOON OH COME ON - and sadly I am always too polite to start shouting) - as I was saying, everyone is allowed their emo moments and it is fine if a friend is having an emo moment! but as soon as someone starts trying to make their emotional dramas something which it's my responsibility to solve I become highly annoyed, which makes me get really flippant about the emotional drama. This comes out in the form of blatantly unhelpful comments, which always go down a treat. I love it when I am being all distraught and wanky and accusing other people of being responsible for it, and they're all "maybe you'd feel better if you had a look at this comic I found on the Internet, it is pretty funny" or "i wonder if potatoes have changed much in shape since people first started growing them thousands of years ago" or whatever - but if you're going to accuse other people of making you emotionally weird then in that case, my friends, that is what you get. This usually goes on until I make a shockingly crap analogy involving a) Hitler or b) amputees (for some reason all of my really, really terrible analogies feature one of the former) and the person having the emotional drama abruptly becomes the person who is no longer talking to me and I think Oh thank God, now I can drink my tea and watch Coronation Street in peace.

This is becoming a very, very long post and for that I am sorry but hey, maybe you didn't have much to do and needed something to read. So maybe I helped? One final concept which I would like to put forward: what if your internal organs could email you? Actually that will be a new post and it will be above this one. But, what a good rant that was. I feel...better.

The Terminalator

I have sold many terminals! I am well ahead of my silly colleagues! I am fabulously wealthy sales goddess!
Also, I am very good-looking.

The bit about the wealthy was a lie - found out last night that trip to australia (which is in a MONTH) is not going to cost $500 more, but $974 more! ...fuck. That is the kind of money which I do not have. If anyone has ever thought "wow, she is a great friend, I would like to reward her financially" or "oh yes, I owe her money, Sarah," or "gosh I would pay to sleep with her" well come on people, NOW'S THE TIME.

Am obviously a little worried about financial ruin. However my Mummy is coming to stay for a couple of days, which will be really nice.

Had drink with the BBC, who is nice and does not look like Paul McCartney, not even a little bit. We magically connected and are now going to go and live in the mountains and rear eftpos machines, and have small, very financially savvy children (financially savvy part will come from his side, but I will teach them all they need to know about herding terminals).

He is, however, still with girlfriend but flirting madly with self. My self, not his, although what he gets up to in his own time is none of my business.

Why does this so frequently occur (like, twice)? Why? Why? WHY??!!

It must be because I am so attractive and emotionally mature.

I must go home early and clean the house before my Mummy arrives - much as she loves me, she would not love the current state of my room, which is littered with beer bottles and empty fag packets and the like. I call it 'hobo-chic interior decor', but she calls it 'filthy mess.' We agree to disagree and also that I am a slattern.

Other news? hmmm. Not really. Except that now it is time to return to the fold! the fold of work. I think I have had too much coffee.

Andrea Suggested I Update my Blog

...and so I am! Although I don't really have anything exciting to report. I do, however, have several unexciting things to report, as below:

- work is the same but worse. if it were plotted on a graph where y = time and x = excitement it would show up as a steadily declining line. This could also be said of graphs where y = time and x = job satisfaction/financial security. however if x = temptation to crack entirely and run amok with stapler, stapling faces of co-workers (y still = time) the line would be pointing the other way.

- my older sister emailed me saying "I used to babysit for a guy who I just found on Facebook- you should Facebook him and ask him on a date!" I have never met him in my life and wouldn't know him from a bar of soap. Thusly my love life is summed up (and no, I didn't Facebook him. It's weird. What would you say?) Also in my love life are (deep breath is taken to reel off list of names)

Annoying, Really Stupid Ex (ARSE) - has not yet come to terms with the idea that I am NOT madly in love with him, despite the fact that we went out for a whole, beautiful week and a half (actually). Also thinks that he knows me really well and can therefore predict everything I will say and analyse everything I am thinking. I have discovered that that is my single most hated trait in anyone. This is why we only went out for a week and a half.

Persistent Emo Teen (PET) - Persistent. Emo. Teen. What more is there to say?

Business Banker Crush (BBC) - although I have only talked to him on the phone and over the E Mail, we are going to get married and have many children. Gah, no we're not! But we might go out for a drink next week. Watch this space.

And that will do for list of names (shan't feature EVERYONE because who has that kind of time, honestly, and also I can't think of any more snappy acronyms - GFISOSWWD(BWIJAF) (guitarist friend I sort of slept with while drunk (but who is just a friend)) doesn't have the same ring to it as ARSE and PET and BBC. ARSE!

other unexciting news? hmmm. am still apparently going to Brisbane with band.
Bean Ribs! Although Trumpet Player Nunchi Friend declared recently that he is not, in fact, going to Beanribs after all, which was a pain in the Annoying Really Stupid Ex because we had a sort of "you go, I go" deal but now it's just "I go, I go". and that's not the same at all. Sigh. I really must remember to apply for leave.

Other events of note (that was not a band pun) include yesterday at work everyone having to be sat down and told about a new scheme we're implementing to make everyone all healthy. We are expected to join groups and exercise, on our lunch hour, with our workmates. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the point of a lunch hour was to EAT SOMETHING and NOT BE AROUND YOUR WORKMATES. Just shows how ignorant I can be, huh? So that's something I can look forward to. Walking group starts this week. I do not own any shoes for trotting about the town in, red in the face, clutching a sandwich with one hand and getting the Indy. GAH.

Speaking of work, had a hideous day yesterday in which every minor mistake I have ever made came back to haunt me. Do not want to go to work on Monday but must remind myself that other people out there are having worse days for example the man who wanted his terminals to arrive this morning (they are not going to because he filled his forms out all WRONG.)

Anyway, I have to go and meet a friend for lunch (we are going to do some walking) and then go home and have a beer. Ah, beer. I am sorry this post has not been witty and/or fascinating, but I am tired and not very funny :(. See that emoticon? That's how not funny I am. I don't know how to make a sad face at the end of a sentence without making him (why is it a boy? huge socio-political ramifications, note to self: write research paper) look like there's a huge spot on his chin. Perhaps he has a date? Perhaps this time next week I will have a date! I am going to stop typing now because it's just a stream of consciousness, and by consciousness I mean twaddle.

Up Date

There is definitely room for a dirty pun in that title.

This is a big update, because I haven't done one for ages and feel guilty at the thought of the tens of millions who check this blog every day just in case...and every time they see the same old update, die a little more inside. And when my loyal readers die a little inside, I die a little more inside.

I have a new job. I do not want to get FIRED for BLOGGING about my JOB (apparently it has been known to happen) so let's just say I work for a company kind of like Eftpos, which sells machines kind of like the ones that Eftpos sells (terminals, as we in the business call them), and has people who are kind of like salespeople, and I am kind of like one of those. My day goes like this.
6.30 - get up. Stomp about the flat saying 'buttcrack of dawn' and annoy my flatmates. Jump into invigorating hot shower. Abruptly remember that I am sunburnt and loudly jump back out of invigorating shower to further annoyance of flatmates.
Back in shower of more moderate temperature. drop soap, curse soap for its slippery buggerness, get out of shower, towel off vigorously, remember about sunburn again.
Eat muesli. Curse muesli as is bitty and stuck in teeth and I do not have TIME to brush teeth because instead of getting up at 6.30 actually got up at 7 and am now going to be late because spent hours getting bits out of teeth so as not to horrify co-workers, none of whom are remotely good-looking anyway, except for one, and he has red hair.
8 - arrive at work with coffee. sit at desk. check email. there is no email. check list of people to call. wish this list as short as list of new emails.
start calling people. This goes thusly:
Me: (put on headset. wish that headset was status symbol in Madonna/head of MI5 kind of way rather than just thing which ruined hair & made me feel slightly stupid.)
ring ring. ring ring.
Voice: Hello?
Me: Hello, this is Ally from Insert Company Name Here. Am I speaking with John?
Voice: Yes.
Me: Excellent. Have I got you at a good time? (Sounds stupid but there is a Customer Feedback Form in which customer gets to complain if you didn't check that Now Was A Good Time.)
Voice of John: Yes.
Me: I understand you're interested in our product...
and from there it becomes too boring to transcribe. Unlike John, I am not interested in our product. To be fair, most of the time neither is John. I spent a morning learning about machines and suffered from (wait for it) terminal boredom.
See? That's the sort of pun you make when you work in an office.

In other news, I am now in a bag band (no, I'm not, I'm in a big band, although the idea of a bag band certainly bears thought) who let me sing, which is nice of them (also strange). And I'm being the trumpet section (Andrea: 'yo mama so fat that when she plays the trumpet, she's the whole trumpet section') for the lower hutt production of Cinderella: the Pantomime. So that should be fun. Also learning salsa dancing, inspired by my flatmate, but not sure if this counts because classes haven't started yet.

Anyway, am off to carry out exciting plan for the evening!*

*go to pub, have beer while writing grandmother's birthday card, go home, watch coronation street, sleep.

DISCLAIMER: plan may not actually be very exciting.

Toes Go In First

or, Thank God It's Friday. Look at me with my plebeian dayjob mind! I am sick of cutting up sticks now. Sure, it's fine for the first five hours, but the last three are sheer hell.

In other news, the novel editing is going well. By this I mean the editing of my Seminal Work, not the brand new editing or whatever that would've implied if it didn't imply the editing of my Seminal Work. My brain has atrophied. I have a headache and every time I close my eyes I see your face...no, I see vines. Got carried away there but I see vines, tangled vines, and sometimes my secateurs. snip snip snip swear internally. although today one of the guys lost his temper, shouted 'motherFUCKER' and kicked the vines, then his bucket. Was going to work a 'kicked the bucket' pun in there, but decided against it as I am WISE.

Also I Beboed. Every time I go on Bebo I die a little inside. To Bebo or not to Bebo? That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the awful grammar and chatspeak of the detritus of humanity, or to fight against the sea of people who are adding you to their Bebo thing and sending you mindless messages, and by opposing piss them off?

and now I'm BORED but I can't be bothered doing any work, and it's still TWO HOURS until Footballers' Wives comes on. Gosh life is HARD.

I was thinking today about how if God did, in fact, make Man in his own image it was kind of a narcissistic thing to do- even if they were talking metaphorically. If not, surely I have a point? I mean, you make all these animals in all these weird shapes and sizes, cats and rats and elephants and so on, and then you stop and look at them and go "Shit yeah." And then you get up the next day, and you think 'Today I am going to make a creature that will DOMINATE all of this other stuff I've made. And this thing right up at the top of the food chain is going to look like ME. And there will be MILLIONS of them, and they are All Going To Look Like Me.'
It's more or less the divine equivalent of standing in front of the mirror going, "Hey! Everybody! Come and see how good I look!" I mean, I'd totally do it that way, were I God, but God isn't supposed to do the sort of things I'd do were I Him.

On that note, my father (actual, not celestial) wants to use the computer. This is fair as it is in fact his computer. I am going to put my electric blanket and my pyjamas on, then go upstairs and watch bad TV in front of the fire. It is going to be AWESOME.