Rocks

If you manage to pull it out you, um, become King of the Fruits I guess.


Tonight at the pub quiz I learnt that Tolstoy had a really big beard. Seriously, dude looks like he stuck his face in a hedgehog. I bet the working title for 'War & Peace' was 'War, Peace, and My Awesome Beard' but the publishers made him change it.

Anyway, you may have noticed I added a 'reasons to read' thing in the sidebar. For those of you who have only recently become faithful followers of this my excellent blog, it's just quick links to some posts which Andrea & I consider worth reading. You'll notice that while this blog has over 230 posts in total (yeah, I know, who would've thought I had so much nothing to talk about) I have only listed 7 in the sidebar. This isn't some kind of quality/quantity ratio indicator, just a demonstration of my extreme self-restraint.

There was a paragraph here but it was pretty racist so I deleted it.

Andrea and I were also talking about which Google search phrases bring people to our respective blogs (you can check that kind of thing, you know). At the moment most of my Google referrals come from people searching for 'today is my birthday' (although 'enormous banana' and 'airplane hangover' have also brought in their fair share.) However, I was wondering if maybe my blog would experience a sudden jump in popularity should I include more commonly-searched Google terms. You know, things like transformer porn and real ninja attacks and swine zombies. If you think I missed something let me know.

We'll see.

Anyway, here's a poem. This is called Ode to The Rock, and is about a musician I used to know, who thought he was a-may-zing. The Rock was one of his nicknames. One of the other ones was The Shark.

Just imagine it's about a douchebag and you're delivering it in a really over-dramatic tone, and you'll more or less have a handle on it. (It's number 2 of a series: number 1 was very similar and called Ode to Tod, but I can't find it, and number 3 is still in the works.)


Ode to The Rock

You see him walk into the room; you see the ladies flock.
How lucky are we all to share a planet with the Rock!

When searching for a haven for your ship of love to dock,
Look no farther than the harbour of the ardour of the Rock!

Not a single pimple his face would dare to pock;
Smooth as a baby’s bottom is the surface of the Rock.

At the rainbow’s end of romance, he is that treasured crock
If not gold, you must admit he’s full of something, is the Rock.

When he’s in the room, common sense is out of stock
We all fall upon our faces at the altar of the Rock!

There’s nothing he can’t play, no musical door he can’t unlock
It’s theorised that Mozart had nothing on the Rock.

If he should stoop to look at me, my knees begin to knock
A rose by any other name is simply called, ‘the Rock.’

Our hands met on a pencil with an electric shock -
It could have been the carpet, but I think it was the Rock.

The other day he spoke to me! I cried out, “Stop the clock!
I want to stay forever in this moment with the Rock!”

He fixes everything, from leprosy to writer's block,
And every night I pray, “Hey, God…hand over to the Rock.”

I remember when the concept of true love I used to mock -
Then something smashed the window of my heart. It was... the Rock.

HMMM*

*What's red and bad for your teeth?
A brick.

I spent the first part of this evening, before Top Chef, going back through my old blog (which ran from August 2004 to early 2007) on some kind of quixotic chase for forgotten brilliance. Sadly there was not a lot of forgotten brilliance to be found, just a lot of posts in which I was angsty and grumpy (sample text: 'One day, I'm going to get plastic surgery, and then I won't have to have a personality anymore!' - Jan 8, 2005. In my defence I think I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek about that.)

I got bored with the archiving (will finish another time), but found this stunning little song from Feb 2005, which pretty much summed up my life at the time (and depressingly enough, still kind of does- except now I can't afford Galliano.)

I drank the Galliano but the Devil drained my soul
I go to work, I come back home, I might go on the dole
I had a dog, he up and died, I put him in a hole (this did not actually happen)
So I go in my lonesome kitchen and I butter me a roll.


Also found this poem. I was totally being a smartass when I wrote it but now I think it stands alone as a work of modern art.


modern utopia

i am sitting
on the couch which is textured brownwhitebrownwhite
listening to my stomach
fight the
hum hum hum
of the blaring blazing blue tele-
vision

i wonder
what follows this programme
will theywhodecidethesethings
screen
a sunday movie?

my stomach rumbles
and i punch remorselessly the buttons
of my silent remote.

extreme makeover follows;
the television muted.


Moving on.

Kate and I had an emo-off last night. It's like a rap battle except no-one cares about the outcome. I led with "I'm not glum/ just kind of numb/ look at what I have become," then she came back with the surprisingly powerful, "You and me/ aren't meant to be/ 'cause nobody's meant to be me." Then we both lost interest and just sat down in the corner for a while and thought about our feelings.

On the plus side I downloaded Scorched Earth, and now plan to spend the evening blowing little computer-controlled tanks into oblivion. yeah man.


Three Beautiful Things

1. It was a proper wintry day! Maybe the first one this year where there was a proper chill on. No not chillax I am not meant to say that any more. I like winter, especially Christchurch winters (when it finally decides to have one after a couple of months of mucking about like someone trying to choose between the fish and the chicken. "I like autumn...but then I haven't had a winter for ages. Oh I don't know, you choose.") Christchurch seasons are markedly different from Wellington (where I have spent my last two winters); while Wellington's winter is a tantrum, Christchurch's is a sulk.

2. I went to my impossibly coloured friend Andrea's house this afternoon to watch movies and sit about and drink coffee (which is a yay in itself, really, but that's not the point of the story). When I left, she rootled around in the kitchen cupboards and a state of high excitement in what later turned out to be a search for a little thermos mug that I could take the last of the coffee home in. While she didn't find this, she did dig out a water bottle, fill it with coffee, and give it to me to stave off the cold on my walk homewards! Yay for Andrea, were it not for her I might well have died or at the very least caught a chillax. (It's like the Dreaded Man Flu, but even more so - all you do is lie in bed sniffling from time to time and demanding hot drinks and/or attention, because you just feel so rotten, and could you please go down to the shop and get me a packet of Tim Tams because I don't feel like anything else, and maybe some of those hard little lollies I like, because I think they'd really help my throat, and maybe some cigarettes while you're there but before you go I'd really like, if it isn't too much trouble...a cup of tea? With the milk just how I like it? NO NOT LIKE THAT YOU KNOW I LIKE THE MILK HEATED SEPARATELY I AM SICK WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO, KILL ME? Oh I'm sorry dear I didn't mean it I just feel so simply horrid, you're such a good nurse...do you think you'll be going to the shop, you know, soon?)

3. I made an omelette and it was delicious. That's not really a beautiful thing, just a bit of random information.

Ignore this next sentence, I should really have deleted it but couldn't bring myself to do it.


In other news I am going to rethink my stock options* as a friend tells me the genitalia market is expanding.


*I don't actually know what these are

Return of the ENORMOUS BANANA

Yes! I saw the ENORMOUS BANANAS again today, in a different fruit & vege shop! They must be catching on. Shortly after the EB sighting I overtook (in the walking sense) a woman who was carrying a plastic shopping bag with nothing in it except an EB. I almost said something to her (would've been along the lines of "Oh, you got one of those huge bananas! I was going to get one, too"), but luckily I realised that only mad people comment on the fruit purchases of a complete stranger. Still. Was nice to see my favourite fruit again. Next time I will take a photo.

Other exciting newses -

1) this wasn't originally going to be on the list, but Blogger spell-check recognises 'newses' as a word, which I was pretty sure it wasn't.

2) I made scones this evening! To be more accurate, I made a scone. Was intending to make a batch of perfectly formed sconelets (also apparently a word - come on, spell-check, you cannot be serious), but the batter was all sticky and gluey and just getting it onto the baking tray was hard enough, let alone cutting it into squares and then moving them 2cm apart. So I made one large scone, and cut it into many smaller scones. Turns out this doesn't make any difference to the delicious taste. Although having said that, I have never made scones before - so maybe it does. Hmm. Will use more flour next time and see. Will also use more baking powder as scones not as tall as I would've liked.

3) Have new plot for novel! Surprise, surprise. Will not unveil plot in dramatic, Extreme Makeover fashion as there will probably be a new plot tomorrow.

4) Yoghurt is good for your skin! (The Internet told me.) Am not sure if this is a widely held theory, though, because Sister Flatmate came home to find me watching Survivor with yoghurt all over my face and thought I was a nutcase. Skin now very soft though. Hair is also soft, because felt like hair was not doing skin justice and so put leave-in conditioner through it. I am all soft! Just for reference purposes, it's only plain yoghurt that's good for your skin, not flavoured yoghurt with little bits of strawberry in it. Although if that was the only yoghurt in the house it would be better than nothing? Probably.

5) There was a power cut tonight! Right in the middle of CSI: Miami. I was home by myself and the lights went out, and I thought 'oh shit I knew we should have paid that power bill before now,' but when I wandered outside the lights had gone out all up the street, and everyone was standing outside their houses cursing and offering each other candles and saying things like "I knew I shouldn't have tried to cook so many things in the oven at once" and gloating because somehow their telly was still working. Was exciting! Lit candles and read magazines by candle-light and thought, 'I could survive in a civil defence emergency!' (Not sure if this is actually the case, but I can definitely survive a two-hour power cut just fine.)


No more newses, I don't think, except that I was really productive at work today! Probably the biggest news of all. It was almost un-natural. This unholy efficiency may or may not continue tomorrow - I stayed late (I know - I said it was unnatural (does un-natural have a hyphen? both ways look wrong. both ways look unnatural)) to redo my entire filing system, halve my workload for tomorrow, and schedule my day properly. Whether or not I will stick to the schedule remains to be seen, but if I do it will make me an efficiency wizard.

And now, an impromptu summing-up of my day, in poetic form!

I got up this morning and I made myself some porridge -

Poor start. Nothing rhymes with porridge.

I got up this morning, made some porridge, went to work
Fortified myself with coffee, then plunged into the murk
of documents and emails in which, a corporate pig, I wallow
(after checking first my Facebook and the daily blogs I follow).
Made phone call after phone call with no visible result
Amended several fuck-ups all of which were not my fault
Put through some sales, redid my files and made a cup of tea
and then at 5 to 5 I took my customary wee.

Stayed working late to get things done and missed the evening news
Trundled home, self-satisfied that I'd worn comfy shoes
Saw the Huge Banana as I walked to my abode
and yet again I failed to find a fifty in the road.
I reached my house! I went inside! I made the Giant Scone!
The lights went off on our whole street! And then they went back on!
To celebrate the power cut I opened up a beer
And then I thought, 'I'll do my blog,' and this is it right here.

OK bedtime.