29.4

Little more than six months lie before me before I hit the third decade. Your twenties, people assure me, are the time for having fun, for getting the crazy out of your system, for 'living a little'.
I think I've done a couple of important things (get a degree, build a career, learn how to make pancakes), and I seem to have ticked off what most lists on the internet hold vital (visit another country, kiss a boy, maybe, like, have sex omg!!!!). But I still thought I should check with my near and dear to see if I had anything left to achieve. And apparently, yes, yes I do.

1) Sky diving. Now I have to say, I don’t really see what the entire point of this is. I suspect it’s a little bit of population control, or Darwinism in action. In fact, I think it’s a government plot to reduce superannuation. Yeah. A conspiracy. Damn the Man.
2) Drink absinthe - I have a feeling absinthe is like the 60s. If you remember drinking it, then you probably made the whole thing up. If you think you never drank it, but do recall this night where you made great friends with a magic rhino who wore tapshoes…well yes, you may have drunk absinthe.
3) Get married in Vegas - because we all want to be a little bit Britney.
4)Break a bone - does it have to be one of my own? Can I maybe combine this one with number 1 or 2?
5) Have a song written for/about me - going to have to go hang out with music school dropouts, aren't I? I can drink absinthe with them, and they'll write a song about the fish in my eyes, and the way my blue hair sambas in the light from the dairy.
6) Read ‘War and Peace’. I can do this while I am recuperating with my broken bone.
7) Imitate ‘Sex and the City’. I’m choosing to interpret this as owning at least one pair of Manolos or Jimmy Choos. Thanks for the heads up, Felix.
8) Have a third child for Australia - The Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, urged Australians last year to do their "patriotic duty" and have "one [child] for your husband, and one for your wife, and one for the country. Well…as long as its for Australia. (Does that mean I can sue Australia for child support?)
9) Go to a life drawing class - yes, what indeed could be more young, fun, or crazy than drawing nude stick figures?
10) Climb Everest - ok, fairly sure there is someone out there with a death wish for me. Not only have I never climbed anything higher than the steps in an Imax theatre, the only safe window for climbing Chomolungma is in May, and I hit the big three o in January. Add to that the cost (nearly $100,000 ) and my inability to recognise the difference between a crevasse, a crampon, and a karabiner, and I think I can safely write this one off.
11) Shave your head. (What's with the Britney, people?)

Shorter

I wrote a story in my dream the other night, and all I can remember was that the beginning started "Herbert was thirty five and dressed it. He had spent much of his twenties preparing the not so silent art of old manhood - the hack and hoik, and the meaningful sniff, not to mention the muttering at inanimate objects - and now felt he could finally start to put it all to good use. 'The time' he said 'is right for plaid.'" And I can't remember the rest. I can't even remember if Herbert was to be my protaganist, or simply some random stranger (serving to start a scene, you see) to be killed off on page three (enter our wandering hero). But that's dreams for you. Ephemeral whosiewhatsits. Flowing through cupped hands like...you know. Stuff.
I used to think Camp Freddie was like Camp David. Somewhere the President went to relax and get back to nature. I suppose it still could be, really....
Saturday was full of the joys of fried foods and fermented beverages. Sunday began the time of mourning and rage, fasting and thin strips of humanity roasting over open fires. And today - today begins a blue underwater time of waiting. Counting ripples of information as they pass over my head and leave a shadow on the sandy floor of my brain. Little fish (the music guppies, remember?) swimming in the warm spot near where memories of red formica and Hawaii lie. Blue green. Algaefied. If I wait long enough this may become the evolutionary soup. With noodles.

Cheers

To the man who pulled his car over in the pouring rain, to dash across traffic and remove the upturned supermarket trolley lying in the middle of the opposite lane -
I'm sorry I glared at you when you hit your hazard lights and swung your car of the side of the road - I didn't see why at first. I hope you realise the smile I gave you as you ran across the road in front of my car was intended as a 'Thank-you' for doing such a nice, sensible, good thing. Not just because you had a cute bum and looked hot with rain slicked hair. I hope you heard me shouting 'You're my hero!' through the window and over the traffic noise.
You're lovely. And you looked like sex on legs. I hope good things happen to you.

In other news, boo hiss to colds. My vocab seems to be reduced to 'Uuughg' and *sniff*. I apparently sound like a Southern Belle on valium, and feel like my head is the size of one of those ginourmous pumpkins that turn up sporadically in the newspaper. As sort of an 'Oooh, look at the size of Mr Albert Fletcher, 76, 's pumpkin. Mr Fletcher has been growing pumpkins since the Boer War, and believes this is the largest yet. He says the secret is regular mulching, and burying his dead budgies in the pumpkin patch' filler for when there's no news.

Oh kom op scheidsrechter!

I've been musing on this for some time. I've tried listening quietly, intently, like I was at Bletchley Park in the 40's trying to figure out Enigma. I've tried singing along loudly and with enthusiasm, channeling my inner Brighton boy band and hoping the words will automatically flow out of me. I've asked other people's opinions, hoping someone in nuhziland can interpret britspeak. (Not unless it refers to sport, it appears. Kiwi fans are able to repeat 'Aw, come on ref!' in at least five languages, and perform the haka in nearly 30 english dialects, but would be unable to ask directions to the nearest library in Leatherhead or Statford on Avon.)
I refuse to resort to looking it up on Lyrics.com or its ilk. The last time I did that, I went around singing about stoic squirrels in Alanis Morissette's 'Uninvited'.
What the hell are the lyrics!?!
I know, she knows, that I'm not from the right school...
I know, she knows, that I'm not a fond rascal...
I know, she knows, that I'm not the Fonz on skis...

Aagh!

Blatant prejudice.

I am terrified. I am about to reveal the secret inner working of my soul here. Unbeknown to any, I have a small 'meeehh' to reveal. (Meeehh is pronounced in 'small squished meerkat trying hard not to let anyone else know its been squished' voice)
Ok. Here we go. Deep breaths, deep breaths.

I don't like Dutch people.

I know, I know, in todays PC society, the shock and horror you must be feeling right now to hear someone proclaiming her dislike for an entire nation of people. Allow to me to explain.
- First there was the crazy Dutch lady and her farmer husband who went insane (er) on me during my farm work experience, and chased me off the farm wielding a shotgun for asking no more than 'So, what are we doing today?"
- Then there was my flatmate K's husband A, who shagged round behind her back with various interbimbos. Dutch. (Him. Not sure about interbimbos).
- Every single dutchoid I have ever met has a bizarre sense of humour. Which seems to come across as a bizarre *lack* of humour, normally expressed in a clipped, curt, dutchy accent. It freaks me out. Seriously,maybe it's not so bad in A'dam when they can have all the pot and canals they want, maybe overseas they are suffering from tulip and clog deficiency and it turns them into fucktards.
- Tulips. I mean,seriously. Fields and fields of freaky tulips, and they can't manage to make a black one. And they've been trying for some time. I hate failure.
- Rembrant. Actually, scratch that, let's say the entire class of Dutch Masters. Paintings that only belong in a brown cafe, because they looked like they've alredy been smoked at for five hundred years. Brown, murky, realist paintings of ugly flowers, dead pheasants, and ugly dead people. Oh, also add horrible tiles and porcelain.
- Dykes. Small boys with fingers in. Canals. The entire fact that nature wants this country entirely under water should tell you something.
- The Dutch. Live in The Netherlands. Also known as Holland. What the Prague? They should be the Dutch from Dutchland, the Nethers from the Netherlands, or the Hollish from Holland. Seriously folks.

I will concede windmills, salt licorice, and cheese as exceptions to this rule.

How some owners see my life....

Ah, another day at work! What shall I do today, let me see, let me see. I might cuddle a kitten here, stop to pat a cute little puppy dog here, maybe tickle a fluffy bunny rabbit under its chin. Then I might inflict needless torture on some elderly pensioners pussy cat, and finish it off by putting down someone's dog they've had since they were six. Ahaha hahahaha! I shall skip home laughing and twirling my stethoscope around my finger, whistling merrily as I go! Knowing that tomorrow, I might get to kick a foal, or throw darts at an albatross!

Yes, thats right kids, the vet likes being mean to animals. We get a kick out of it. I mean, really, what's five years of study and a $60,000 student loan? Who minds long hours and sleepless nights? So what if we'll never get paid as much as doctors, dentists, electricians or IT geeks? We get to be mean to animals, and that makes it all worthwhile.

Sunday morning

A time for sleeping in. For recovering from Friday night (5am) and Saturday night (a more civilised 3am). For mumbling sleepily and moving the pillow over your head as the church bells across the road call those who care. For snuggling into the body curving behind your back. For skin on warm skin, sleepy sex. For the cup of coffee you had to have, growing cold on the bedside table as you fall back asleep in a post-orgasmic glow.
It is not for the boss to ring at 8am and ask you to come into work.