THE ANGELS ARE SPEAKING TO ME THROUGH SAUSAGES AND I DON'T GET IT

Ok, so there is a weird synchronicity vibe going on with me today. For the last week or so, I have been repeatedly drawing these enigmatic angel cards that tell me that they (the angels…duh) are currently speaking to me in the form of repetitious signs, thoughts and images, and if I pay attention to these, important messages will be revealed to me.

Today, the angels spoke, and I listened with somewhat baffled awe. You see, my important “signs” have come to me three times today in the form of….SAUSAGES. Now this is seriously weird and I’m still yet to work out the significance of the sausage. Admittedly there was nothing quite as momentous as seeing the Virgin Mary apppear in my sausage roll at lunch (damn... should have done the sausage roll instead of the boring cheese sanger today), but at least two of the symbols were pretty darn coincidental in terms of both how specific and uncommon they were.

So get this - these were my three DIVINE SIGNS.

1) Approximately 7am this morning - I begin reading “Yes, Prime Minister” on the train, a book that has languished untouched on my shelf for years until now – after the dog eats my harcover copy of The Winds of War by Herman Wouk, when I am only about 100 pages into the action. I mean, the goddamn war hadn’t even started yet and here I come home to a shredded mess of literature on my bedroom floor. 800 pages worth…

Anyway, the first chapter of “Yes, Prime Minister” features the potential banning of the “BRITISH SAUSAGE” by the European Union as the central comic motif. Naturally, I didn’t think much of it at the time. Why would I have?

2) Approximately 4 pm this afternoon - I walk out of the office and there is a truck parked directly across the road. On its side is a big logo that says “THE BRITISH SAUSAGE”. Now this spins me out somewhat, though my logical mind attempts to downplay the significance and attempts to convince me to cast it off as mere coincidence. But the fact that the “British” element of the sausage is emphasised in both cases gets me thinking hard at this point.

So I have a quick mental conversation with the angels (yes…. I do it all the time, as a matter of fact) and tell them that if it really is a sign - if I’m to swallow this whole crazy business - I need to have the sausage symbol re-affirmed again today. Of course, my cynical self expected no such sign to occur.

3) Approximately 5:30 pm this afternoon – We are at the park in East Freo with the dog, waiting to meet up with her little Staffy playmate so they can belt each other around a bit. While we are there, we walk past a group of people, paying them no mind, until I hear one voice rise above the rest. She says, and I quote “I should have brought the sausages down today”. End quote.

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN? WHAT IS THE DIVINE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SAUSAGE?

I have no choice but to wait for further advice from my angel friends. I swear, I sincerely think there is something in all of this that I need to know. Damn smarty-pants angels and their deliberately cyptic messages. I wish they’d just come to me in a dream or a vision or whatever and forget all this nonsense with the bloody sausages already….. I’m really not that clever.

ROMANCE AND EMAIL DON'T MIX

Ok, so I am never trying to do the whole ”romantic” thing ever again. It invariably just ends in embarassment.

So I’m at work today and I get some divine inspiration (not of the sausage-variety this time) and decide that I’m going to send Anton an email, telling him that I will be taking him on a surprise date on the weekend.


Hey Sweetie,

I am asking you out on a date for this weekend. Saturday or Sunday - you decide!

We will be getting on a train and doing fun things and I will buy you lunch.

Not telling you where we are going. It's not go-cart racing.

Love, Mel xoxoxoxooxox


Cool, right. Slightly corny, but cool. So I haven’t heard back from Anton all day and thought I’d give him a call, directing him to check his goddamn email. And of course, my email never arrived. Nor did it get bounced back as having been sent to a non-existent address so it never crossed my mind that he might not have received it.

A quick “let’s just check where I sent the bugger” later, turns out I sent the email to a certain aseisun@hotmail.com, which is, in fact, NOT Anton’s email address.

So in effect, all I can assume is that some random guy (or girl) called aseisun will have received an email today with the jaunty little subject line proclaiming MEL IS TAKING YOU ON A DATE THIS WEEKEND!!!!!

And that initial feeling of euphoria at the prospect of feeling loved and desired will gradually dissolve into disappointment on realising that sadly, they were not the intended recipient of its romantic promise. Or have them desperately racking their brains trying to work out if they know of any Mel who may happen to have a crush on them.

Romance is tough.

CONDITION DOWNGRADED FROM DYING TO JUST PLAIN BORING

Ok, so in what I promise is the final word on my recent ill-health, I was a wee bit better on Sunday. Two Nurofen and two kick-ass Codalgin later and I was OK to potter around the house doing the dishes and folding the laundry, in between strenuous sessions on the couch with the entire series six of Sex in the City, fresh out of its wrapper.

So I was OK this weekend, but poor old Anton had a shocker.

Friday evening: Anton locks his keys in the car. He is not a member of the RACV or whatever they are called in Perth. Luckily, I make my first ever successful attempt at breaking into a car with a coathanger. Well, it was a two coathanger affair but I did all the intricate work.

Saturday:

1) While I am second-hand book shopping on Saturday morning (trying to replace a book my bloody dog ate), Anton heads out in search of some classic boy comfort food - the bacon and egg roll. Hard to beat, and hard to fuck up, really. This one - by his account - was one of the worst. Fatty bacon, bland BBQ sauce, stale bread roll. Plus it came with an unexpected condiment - a greasy price sticker, smack bang in the middle of it. Now, I would have been the first to rush back into the store, complain loudly in front of all their customers, possibly vomit, demand a refund and threaten them with a visit from the health inspectors. What does Anton do? He takes the price sticker out and finishes the rest of it....Then complains about it to me for the next half hour.....

2) Down at the beach in Freo with the dog. At one point, Anton screamed and ran back onto the beach saying that something bit him on the little toe. A crab, perhaps. I applied my limited First Aid skills by looking eagerly for gushing blood or a deep laceration, but alas, there was no visible wound. My response was subsequently to laugh disdainfully and wonder quietly to myself what kind of wuss man I've hooked up with. However, by Sunday, his poor little toe was as bright red and twice it's usual size.....

Sunday: Anton gets robbed at work by an Aboriginal kid, who makes $700 for his troubles.

Nothing interesting happpened to me, as usual.

MELLIPOP'S ONLINE DIAGNOSIS

Ok, so the situation in Perth re: doctors is obscene to a healthy Medicare-levy taxpayer like myself. Forget the trusty Medicare card as your ticket to free health care, in Perth DOCTORS EXPECT TO GET PAID! Cash exchanges hands. Then you have to line up with all the dirty unwashed at the Medicare office to get your piddly cash rebate, which generally dooesn't cover the full cost of the consultation. Abso-fucking-lutely criminal! The government here should be BLOODY ASHAMED of themselves!

See, I go to the doctor only once or twice a year, for a total of about five minutes a pop while they write me out a new prescription for the pill, take my blood pressure and ask me when I had my last pap smear. And I lie to them and say that I've already had one this year so THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE TO POKE AROUND IN MY PINK BITS FOR THE SMEAR. That's what a $500 Medicare levy gets you. Ten minutes medical attention a year and the warm glow one invitably gets when they know their hard earned money is supporting the obese, the elderly, and the hypochondriacs that fill GP waiting rooms around the country everywhere.

Anyway, because I refuse to support the user-pays (and pays and pays) system currently in place here in Perth, I have been forced to go online for my diagnosis. Now most online diagnostic tools ask for your credit card number before they ask for your symptoms, so I had to resort to a veterinary website that was dishing out the good stuff for free. I mean, we're all freakin' mammals, right.

Now the first choice I had to make was whether I was a cat or a dog. Now I much prefer the nature of dogs as an animal, but alas, feel that I embody more of the characteristics of the feline species. Selfishness, laziness, moodiness, and arrogance. Plus I like being alone and generally enjoy taunting others with my superior cunning.

So the next category was to select which was the affected area : eyes, ears, anus etc. So I chose "internal", because migraines are fairly intangible monsters. From the list of symptoms I was able to select "Vomiting" and "Swollen Abdomen" (but I think that the last one is more the result of my early middle-age spread than my migraines).

Thankfully, it was not necessary to select "Worms (look like rice segments) near anus". Not this time, anyway.

So I clicked submit and the website gave me my diagnosis. Turns out, I have BABESIOSIS! So my migraines, it seems, are the inevitable result of my ass-kicking babe-licious good looks. IT'S NOW OFFICIAL - I AM SO GOOD-LOOKING IT HURTS!

Thankfully in humans, Babesiosis is generally not fatal. Besides the migraines and nausea, other symptoms I suffer from include: being constantly hit on by blokes in pubs, being stopped by photographers in the street begging me to pose for them, being harrassed constantly by the producers of reality TV show Search for a Supermodel, having men run up to me in the street with bunches of flowers in spontaneous displays of love-struck awe and simply being captivated by my own image every morning in the mirror. That's why good-looking people are always, late, you see. It's the Babesiosis.

I tell you, it's such a relief to finally be diagnosed...... I always felt so ABNORMAL. Now I know it's not my fault. It's just the Babesiosis.

In cat's however, Babesiosis is an entirely more serious health matter. And I quote:

Babesiosis is a disease transmitted by a certain species of ticks. It is a single cell parasite that attacks the red blood cells causing anemia. Some signs may include anemia, not eating, lethargy, high temp, vomiting, dehydration and jaundice. In some cases the spleen and liver may be enlarged. Your veterinarian can properly diagnosis this disease with an examination of the blood. Treatment is highly effective.
AREA: BLOOD DISEASES, MENTAL/BEHAVIOR, INTERNAL
SYMPTOMS: ANEMIA, NOT EATING, LETHARGY, HIGH TEMP, VOMITING, DEHYDRATION, JAUNDICE

Tough break, pussycats.

And tough break, Perth GPs. There's $50 you won't be getting from me.....

HELP ME I MIGHT BE DYING

LOOK, I KNOW IT'S CRAP BUT IT'S A POST..... I DO HAVE MANY GOOD IDEAS AT THE MOMENT YOU KNOW. I REALLY DO.

Ok, so I spent another whole sunny 31 degree Sunday in bed with a migraine, when I should have been at the beach. Things are not good. There was a time a few years back when for some mystical reason, I’d be struck down with a migraine at around 2pm every Monday. I only noticed the trend because it would strike during my Sociology of Disability tutorial, a class I truly despised, with a lecturer who would speak in an endless succession of bullet-points which he would transcribe to a whiteboard. For the whole two-hour class.

So I would come to truly dread this time of the week, and often used my migraine-induced misery to cut class and stagger home. But now the buggers are striking on a Sunday and I won’t stand for it. Not on church day..... The Church of Slack.

This week, the experiment is to cut out all units of coffee and alchohol, and pray to the Archangel Raphael to heal me….. Alternatively, I have a back-up stash of a wonderful painkiller called Codalgin, the most kick-ass over-the-counter relief you can get. The buggers knocked me out in about 5 minutes last night. I missed the final of Australian Idol but was pleased to finally have dropped out of the 12-hour marathon of pain and nausea I’d been slogging out all day.

And now I keep getting unrelated nausea and dizziness. P.S. Spare me the pregnancy jokes.

Sickness is weakness. I hate weakness. I hate being sick. I’m never sick. I am not sick. I am a Nietzschean Superman!

FAMOUS MELLIPOP LOOK-ALIKES

Ok, so the day after I started at the publishing house, I'm sitting at my desk, beavering away in a concerted attempt to maintain the illusion that I am both a conscientious and worthwhile employee, when one of the old sales blokes pops his head into the office and asks me if I'm Jewish. Somewhat taken aback, I quizzically replied in the negative and he ducked back out into the hall and disappeared back into anonymous officedom before I could even ask why on earth he would think to ask me that. And wondering whether he might not just be one of the Perth Neo-Nazis recently outed in the press over here. After briefly pondering the possibility that he may well have been back at his desk, crossing me off his hit-list of suspected Jewish targets in the office, I went back to whatever boring crap I was doing and thought no more of the matter. Until today, when part two of the "Jewish question" conversation took place.

So old Dave pulled me up in the hallway today and thought it necessary to clarify why he thought I was Jewish in the first place. And no sooner had he explained why, was I haunted by ghosts of my teenage past. You see, he thought I looked like Barbra Streisand in profile. And to those lucky sods who knew me during those heady teenage years, all would agree that I copped the Streisand jokes quite a bit at school. I believe that is even immortalised as a joke in my entry in the high school yearbook. So I made it my personal goal to verbally and psychologically castrate every guy at school who ever tried it on with me. And the girls who took the piss didn't matter anyway. It was far too easy to revenge taunt a teenage girl into an eating disorder for me to even really bother.

Anyway, it also got me thinking as to the other famous people look-alikes I get lumbered with. You see, they all boil down to two essential similarities - they are blonde, and have big noses. I am blonde and I have a big nose (damn Italian genes). So besides the Streisand thing, I also get:

1) Johanna Griggs - Get this one far too often to recount. However, my favourite was the time I was at the free Savage Garden outdoor concert during the Sydney Olympics. A group of drunken blokes insisting that I was DEFINITELY Johanna Griggs, hell bent on maintaining my anonymity in the midst of a massive crowd and using the name Mellipop as a pseudonym for the evening.

2) Steffie Graf - The hilarious thing is, Anton looks EXACTLY like Andre Agassi - short, stocky, athletic build, bald, swarthy, big eyebrows. The two of us actually got hounded out of a Sydney pub a few years ago during the Australian Open, when Agassi was playing Pat Rafter - and kicking his Aussie ass. Every time Agassi won a point, we'd get yelled at by the whole freakin' pub....It started off as a fairly light-hearted exchange, but became increasingly more aggressive as the game kept going Agassi/Anton's way.

3) The Blonde Chick from Secret Life of Us (otherwise known as Sybilla Budd, to those in the know)- This is my favourite comparison. At least the chick is cute. I used to get this in pubs as a pick-up line a lot when I was single.

Crap. I so have to do this damn organics thing.....

MELLIPOP AND THE MOULDY ORANGE

Ok, so who the fuck could ever have guessed that juicers could be so complicated? I mean it's fruit. Just squeeze the fuckers. And carrot juice is an abomination anyway. If you can't squeeze it you shouldn't be bloody drinking it anyway, goddamn hippies. Man....this damn freelance assignment on organics is doing my head in.

Anyway, whilst we're on the subject of fruit, yesterday saw the dramatic resolution of an ongoing Citrus Crisis, in this very house. Now for two weeks, we had a Code Red Mouldy Orange Incident occurring in our fruit bowl. With four other unblemished specimens at risk of contamination. Ok, so I saw the bugger, but I wasn't going to touch the filthy bloody thing. Yuck. So I left it there. I mean, there is one other person in this house. PLUS, THEY WERE HIS ORANGES ANYWAY. It was HIS idea to buy the big 4 kilo rip-off bulk pack. I simply wanted to purchase a far more sensible number of oranges. A number we might be realistically expected to ACTUALLY CONSUME BEFORE THEY STARTED TO DECOMPOSE.

Anton, on the other hand was seduced by the big steal. Lots and lots of oranges. Cheap. Abundant. Substandard Overstocks. So naturally, we eventually got sick of eating oranges after a while, with the remaining five subsequently taking up permanent refugee status in the fruit bowl. And then the rot set in....

So for days on end, this stalemate continued. Each time any one of us went into the kitchen, we'd steal a glimpse into the fruitbowl on the elevated herb-garden window sill to chart the progress of this festering piece of fruit (we don't actually grow any herbs there but we are having some success cultivating bacteria at present). Neither one of us refusing to budge. Neither one of us conceding defeat. Neither one of us picking the damn thing up and depositing it in the garbage bin just three feet away. Oh no. But boy, we did argue. We debated about this damn orange more than any single repository of mould has ever been debated in the entire history of humanity (except for maybe that guy who discovered penicillin).

Our respective arguments went something as follows:

Mellipop's Central Argument: You bought the oranges. They are yours. You maintain ownership and accountability. Hence you throw the mouldy orange out.

Mellipop's Supporting Statements: I work two jobs so you should clean the kitchen. Ipso facto mouldy oranges IN THE KITCHEN fall under your jurisdiction.

Anton's Central Argument: I can't even see them up there. The ledge is too high for me to see into the bowl. (Yeah - I laughed too..)

Anton's Supporting Statements: You knew of the existence of the mouldy orange, yet failed to act accordingly in the vital early stages. You saw it first so you throw it out.

This went on for days, which dragged into weeks. No resolution seemed likely to occur as neither party could reach an agreement on who was responsible for the decaying filth in our fruit bowl. Until I came home one day and Anton had dumped the damn thing right on my freakin' keyboard. Smug prick.

MELLIPOP GETS ANOTHER MIGRAINE

Ok, so the Virgin gig was cutting into my blogging time so I quit today. My body is just not made to work more than 38 hours a week, and it told me so quite categorically this weekend, most of which I spent in bed with a migraine. I took it as a sign, you see. We're talking complete sensory deprivation - minimal light and sound. Nausea. Weird things going on with my eyes. An 8 Nurofen kind of day, with little relief. As anybody who has ever experienced a migraine will know, you basically just want to curl up and die, which is really just the desire to retreat into the deepest darkest silence there is. The ultimate experience of sensory deprivation.

Migraines are the worst way to be sick. Because your visual and auditory senses are in complete revolt, all the usual "sick day" comfort mechanisms become your worst enemy. Watching TV and listening to music becomes a sort of hell. Reading is impossible. Even just the thought of food gets the bile churning. Sunlight burns into your skull like napalm. Birdsong sounds like an industrial drill. All you can do is close your eyes, hide under the covers and pray for a moment of sleep to release you from the surreal madness of the migraine. The next day migraine hangover is a killer, too.

And when your partner calls it "just a headache" you really begin to understand the murder-suicide impulse.

Anyway - there's the sick note for my recent absence. Once I've got these freelance assignments taken care of in the next few days I'm truly all yours again. Like a Virgin. Or more precisely, like an ex-Virgin.

CHARM SCHOOL MELLIPOP-STYLE

OK, so all the blokey sales reps at work have already fallen under my charming spell. Is it just me, or is charming guys REALLY REALLY SIMPLE!!!! Y'know, I'm certainly no raving beauty and am nothing if not strikingly average, but I am really quite skilled and successful at the flirtation thing. I actually really pride myself on it and am constantly practicing to perfect the art. I've worked out the Three Key Concepts of Charm: Attend, Flatter, Engage. (c) Mellipop 2004. Or some self-help fucker will certainly steal it.

SPECIFIC STEPS TO CHARM SUCCESS

1) Smile inanely and often

2) Laugh A LOT, especially at any potential attempt at wit - even if you are not sure

3) Wink occasionally

4) Make cute sassy comments that are cheeky but which don't undermine their inherent masculinity. Men like to be insulted in a lighthearted fashion. It makes them feel both special and martyred at the same time.

5) If you can't resist the temptation to undermine their masculinity throw in a wink (see point 3) and laugh (see point 2) so that it can't possibly be construed as a genuine threat.

6) Make non-sexual physical contact - touching arms/elbows/shoulders is good

7) Listen intently and keep eye contact constant and mildly flirtatious

8) Look fascinated even if you are bored. If bored, take control and steer the conversation away from the boring subject (which is usually some bullshit self-congratuatory macho crap that doesn't really matter to girls anyway)

9) Respond positively and with good humour to innuendo

10) If innuendo breaches tasteful boundaries revisit point 5 (undermining masculinIty) but do this WITHOUT winking or laughter to soften the blow. Raising the voice, adopting the "don't fuck with me tone" and flashing the eyes will usually be enough to intimidate them into a submissive retreat. Otherwise, a straight-up "Fuck off cockhead" will generally suffice when the more subtle mechanisms fail.

11) Understand your demographic of expertise. I am popular with old wogs and working class blokes. They love me! I am not so popular with over-educated types who take themselves too seriously or men in the financial services industry whose value systems I can't help but really rip into.

12) Have fun!!!! Inter-gender sparring sessions are God's gift to the sassy woman. Cavort, frolic and be cheeky!

Ladies - Make today "Flirty Friday". And make it FABULOUS!

HAVE TESTES WILL TRAVEL

Ok, so one of the cool things about my new job is the overwhelming testosterone of it all. I keep coming across great business names. My current faves are Penetron and Power Crank.

MAGNATES FOR MELLIPOP

Ok, so I’m putting the word out on the street that I’m in the market for a rich patron. Someone who will put their lavishly bejewelled hand up to subsidise my creative lifestyle so I don’t have to work full-time and can subsequently spend every minute of every day being a fabulous writer. And, as many of you will well know, a writer does not just write. A writer must LIVE.

However, having said that, a writer cannot live in a vacuum. A 50-hour-a-week-working-for-the-man vacuum. Otherwise, said writer will end up with nought but a series of boring work-related anecdotes which are as tedious to read as they are to live. As you can all testify to of late, in many cases they simply do not get written at all. And that makes everybody sad.

So, if anybody knows of any Moguls, Magnates or Millionaires, be sure to forward my URL and the promise that they will be forever inextricably linked to my hipster-genius by association, and that the world will no doubt thank them for their kind-hearted philanthropy as an esteemed patron of the fine arts. And that I myself, will write the text for their commemorative plaque.

The following is an excerpt from my Press Release, and will be an important selling point when approaching your leads:

“Like the Ancient Greeks and the Generous Merchants of the Renaissance, you too can forever live on in the history books as A MAN (OR WOMAN) OF CULTURE & SOPHISTICATION. For the equivalent of a few gold coins a year, a couple of lunches with John Laws or the budget set aside for your weekly botox shots, you too can join the ranks of the IMMORTALS.

As patron of the young artist Mellipop, by association alone you will suddenly be flooded with invites from all the hottest young socialites in town. Plus get INSTANT CREDIBILITY with all those pretentious holier-than-thou artist/writer Culture Fascists who look down on you for being the sell-out capitalist elite even though you earn more cold hards in one hour than they do in an entire year. Dirty ferals.

All this could be yours for just $1000 a week……”

However, be sure to assure them that this “Patronage” also comes with the iron-clad disclaimer that my services are purely artistic – there will only be words, not ahem… deeds. Though if they are extravagantly generous with their funding, suggest to them that I may be persuaded churn out some Mellipop XXX-rated erotic fiction. Maybe….

I will speak to my financial “people” to confirm, but I am almost certain that anyone sophisticated, handsome and benevolent enough to support my “ART” will no doubt also receive hefty tax deductions for their time and effort. As a complimentary service, I will also write school essays for your children and will complete any assignments that require narrative fiction or poetry to be written - though I cannot guarantee “A” grades, I will do my very, very goodest.

All in all, it’s a pretty good deal, I reckon. Cash for Culture. Commemorative plaques. Your place in history. And school assignments.

MELLIPOP WEIGHT CHALLENGE UPDATE: Ok, so I'm still 59 kilos. But I did in fact go up to 60 kg and then came back down to 59 kilos, so officially I have lost one kilogram..... Freakin' jam donuts. I mean, honestly... 4 fresh jam donuts for only $3! I'd be crazy NOT to!!!

MELLIPOP WEIGHT LOSS CHALLENGE DISCLAIMER: I promise that you, my fine friends, will hear the awful truth. There will be no dodging blogger bullets by wimping out and not posting.

WHEN THE DRYER SHRINKS ALL YOUR CLOTHES

Ok, so it's crunch time. That time in every girl's life when she decides to starve herself in the name of shedding her winter coat before the beach season beckons. So every year it seems to get harder and harder to budge the few extra pounds one inevitably gains during the cold months.

I have spent the last two months doing the "hour at the gym every day" roundabout. To absolutely no effect. Besides PUTTING ON extra weight. Look, I don't care what anyone says. No-one puts on a kilo of muscle every week. So I'm adding a "calorie-restricted" food regime to my regular exercise regime. No more of Anton's divine cooking.

Cereal for brekkie. Sandwich with fruit for lunch. No carbs after 5pm. Salads and lean meat for dinner. NO MORE BEER!!! Plus I got sucked into buying some herbal crap that promises to increase my metabolism, increase fat burning, reduce calorie absorption and reduce my carb cravings...

But most importantly, I'm using public humiliation as my arch-motivator. So, in the interests of transperancy, I will be "weighing in" every time I do a blog entry.

TODAY: 59 kg

GOAL WEIGHT: 54 kg

TIMEFRAME: 4 weeks

So there we go. Boring blog-material, I know. I promise much better next time. It's just that Australian Idol is starting soon.

FUCHS ME!

Ok, so I had an amusing phone experience this afternoon. I’m working today and I have to make a call to a company called FUCHS LUBRICANTS. Yes. Fuchs Lubricants. Founded by a German bunch of Fuchs in 1931 (or so the website reads).

So I’m trying to decipher just exactly how one would pronounce this correctly. Do I risk saying “FUCKS” and embarrass whoever picks up at the other end (and myself), or do I say “FOOKS” and risk looking like a uninformed dickhead.

Before I pick up the phone I carefully script what I am going to say, a conversation that completely excludes any mention of the business name in question. So I look on my sheet and it says I need to speak with Joe. And so I dial. The wrong number, as it turns out….

The conversation proceeds as follows:

MELLIPOP: Yeah, hi, this is Mellipop from Whatever Job Inc, I’d like to speak with Joe please.

JOEY (female voice) : Ok…Well I’m a Joe with a “y” on the end. I'm Joey. (sounds confused) What company are you calling for?

MELLIPOP: Umm…..

(Quickfire internal dialogue: FUCK!! I can’t say “FUCKS” because she’ll think this is a crank call or I’ll just look stupid for not knowing how to pronounce it correctly……Fuuuuck!!!! Shit!… What do I say…?)

MELLIPOP: Umm…yeah…..F….U…C…H…S.... Lubricants.

(Quickfire internal dialogue: Yeah, great idea Mellipop. SPELL it out really quickly. Coward!)

JOEY: Sorry, what company was that?

MELLIPOP: (internal dialogue: FUCK!!!!!)

Umm…it says here…I think…Fooks Lubricants.

JOEY: No…..I think you’ve got the wrong number darl.

MELLIPOP: Right. Thanks. Sorry about that……

(Quickfire internal dialogue: FUCK!!! Now I have to make this same freakin' phone call all over again!)

Shaken and confused, I make the phone call again immediately. Dialled correctly this time. And was relieved to hear a perky receptionist at the other end of the line saying "FOOKS Lubricants, this is Kelly speaking, how may I help
you?".

For some reason, I felt an instant empathy with her. I really wanted to plead with Kelly to get out, for her own sake. I instantly envisaged all the lame-ass innuendo she would have to endure from the predominately male, mining, automotive and industrial lubricant clientele. And the horrible pick-up conversations she would be having in pubs.

DRUNK HORNY GUY: Yeah, so where do you work gorgeous?

KELLY: I work for Fuchs.

DRUNK HORNY GUY: (winking salaciously at his mates) Alright boys, I got me a little goer here.....

And what about the fate of Kelly at parties. I mean, party conversations are generally excruciating. You circle the room, having the same basic conversation with everyone. Promptly forgotten. Ignoring the patronising questions from people who have better jobs than you do. Or who own their own house instead of renting. Imagine poor Kelly's plight....

NEW ACQUAINTANCE: Yes, I'm the national account manager at Clinique. Since I've taken over the role, we've increased overall market share by 20%. So what do you do, Sally?

KELLY: I'm a receptionist at Fuchs. And my name is Kelly.

NEW ACQUAINTANCE: Are you serious? You work at a place called Fuchs? That's so fucking hilarious! What does Fuchs do, Nelly?

KELLY: Lubricants. It's Kelly.

NEW AQUAINTANCE: Get out! Ha ha you are so yanking my chain right now Melly!

KELLY: No, I'm not. But say another word and I might just punch you in the twat.

I wanted to tell her that there is more to the world than working reception for a boring old lubricants manufacturer with a stupidly inapproriate name. That she can DO MUCH BETTER! That perky girls CAN DO ANYTHING! That she must GET OUT AT ALL COSTS!

But instead, I just asked to speak with Joe. Career counselling receptionists is not part of my job description.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON FEELIN' GROOVY

Ok, so the afternoon is shaping up to be pretty darn perfect. It’s Friday afternoon, I‘ve blown off the gym and stopped in at one of the three bottlos on the ten minute walk home from the train station. You can’t get a loaf of bread on a Sunday in Perth but you can get alcohol any time of the day or night. So riding high on my TWO pay checks this week, I did a spontaneous grog stop on the way home. Fine WA beer & wine.

So I’m strutting on down the street with Simon and Garfunkel singing “Homeward Bound”, which is usually a poignant experience but today I’m buzzing ‘cos the roses are all in bloom and God’s taking care of the Life Plan for a little while. Even here in WA. Even though I took a call today from a nice old duck who sounded just like my mum and I started missing everyone again. But they’ve scooped the dead magpie I kept almost stepping on out of the gutter, so everything is AOK.

And when I open the front door the dog greets me with a bus ticket in her mouth ‘cos she’s gotten into handbag number two while I was out today but I don’t care. I will find a bottle opener if it kills me. Otherwise I will happily crush all of my back molars getting that damn beer open so that sweet, sweet liquor with it’s zesty apple flavour may renew its acquaintance with my desperately impatient tastebuds.

Plus, Anton isn’t home for another hour or so, giving me some free Blogger time. As I sit here writing this, I have Frank Sinatra pumped up singing “My Way” and I have my freshly opened bottle of Little Creatures Pale Ale nearby. In fact, I have five more of them after that. Fabulous Freo $15 six-pack of beer. Alcohol and alliteration on a Friday afternoon. So decadent.

Plus I have a whole day off tomorrow. So no need to worry about the possible consequences of drinking all six bottles of Little Creatures, for fear of Big Hangover. And I feel stupidly liberated because I can buy shit again….. Boutique beer, bottles of wine, a new pair of running shoes, a stack of CDs, takeout on a Friday night. Plus I can get my iPod fixed. A list of indiscriminate crap I think I really need is already forming in my mind.

And best of all, Anton is bringing puppies home from the pet shop tonight. Two poor little kelpie-crosses that have been at the pet store for so long that they are becoming timid and socially repressed. And tonight is the beginning of their rehabilitiation process. Getting them used to experiencing strange surrounds, people and events. Otherwise defined as getting the poor little buggers belted around by our hard-headed Staffy and letting them pee and poo all over the house.

Should be a good night. Here’s hoping that I can make it past 8:30…..

POSTSCRIPT ADDED SAT MORNING: Indeed, the puppies were sheer joy. Exceptionally timid at first, it was a successful exercise in re-introducing them to the world. Until bed time. Then they cried and yelped until 1am, at which point Anton leapt out of bed and drove them straight back to the pet store, against my feeble protests. Good fun otherwise.

LAST DECADE'S LEFTOVERS: BEACH RANT 2004

Ok, because I’m brain dead I’m gonna wimp out and post something that should never have escaped the archives. I think it’s circa 1995. I actually wrote this as a reply to a real-life beach invitation from a couple of guys that worked at Woolies during my retail days - which were also my radical Marxist-feminist days.

I had a crush on one of these boys at the time and for some godforsaken reason thought it would be a good idea to write a satirical essay in reply to a casual invitation to hang out. It was later to reappear in one of my crappy fanzines. No, I’ve never been normal. Nor did I ever manage to make that guy fall in love with me. When you read this, like me, you’ll be baffled by his indifference. The glimmer of nascent literary genius shines brightly indeed…..

Look, I don’t think it’s a great piece by any stretch of the imagination. But it always seemed to resonate with people, for whatever reason. So here it is. A peace offering in this, my moment of creative anguish, to tide you over until I get my mojo working again. And to assuage my guilt at abandoning my post (pun intended). Apologies to those who have had to endure it before. It isn't any better in it's revised state. Having said that, it is shorter, however...

Some Cliff’s Notes trivia to preface the piece. Since I wrote this I have actually had malignant skin cancer. I now have a striking 10 cm pirate gash on the outside of my left thigh and a slight indentation where I lost a bit of muscle to boot, courtesy of Mr Melanoma.

Aargh, me maties….Now to ye buried treasure….


BEACH INVITATION RSVP

I don’t like the beach.

I don’t like that opening statement. I really wanted to encapsulate my entire thesis into one snappy and/or witty sentence. But reality is, I’m far more long-winded than that. So sit back, wipe that depilatory crème from off your intimate areas and prepare yourself for the sedentary ramblings of a proud sloth-a-holic.

My neon-white skin with its smattering of benign melanoma doesn’t like answering the door to those diabolical UV strangers. We know they are on missions of conversion and we don’t wanna go malignant. I’m not being overly melodramatic at this point. I have seen many a specialist over the years who have impregnated me with their scare-tactic counter-revolutionary dogma aimed at keeping us all indoors and/or to encourage rampant consumerism.

(Eds note 2004: ignore embarrassing, humourless political extremism…)

CASE STUDY ONE: A childhood nickname of mine – “Melanoma”. Thanks Mum for that one. Sure, make light of the fact that I have skin cancer. Yes, CANCER. It’d be even funnier if I died, right? What a great anecdote… “Yes, we used to call my daughter Mel – Melanoma – and then she died of skin cancer. That’s hysterically ironic, isn’t it?”

(Eds note 2004: The weird political ranting goes on for a couple more paragraphs and gets a bit out of hand really…. I somehow get onto anti-bacterial soap conspiracy theories and the “Slip, Slop, Slap” campaigns as capitalist mindfuck propaganda. This 2004 version will spare you the grief)

Ok, Ok, the beach argument…. I’ll try and remain focused here….

Now I know I’m not fat and I generally feel that I am comfortable with my appearance, but any mention of the beach just seems to annihilate such confidence. The beach shares the same function as an advert in Cosmo. It acts as a leveller, washing away any ideals you have about yourself and dumping you ruthlessly into the sand.

It’s also possible that I talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk. My super-PC, left-wing femmo rants could all be a whole lot of BS. Yeah, yeah I’m liberated, independent, self-assured and have left all my body hair in the right places but I can’t step onto a beach for godssake.

(Eds note 2004: To strike a resounding blow against the patriarchy I grew long, luscious armpit hair and cultivated furry legs for a year or two. Yes, it was as despicable as it sounds… I’ve since re-submitted to the patriarchal demands of smooth hairless skin)

Anyway, God knows I don’t care what anybody thinks of my appearance – one look through my wardrobe will tell you that.

(Eds note 2004: This was also the period in which I dressed like I had just raided the deceased estate wardrobe of a smelly 70 year old man and his equally smelly – and equally deceased - 70 year old wife. Lots of ill-fitting “old man pants” and unflattering 70’s print-polyester shirts and dresses)

It’s just that swimwear is so damned intimate. It’s just lycra underwear, OK. And I sure as hell wouldn’t walk down the street in just lingerie and a smile. I don’t appreciate, nor do I engage in, gratuitous displays of flesh. I hate skimpy. It’s for idiots who relish the opportunity to have their femininity defined for them by a patriarchal society. Fuck phallocentrism (aah, the irony). Excuse me gentlemen, but the world does not revolve around your collective genitalia.

(Eds note 2004: Yes, I did really talk like this once. The boys ran screaming after I was finished with them. At this point I also elaborate on my bizarre "Sistine Chapel Ceiling Painting Theory of the Self". Again, ye shall be spared…)

Fuck it. I really feel that analysing the beach is a hell of a lot more fun than going there. By jove, I think she’s got it! In a nutshell, this rant is my problem. While everyone is out frolicking on the beach and having a great time, I’m sitting hunched over my word-processor and having a great time. And hell, I like it like that. I’m a nerd, a geek, a boffin.

So many sunny days, so many excuses for avoiding the beach. And here’s a few more of ‘em.

BAYWATCH: What better reason to boycott the beach. Beware the silicone set and middle-aged, washed-up actors who still think they reek of pure sex in a pair of swim shorts, specially designed by the good people in Wardrobe to hide a flabby belly bloated from years of drug and alcohol excess. I’ll never forgive you for growing up and leaving Nightrider, David Hassellhoff. You are the anti-christ. I saw it on the ‘net.

TAMPON COMMERCIALS: As a pre-requisite, these always feature young girls prancing around the beach in bikinis (Or formalwear? Please explain, Mr Marketing?) Oh enlightened middle-aged-male-advertising-exec, free our troubled female souls from the oppressive burden of menstruation so that we shall paddle in the exalted waters of sexual exploitation and stereotyping.

SHARKS: I saw the Jaws films repeatedly at a very impressionable age. From these I learned that a shark will always kill a lone swimmer, and at least one member of a congregated group of swimmers. This is of great concern to me. I have a special skill for attracting the unwanted attentions of crazy people and other unpleasantries. Thus, it is not unlikely that I would also act as a shark attractant. I would surely be killed.

TSUNAMIS: The danger is so real. Take it from me, I’ve been dumped by some pretty heavy waves in my ye-olde beach-going days. Actually, I have a penchant for really bad 70’s disaster films so I find tidal waves really fascinating. If I were feeling suicidal enough, an approaching tsunami would be the only way to get me near a beach. I still wouldn’t swim though.

SEWERAGE: Gallons upon gallons of Sydney’s excreta. Like swimming around in your toilet bowl – but less hygienic.

THE SYRINGE MINEFIELD: All those buried hypodermics placed strategically in the sand by bitter and vengeful HIV-AIDS patients in their misguided attempts to redistribute their bad karma. I was warned of this danger by A Current Affair, who would most certainly not engage in tabloid sensationalism to attract ratings at the expense of journalistic integrity and truth. Ray told me so.

TRIED AND FAILED....

Ok, so I'm disappointed tonight. Mostly because I have struggled with - and already deleted - five posts already. Deleted for a variety of reasons, but most of all they just weren't funny. Or interesting. Except for the post I did about the guy on the Fremantle train today who had an erection. Not quite Mum-worthy....

Sorry guys - I'm just no fun tonight..... Work has sucked my brain dry. It's better to have tried and failed....