SOS!!!! WE HAVE A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS HERE!!!!

Ok, so I've quite obviously fucked up my blog template here....

Nick! Pete! Help!!!

I should really know better than pretend to understand HTML.

HELP!

RUMOURS OF MY DEATH HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED

Ok, so I'm kinda spent at the moment.

Most of my posts over the last month have been pedestrian, uninspired crap anyway.

Except for Meatloaf.

My darling smart-arse mother sent me Meatloaf's Greatest Hits all the way from the East coast.

I'm sure there's a piss-take review in me somewhere, but it's not here tonight.

Will see what tomorrow brings.....

MELLIPOP : NOT DEAD YET

Ok, so I went back to the doctor to get my blood test results and walked out with a clean bill of health and – inexplicably - a prescription for a 2 inch-long contraceptive implant in my arm which would effectively render me sterile for three years.

So my visit with Dr Do-Nothing at the Sweatshop Medical Centre today confirmed the inevitable. My debilitating weekly migraines, it would seem, are all in my head.

According to my piss and blood plasma, I’m a perfect specimen of health and vitality, besides being a little on the “lower normal” scale for iron. Great. I’m just a gal who needs a couple of extra steaks a week.

I think the doctor was a little disappointed with the diagnosis himself. However, that didn’t stop him from whipping out the old prescription pad anyway. At the end of the session I made a general enquiry about the alternative contraceptive options currently available and my opportunistic GP seized the opportunity to crank up his commission with Big Pharma X.

DOCTOR: So, did you want me to prescribe you anything?

MELLIPOP: Umm…no, I’m fine thanks.

(Prescribe me what? Methadone, Lithium, Prozac, Thalidomide…? Did I just miss something? I thought we both just fucking agreed I was completely and certifiably healthy)

DOCTOR: Are you sure?

MELLIPOP: Aah….yeah. I really don’t need anything….

(Am I sure? Have I just stumbled onto the set of “Who Wants to Be a Prescription Drug Addict”. Yes I’m fucking sure. Lock it in Eddie!)

DOCTOR: Look, I’ll give you a prescription for the implant – just in case.

MELLIPOP: (sighs) Sure, whatever…

(Jeee-sus…. Just take the freakin’ prescription and LEAVE NOW, while you still have your damn ovaries intact woman…)

Yeah, so Dr Do-Nothing is really weird. Most of the consultation is conducted in this near lifeless monotone of professional detachment that borders on complete and utter disinterest - until he starts talking prescriptions. Then his eyes light up like a 13 year old boy who has just stumbled on his Dad’s hidden stash of titty-mags. It’s really quite disturbing in a medico-pornographic kind of way.

Nevertheless - I am healthy and fertile. Hurrah!

MELLIPOP LOVES MEATLOAF

Ok, so lately I have been walking that fine line between being ironic, and being a bogan.

My favourite new item of clothing - liberated from a local St Vincent de Paul store – happens to be a tight-fitting t-shirt from Meatloaf’s 2004 tour of Australia. I pounced on the bugger as soon as I saw it, the delectable taste of postmodern irony rising up in the back of my throat like the sweetest-tasting bile. A few alterations (or should that be altercations) with a pair of scissors later, and the transformation was complete. I had the perfect item of take-the-piss kitsch coture to call my own.

Or so I thought. The voice of my “inner-indie chick” kept telling me that I was a walking testament to the power of self-referential irony. Until my middle-aged hairdresser mistook me for a bogan later that very same day.

The conversation went something like this:

HAIRDRESSER: (lip discernibly curled up in distaste) Oh, so you like Meatloaf, do you….?

MELLIPOP: (momentarily stunned) Oh…..NO! GOD no! I HATE Meatloaf... The t-shirt is meant to be ironic….

HAIRDRESSER: (looks completely blank) Oh.

(head tilts slightly to the left like a dog trying to understand a new command)

What do you mean, ironic….?

MELLIPOP : (stunned again but quickly reinstates a patronising composure) Um…. Ironic. It’s like…. Taking the piss…..yeah? It’s a joke.

HAIRDRESSER: (assumes an extraordinary facial expression that simultaneously combines both perfect understanding and utter confusion) Oh right. Sure. Ha ha that’s funny…..

(continues to look at me in an oddly confused way, as though she is entirely unable to comprehend why anyone would wear a t-shirt of someone they professed utter disdain for)

This was my first brush with the possibility that maybe my idea of irony is someone else’s interpretation of sincerity. To be thought of as a Meatloaf fan - that disturbs me. I mean, how can anyone like Meatloaf WITHOUT irony. What kind of person would that make me. A fucking bogan - that’s what! I didn’t move 4000 miles away to escape my westie roots for nothing you know. I might as well pack up my Meatloaf t-shirt and move back to Blacktown, for all the progress I’ve made.

That’s the inherent danger of irony. You’re always at risk of becoming the joke yourself, when what you’re really trying to do is to smugly host it at someone else’s expense.

Which is where the presumptuous girl in the next real-life anecdote got it completely wrong. Ok I ‘fess up. It was me….. Irony got me again.

The following incident took place during the course of the day of training I had to do when I got offered the job at Virgin Music, replete with 50 other fresh-faced new recruits. Based on their openly-stated recruitment policy, the Virgin HR team sought to choose only the cutest, hippest young things from the pool of 4000 candidates who were interviewed for positions.

One of the many excruciating team-building exercises we had to partake in that day involved each of us standing up and telling everyone what our favourite movie and recording artist is. And as an aside, it’s amazing how many Michael Jackson fans there are still, considering the fact that he hasn’t recorded anything remotely decent since the early 80’s.

Now anyway, this perky blonde girl gets up to speak, and she would have been all of 19 years old. She tells us that her favourite artist is Meatloaf. Now I think that she’s taking the piss right, so I immediately burst into hysterical laughter. Then I notice that no-one else is laughing and that everyone in the room is glaring at me with sharply berating eyes. Including the 19 year Meatloaf fan, who looks somewhat stunned and less than pleased with my unexpected outburst.

I felt bad for her at first. But seriously, why should she be spared the full extent of our (read: my) vehement ridicule and scorn? Think about it for a second…. This girl has the ENTIRE HISTORY OF WESTERN POPULAR MUSIC to choose from, and her favourite artist is fucking MEATLOAF!?! You know what I think? She might be very nice but that girl is an absolutely clueless fuckwit and she deserves to know that about herself. And I reserve the right to make that clear to her.

Because I am a perfect study in self-aware irony.

And she is just a dumb bogan.

MELLIPOP’S VALENTINE’S DAY EXTRAVAGANZA

Ok, so Anton (aka the High Priest of Romance) went all-out for Valentine’s Day this year. A word of warning ladies, before you read on. You may well be in danger of choking on your envy. Or your hysteria.

So Valentine’s Day Anton-style goes something like this. Forget those boring old romantic cliches like long-stemmed roses, exquisite Belgian chocolates and expensive seafood dinners lit by candlelight and the warm inner-glow of fine French champagne.

Oh no.

Your narrator and resident goddess Mellipop has been the ecstatic recipient of far greater fineries this enchanted eve.

We’re talking a pot plant, two family-size blocks of Cadbury’s chocolate and home-made Burritos washed down with a bottle of Solo, with Fear Factor on Channel 10 for mood lighting and two salivating Staffordshire Bull Terriers at my feet.

Yes ladies, you heard correctly. Just in case you were blown away by the unspeakable extravagance of such sweeping romantic gestures, I’ll reiterate the finer detail.

A Pot Plant : My High Priest of Romance - being the archetypal Taurean - is nothing if not pragmatic. Whereas a bunch of 12 long-stemmed roses would inevitaby wither and die in a matter of days, sweet Anton thought it wiser to buy my blooms with the roots still attached. Little does he know that no doubt the poor thing will endure a far more prolonged suffering before it hits the compost heap, if my recidivist history of torturing house plants with sheer neglect is anything to go by.

Two Family-Sized Blocks of Cadbury Chocolate : Snack and good old-fashioned Dairy Milk. A glass and a half of sheer boredom in every block. No hazelnuts, honeycomb or nougat for this little Miss Mellipop. Does this mean I’ve been bad? Or that my last years’ contribution to the relationship has been both pedestrian and unimaginative. Do I not at least deserve Lindt? Or could it be that I am not quite as special as I think I am?

Home-Made Burritos : Now I do have to admit, I’m far more keen on Old El Paso than El Slimy Oysters, and I am a right finickity-snitch when it comes to eating fish. Ok, so I have, on occasion, thrown petulant tantrums upon the slightest hint of cartilage in amongst the fillet. Who else could almost choke on a bone in a fucking Trout Carpaccio? The darn thing was the size of a dinosaur bone, impossibly concealed in amongst the microscopic slivers of raw tasteless flesh on that death trap of a plate. Anyway, I think maybe burritos are underestimated amongst the edible aphrodisiacs. I mean, they are kinda phallic, I guess. And I heard somewhere that “burrito” means “stick it to me baby” in Mexican.

Two Salivating Staffordshire Bull Terriers : No, we ain’t talking some impossibly sick and twisted form of bestiality here. Indeed, the truth is far less exotic. It’s like having kids with tails and sharp teeth. Plus, the constant threat of copping a headbutt is a pretty effective romance-killer.

The bar has been set pretty high now fellas. I am one lucky gal.

Happy Valentine’s Day Anton
Love Mellipop xoxoxoxox

TURNING UP TO THE PAGE

Ok, so I'm here.

There is a concept well-known to frustrated writers around the globe. It's called "Turning Up To The Page". Which essentially, entails sitting down and spilling your mediocre guts on the page, regardless of the result.

Generally, most such futile attempts stay tucked away from the greedy eyes of the viewing public, but not today. This, my friends, is Mellipop turning up to the page. So I'm here. It's like turning up on a blind date to meet my muse. Picture the scene - I'm feeling a litle bit embarrassed right now and am slowly scanning the room for potential sightings, hoping that eventually our eyes will meet across the room and that our heads will simultaneously turn down in a subtle nod of greeting and mutual recognition.

But the fucker ain't here and I'm heading to the bar. I guess maybe he saw me and left screaming for the exits. Or perhaps I am in the wrong bar. At the wrong time. Read into that metaphor what you will, my distant compadres.

Nothing going on in Mellipopland right now. So being payday and all, I sought to medicate myself with music, hoping to artificially inseminate my barren artistic eggs with the creative jizz of indie-pop royalty. Elliott Smith, The Shins and The Earlies. All of which have thus far failed to rouse me from my existential inertia.

Bec Cartwright and Lleyton Hewitt were on three magazine covers in the newsagent today.

COUNTING THE COST OF TONKA

OK, so Tonka is off to the vet for dental surgery tomorrow. That will mean three trips to the vet in less than two weeks.... The silly thing has broken his front canine in half vertically, probably by chewing on things he shouldn’t. Like rocks. And concrete. Or maybe it was a headbutt gone horribly wrong. Regardless, infection has set in and the whole left side of his poor little snout has swollen up so he’s now on anti-inflammatories and antibiotics.

So tomorrow, he is off to spend the day at the vet for surgery to remove the offending tooth before the infection sets into his whole jaw. I was kind of hoping that the darn thing would have gotten knocked out during one of Tonka and Manche’s many wrestle sessions. After dropping me off at pilates this morning, Anton returned home to find that they were playing tug-of-war with one of my g-strings out in the backyard. Tooth still stubbornly attached, however. No such luck. Tonka - in his first two weeks - has already been a massive disappointment to us through this expensive failure to live up to his namesake : the tough Tonka Truck.

COUNTING THE COST OF TONKA

PURCHASE FEE: $850
FREIGHT FEE: $615 (incl. Anton's fare to and from Sydney)
TANK OF PETROL TO GET TO AND FROM MUDGEE: $50
FIRST TRIP TO THE VET (VACCINATIONS): $85
SECOND TRIP TO THE VET (TOOTH INFECTION): $120
THIRD TRIP TO THE VET (DENTAL SURGERY): $485

SUBTOTAL FOR TWO WEEKS OF TONKA: $2205 (excl. food, toys, bedding and other accessories)

That dog is already in some serious arrears. Thankfully, we are allowing the little tacker to keep his tackle intact for stud purposes down the track. That boy is going to be doing some serious business, if you know what I mean...

He is gonna work harder than a hooker down at the Cross, with Mellipop as his overzealous pimp. A very high class hooker, because at $600 a pop for stud fees, our little goldmine should in theory work off his debts with relative ease once he reaches sexual maturity.

That is, unless Manche keeps biting his manhood. I think she is finding his genitalia an all-too-interesting novelty at the moment, which makes for quite a few squeamish moments for Anton, who no doubt shares his uniquely male pain in that bizarre tribal empathy that transcends the species barrier. Either that, or it's Comanche’s uniquely female way of retaliating for his constant humping behaviour.

So to update those of you keeping a keen and concerned eye on my recurring health problems, I didn’t actually make it to the clinic for those blood tests on Saturday thanks to our stupid Staffy with his broken tooth (and subsequent infection).

We did however, find time to get poor old Anton back to the optometrist. On a recent trip to Sydney, his mother nagged him into seeing an eye doctor, who diagnosed him with the early stages of glaucoma. Nothing too serious, it only causes blindness and can’t be reversed. It can however, be managed by using eye drops and may entail laser surgery down the track.

And I might still be dying, but won’t find out for sure until next week now. We’re a healthy bunch, let me tell you.

MELLIPOP BACK FROM MATERNITY LEAVE

OK, so the new puppy is a right little bastard.

For those of you who don’t already know, his name is Tonka, he is a 12 week old Staffordshire Bull Terrier from Sydney and he is the half-brother to our 2 year old Staffy, Comanche. And - as I mentioned before - he is a right little bastard of a thing, for any number of reasons:

1. I think he might be a little mentally “unhinged”. He walks around growling to himself for no reason at all, like some old homeless man on Pitt St in Sydney. No doubt the product of far too much inbreeding.

2. He is seriously hyperactive, even compared to Comanche as a pup. He has doggie ADD. Either that or he is taking some quality doggie speed.

3. He is a scientific anomaly. He excretes far in excess of what he ingests. The record so far is five pees and one elephantine poo in random areas all over the house in less than one hour. The hideous hour between 5:30 and 6:30 am in the morning, no less.

4. He has an underwear fetish. He keeps stealing my dirty g-strings from the laundry basket and chewing on them. I keep finding them squirreled away under chairs and in corners all over the house.

5. He is an incestuous sex-maniac, even at just 12 weeks. He keeps humping his sister. And the little tart lets him, even though she is three times his size. Thankfully, he has not yet discovered the simple pleasure of humping human legs.

6. He has an eating disorder. This thing hoovers food faster than I do. It takes him a matter of milliseconds to finish his dinner, then he storms over, headbutts his sister out of the way and then proceeds to finish her dinner off for her.

7. He bites. A lot. He’s currently at the perfect height to nip at my calves. Or bite my toes. He also likes fingers. He tries to chew the pendant off my necklace. And gets his teeth caught in all my earrings. And rips at my hair. He especially likes pony tails.

But, inspired by my very own Mum, I will love him anyway in that special way mothers reserve for their second-born problem children. God bless her, she loved me even though I was a right monster. And now I shall do the same!

Tonka is VERY cute, though….. I am a proud Mum. If I wasn’t such a backwards blogger I’d post a pic or two.

P.S. I am officially back from Maternity Leave and will resume Mellipop on a far more regular basis. Hopefully I will find many other new topics of interest to rant about now that the glow of motherhood has worn off. Ones that don't involve puppy poo.