Monday, June 15, 2009

Scientific proof you can eat too much fudge

In an effort to keep myself busy I have spent this morning conducting scientific experiements in the field of food technology. I have attempted to find out the exact amount of fudge a 5'10, 70-something kilo woman can endure. Chocolate coconut fudge, for those of you interested in the finer details of my highly technical experiment. My hypothesis? That I will eat a lot of it and feel very sick, but still keep eating. I may vomit, but this will not stop me.
I didn't make the fudge. It was made in sterile conditions (we'd just done the dishes) by well-respected fudge connoisseur Ruthie. She was wearing an imaginary lab coat and everything. I was supposed to be helping but then realised that previous attempts at making fudge suggest that I ought to stick to my own area of expertise: the eating bit.

So, two cups of sugar later:

I feel a bit ill. Like I shouldn't make any quick movements. Although, the amount of sugar now in my system is going to kick in soon and I will no doubt do something foolish like attempt to get out of my chair and walk to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. This might actually kill me.

Aside from having flashbacks to Form Two science class (even then I could tell that the only lab coats in my future would be on other people, such was my dunce-like inability to understand anything) I have been enjoying the recession. I signed up for the dole today. I don't want to bore anyone, but as 70% of all jobs are not advertised I'm supposed to be bothering you all for work. So hand it over. It's not as easy as it once was to get money from the government, and this is no doubt a good thing, but it is a tiresome proceedure to go through.

Wellington is spectacular - it's cold and wet and out my living room window I can watch it rain heavily all over Oriental and the harbour. Take that, employed people. Even on such an awful day, my love for this city never wavers. It looks good in grey. Maybe it's the fact that I get to walk along the waterfront in order to get anywhere - being this close to the water is pretty darn rad even if I have to wait five months before I can get my leopard-spotted body (it's not fading, I swear now my teeth are getting sharper, as well) out to the pontoon for some fearless leaping into the sea.

Job-hunting is not going so well. But if I learned anything from my lecture at WINZ, it's that I can't expect to go into the kind of job that I want because it's not a time for dream jobs, it's a time for doing whatever I can. So I can kiss goodbye to being a trophy wife and think about being a whore instead.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

How do they know?

Today's horoscope:

You are weirder than others think, for your most unconventional quirks are not readily seen by many people. You may have an air of dreaminess about you, but you still are able to keep your most intense thoughts private. Your inner space is yours alone; even if your close friends get glimpses, you are not required to take them on a tour of your imagination.

Quirky sounds better than weird.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Apologies dearest Skyehole

I have been gently reminded that I forgot to say I also saw Skye in Melbourne and she has a very decent baby belly on her. And, of my own accord, I must say she's the best looking pregnant woman in a tutu I have ever seen. And I love her. Even if she did used to joke that the fox outside our flat in London was my new boyfriend. We were just very good friends.

Oh, and Elise makes exceptionally good pesto. I was wide awake with the stupid hungry jetlag the other night just thinking about how it good her pesto would be right now, knowing quite well that if I got up to look in the fridge there would not be any. Because she didn't give me any to take home. Which is fair enough because they would have confiscated it at customs - but I can almost guarantee it wouldn't have made it to that point because I would have hoovered it up at Departures.

Is so hard being so very popular

I finally leave Edinburgh, almost sobbing my heart out at the prospect of leaving Dave and Manda, but uber excited about a camping trip with the London massive. The ten-hour bus trip seems like nothing after South American bus experiences, although I was reminded sharply of that part of the world when I first climbed aboard the London express.

'This bus smells like South America.'

And then I realised that there was a toilet onboard, which was great given my very pathetic bladder, but obviously it hadn't been cleaned terribly recently, or terribly well, because there was a distinct smell wafting in a not so gentle way throughout the bus. But I am tough and thought nothing of it. Tough, I say. Like nails. Bendy nails.

Camping with 16 others and a baby - times have changed. We had enough tents, although a mild case of poor communication between Katie and me meant that we were down a sleeping bag (all my fault) but someone else actually had a spare. And we ate vegetables. And proper sausages. You know the ones, they actually have meat in them. There was still drinking and singing and poking of fun but somehow less messy than previous years . Having said that, my camp stretcher collapsed within 30 minutes of me lying down on it. Not such good times there, but I rolled with it. Because I am a trooper. And I am lazy. And incapable of putting a camp stretcher back together in the dark.
And because I can't go on any sort of holiday without having some part of my body fail me, another bladder infection made the last day mildly irksome - this had a lot to do with me drinking several bottles of water in order to let the infection know that I was totally in charge - but then I got in the car for a two-hourish drive back to London - managed not to disgrace myself by wetting my trousers but I think sleeping on a broken camp stretcher might have been more fun than not thinking about a toilet and how badly I need to pee.

And then home via Melbourne for a surprise visit to Jess for her 30th. She fell over when she saw me, was very gratifying. Mind you, it could have been the smell of unwashed, jetlagged Penelope, but probably not. She's seen me looking/smelling far worse than that. Like that time we drank too much tequila and I got mistaken for a heroin addict because I was incapable of moving (brain was working terribly well, just rest of self not co-operating) and I eventually threw up a lot before telling atrocious lies to a taxi driver about how I had just been jilted and was therefore obliged to go out and get very drunk. Jessa's 30th was spectacular, if only for the dancing, but you know you've been at a good party when you don't get home until 5pm the next day and you're still in last night's dress, with a mammoth bruise on your bottom. Good times. I think I liked the lolling on Debs/Jess/Nic/Nath/Elise/Timmy the best. This is what friends are for. They also make you cups of tea (Tim failed here and I'll be making a note of it in my official report to his mother).

Melbourne also enabled me to give Nic his birthday present, carefully crafted by Dave and myself. It's a very special, very adult version of Guess Who. Hours of entertainment.

Then Auckland and straight into Bran's arms. And then, as the deal goes, I made him cookies of bribery. And then Wellington, straight into the mothership's arms. She loves me. You can see why. And then to Flat Awesome, where Mark and mum got on far too well so I had to make her go. And then bloody marys. And then lunch with Luke to get salacious details of his far more exciting life, just so I can live vicariously. And then another bloody mary. Because I am unemployed and I can. And then drinks with Duncan. This involved an absolutely thrilling trip to get his car. And when I say thrilling, I really mean not very thrilling at all. But the wine made up for it. And then back to Flat Awesome for drinks with a ginger and Mark and Stu and shouting at the final of New Zealand's Next Top Model. And then a party. And then the dancing. And then the takeaways. And the realisation that we were minus Loz's phone. And then the sleeping. And the waking up realising that what I had thought was a glass in the dark last night was actually an olive jar, but it still did a pretty good job of holding water. And then the walk of shame from Loz's to Mark's where there were pancakes. And tea. A lot of tea. And then there was Sara. And more tea. And then a bus to Palmy. And the others had bloody marys without me, bastards. But that's okay because I had parents and a cat and a fire and all my shoes.

And now back in my old flat in Wellington pondering job hunting, wondering how I'm going to cope with how incredibly cold it is (get pet bear to hug?) and wishing I had remembered to get chocolate at the supermarket. Jetlag makes me wake up at 2am utterly ravenous. It also makes me feel ill, although my mother says I could just have caught the sickness circulating at the moment, which makes perfectly respectable people, such as my aunt, throw up in a stranger's garden.

I did not win Lotto. There seems to be a glitch in the system.