Surry Hills Sunday Sesh

 It was a perfect Sunday afternoon in Surry Hills today and Queen L and I were invited over to our neighbours place for a couple of cheeky beverages and a big BBQ. When I think BBQ I imagine burnt sausages, pasty white bread and of course sweet, sweet sugar laced tomato sauce (or BBQ sauce whatever tickles your fancy). But our neighbours who also happen to be serious foodies had another idea for their big backyard cook up. As you will see below these guys had everything from a fine selection of char grilled organic veggies to grass fed steak cooked to absolute rare perfection, I was in heaven! So they cooked, we brought the beers and together we all kicked back and basked in the afternoon sun. It was the cherry onto of another great weekend! 

Yes Please

Its currently 5:36 on a clear Friday afternoon.

If this was like any other Friday I'd be sitting at my vanity right now carefully applying my make up, listening to classic Britney Spears and waiting for an inexpensive bottle of wine to chill to the perfect temperature in the freezer.

If this was like any other Friday approximately 11 minutes from now Queen L would walk through the front door of the Dirthouse and officially declare this moment "The Weekend Motherfuckers"

If this was like any other Friday Lady B would enter from the back door 10-15 minutes after with an additional bottle of alcohol and a look on her face that quite clearly said "you better be ready to get down tonight bitches".

If this was like any other Friday night we'd all disperse for an estimated half an hour before stepping out of our boudoirs one by one fully equipped for a night of fun, scandal, dancing and shit talking.

But it's not like any other Friday night because I'm here, sitting on the couch staring dismally at a pile of university textbooks.

And its not like any other Friday night because Queen L has just arrived home and taken up a spot on the opposite end of the couch with a pile of work reports...

And it's really weird because its like we're looking at each other for the very first time through sober eyes.

And then she says to me "Do you you want to go out tonight?"

and I say "yes please".

Ahhhh sheiiiitttttt.

Stop Over Thinking About Love And Carrie On

So as I was walking down Oxford Street today I had a revelation.

About Carrie Bradshaw and her infamous love life.

Carrie is famous for having a string of failed relationships. I mean the woman had 18 relationships between the seasons of one and six, thats only a decade of her adult life...who knows how many men she dated in her twenties- I'm guessing a lot.

Anyway, in Carrie's defence dating is incredibly hard in the city. You never know who you're going to meet and potentially fall into bed with (just joking - but seriously). I'm barely into my twenties and I can say that I have already encountered a few of the characters that were featured in SATC.

For example: The Russian

My Russian may not have been 60 years old with a snobby super chic Parisian daughter but he was born in Russia, OTT romantic and had an absolute inability to detect sarcasm (don't get me wrong these traits aren't exactly bad but they just weren't for me).

But he was beautiful to look at and you can have see for yourself here

I've also dated countless Sam's, let me refresh your memory...Sam's the young, carefree twenty-something guy Carrie meets at some irrelevant dive bar.

Well you don't have to remember the episode to know this guy because chances are you've already dated him. He's the really good kisser with the really great abs but his apartment smells like damp mixed with marijuana and stepping into his bathroom is like stepping into a portaloo at a festival (at the end of the day) yeahhhhh you know, that guy.

Now lets get back to the revelation part.

Yes, Carrie may have dated a few outlandish characters in her life but amidst those 18 affairs were a few relationships that I think could have lasted a tad longer than a couple of 30 minute episodes.

I think Carrie's problem was that she had too much time to think about her relationships. Her job wasn't really an escape from her personal life, in fact Carrie's job was to draw on the very intimate details of her life to inspire the incredibly honest and outrageous columns she was known for. She spent her entire days thinking about the men in her life and then finding witty ways to write "what a bastard" or "golden showers are bad".

It's true, Carrie Bradshaw had a bad case of over thinking. Over thinking is not only bad for you, but  it can also be detrimental to your relationships. Maybe if she spent more time dealing with shitty people working at a call centre or ushering the homeless out of Centerlink she would come home at the end of the day and be grateful for her hot, rich politician boyfriend or be too tired to question Petrovsky on his weird Russian antics.

You see when you over think things you tend to blow them out of proportion, allow a single thought to consume your mind for long enough and you become obsessed with it. Who knows, maybe if Carrie had stopped analysing every little factor of her relationships she would have tied the knot with Big seasons before it actually eventuated.

But it's not Carrie's fault, I believe that women have the tendency to over think things more than men and to top it off over thinking can also be a strong characteristic amongst writers, as those who dedicate their lives to creating compelling "fiction" are constantly working with raw material - their own emotions.

There is no doubt that Carrie Bradshaw's inclination to over think about love has contributed to the dramatic highs and lows she has encountered in many if not all of her relationships. But then again if she had settled with Kurt at the very start there wouldn't have been 17 more fantastic love stories for us and 17 valuable experiences for Carrie to learn from.

But I think that the biggest admission here is that this is not a revelation about Carrie Bradshaw at all...it is about me.

*For those of you who would like to be refreshed on Carrie's love history click here and for those of you who would like to read about more fleeting love affairs and interesting male characters stay tuned ;)

Coming soon...

DH Queen's Beautiful Body Challenge

Four Queens, four completely different body shapes and only three months until summer...

The Calm Before The Shit Storm

Do you want to know what  I think is fucking hilarious?

For those of you who answered no - I'm going to tell you anyway. I think its hilarious how you can go from having the best day to having the worst day just like that. 

Sometimes like this particular occasion theres a bottle of champagne involved, in fact it just dawned on me that champagne is nearly always the reason why one moment you can be on top of the world and next you're waking up beside a pond somewhere with a penis drawn on the side of your face. 

Anyway back to the nice wholesome part of this story, yesterday I took the pictures below and wrote about how happy and carefree life was, I didn't post it because my blog was interrupted by an overwhelming craving for dates. I went to the shops to buy some dates and while i was there I thought I just might pop into the liquor store for a quick squiz - I came out five minutes later with two bottles of wine and the rest of the story is better suited for dot point format as I'm severely hung over and barely have the capacity to see let alone string a cohesive sentence together. 

The not so wholesome part:

• A few glasses of wine at The Dirthouse quickly turned into free bubbly at Hugo's
• Mingling with men in media 
• A dance off with a middle aged woman in bodycon
• An ex boyfriend behind the bar who thought it would be funny to over pour the alcohol in all of my beverages
• Where is Queen L?
•  A lone cab ride
• Seven calls to Bill (fuck)
• And one message that read "weird conversation, everyone needed to pick it up from weirdness"
• Weird.

Next day

• Woke up fully dressed with my skort back to front
• Still drunk
• 13 messages 7 missed calls
• Not yet thinking that copious amounts of champagne is a bad idea, in fact feeling excellent...invincible even
• The realisation that Queen L had left her bag at the bar once again
• Neither of us particularly bothered at this point
• A tipsy walk to Coles
• Two bottles of juice to counteract the two bottles of wine
• Why won't someone open the front door?
• Oh thats because theres no one else home...for the entire weekend
• haha
• Queen L jumps the fence again
• Yep, definitely locked out
• No phones, barely any money just two bottles of juice and a straw trilby hat
• All would have been fine if Queen L didn't have to attend a wedding in under four hours and drive the mother of the bride to the ceremony.
• Fuck
• The decision to walk to Kings Cross to retrieve Queen L's belongings
• Of course there was no one there
• A fairly sizeable tantrum
• Sitting at a dirty little convenience store staring at Bills number on the Internet
• Begging the asian woman behind the counter to let us use her phone 
• The harsh realisation that this is the second time in three months that I've called Bill because I've locked Queen L and I out of The Dirthouse
• No answer
• Feeling about 10 years old and exceptionally pathetic and hopeless
• A locksmith
• A call from Queen K saying that she had left a spare key under the pot plant 

As you can imagine both of us wanted to die. Actually thats an understatement. The funny thing is when I went to write about this occasion the blog below was already up on my screen and it was like I was giving myself a massive punch in the face. Yesterday I felt incredible, powerful, healthy and inspired and today I feel like all the progress I've made with my health, my state of mind and the decision not to contact Bill has gone completely down the drain. 

Great.

For those of you who prefer stories of triumph and sunshine over stories of weakness and weirdness heres the original blog post full of happy pictures...

It's just one of those days you know. One of those rare days when you're woken up by your own body clock instead of the usual drone of your alarm. A day free of commitment, nothing to do no one to see. 

I think days completely exempt from ritual and responsibility reveal a lot about a person 

And this is what today revealed about me...

For the first time in a long time I went for a walk, I didn't push myself, I didn't time myself in fact I left my watch and my phone at home and I just walked and walked and walked. 

When I got home I sat out in the sun and I wrote something not particularly amazing or profound

Before lunch I wondered into the kitchen and made cookies, I allowed myself to open the oven door every five minutes because patience isn't one of my best qualities.

And then for the first time in a long time I sat down and watched the midday movie which lucky for me was Scent of a Woman - One of my favourite films of all time.

It's an amazing privilege to spend a whole day doing exactly what you want. 

Moral of the story is take full advantage of the good days where the horizon is clear and your eyes are sparkly because you never know when theres a shit storm brewing just around the corner.

Here's A Serve On Serving You, Surry Hills

So today after this lecture I will walk into a small yet popular café in Surry Hills, collect my pay and then simultaneously quit my job – a job I had for exactly 48 hours and 22 minutes.

From the moment I started my first shift I hated it, but for a bit of extra cash and an experience worth writing about I decided to stick it out for the two shifts I had been allocated.

I have ample experience in the hospitality industry, mostly working in bars and nightclubs but nothing and I mean nothing could have prepared me for this. When I saw the sign in the window that read, “Experienced waitress needed” I thought this café would be a cruisy place to work. Not only is it a five-minute walk from The Dirthouse but the hours were reasonable and I’d always loved their corn fritters.

Sure, I’d never worked in a café before but I thought hey, how hard could it be?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

*Side note

I hadn’t worked in any industry since I quit my job in PR three months ago, so I’m not going to lie, I think I might have developed a princess complex. Who wouldn’t after spending three months lying the sun, dating a minor celebrity and spending every other waking moment writing filth and posting it on the internet?

Anyway, my first shock came in the form of a man named Ross. Ross was in his late 60s, wore an incredibly outdated suit and walked with a cane which made a violent clunking noise as he entered the café and stomped up the stairs to a table set for four. As I approached him with a glass of water and a breakfast menu (protocol) he looked up from his morning paper in disgust.

“Who are you?” he sneered.

-       who the are you mate?

I held back my shock and told him my name along with the specials, he cut me off half way.

“I’ll have what I have everyday but I suppose you don’t know what that is…two large slices of soy linseed, lightly toasted with raspberry jam and vegemite, a teapot with hot water with four medium slices of lemon and a ramekin of honey on the side and you can take back that glass of water.”

-       I remembered four slices of lemon, that was it.

The rest of the shift was a parade of the same bullshit:

·      Mr why didn’t you automatically order me a long black?

·      Mrs can you please refill my dogs bowl with room temperature water

·      Miss I’ll have the beef burger without tomato, cheese, pickles and bun

·      Ms this double chocolate ice cream riddled thick shake doesn’t taste like its made with skim milk

And then when I thought it couldn’t get any worse came ‘my bacon isn’t crispy enough’ man with the monobrow.

Let me explain, after the bacon was taken back to the kitchen not once but twice I was told by Mr Monobrow that I had not only ruined his breakfast but his day. I wanted to cry but most of all I wanted to ask him why, why Mr Monobrow must you be such a precious, inconsiderate twat? 

My second shift being a Saturday was undoubtedly worse, I got into a fight with the chef and was moments away from ripping off my apron and walking out on this horrible experience, flipping the bird up at Ross on my way out.

But I didn’t, instead I held my tongue, gritted my teeth together and finished the shift toilet cleaning and all. I got home at 5pm and Lady B was in the bathroom curling her hair – I poured myself a glass of wine and collapsed on the couch.

I told Bernie everything I just told you and she just laughed. Believe it or not Lady B was once the manager of Coffee Club before she moved to the big smoke and started working in media. None of what I said about bacon man and even Ross remotely surprised her.

The reality is that lady B like millions of other servers out there have had to deal with this shit every day of their lives. The Ross’s and the so called bacon coinsures are just part of the package along with routine plate scraping and toilet cleaning.

The truth is I’m not afraid of hard work but I do have a massive problem with people who treat other people like shit. Belittling someone because they don’t know your breakfast order is not ok and yeah you may have just finished work for the week but when you sit down at a café for breakfast on a Saturday morning don’t forget that the person you’re rolling your eyes at for not remembering to put two equals on the side of your coffee instead of one is just trying to get through their working day too.

 I really have a new found appreciation for servers particularly those who work at cafés in upmarket areas. As for me, well I think I will continue to work in bars at least until I can start to make a living from doing what I really love and that is ranting about my life to you fine bunch of people.

Before I bid you a good weekend remember – if you want your bacon crispy ask for it crispy, ask for it crispy please or better yet just stay home and make it your fucking self ;)

The end.

City2Surf 2013

City2Surf is the world largest fun run with around 85,000 people who participate every year. The course is 14km long starting in Sydney's CBD and finishing at Australia's renowned Bondi Beach. Although Bernie and I didn't physically run the City2Surf we did do our own variation of the event with the aim of the game to get from The Dirthouse (city) to Bondi (surf) on public transport. Before you all role your eyes and assume that our event was in no way comparable to the actual City2Surf I'll have you know that its no easy feat getting from the inner city to the Eastern Suburbs on a old bus with literally every main road closed and 85,000 potential hazards hanging out on the streets just waiting to wonder into the middle of the street and hold up traffic! 

So, with a lot of determination and a little picnic basket of goodies Lady B and I headed out on our quest for sun, sand and semi naked athletes at 10am. two hours, two buses and a small trek later we made it to Bondi Beach. The detailed impeccably photoshopped picture below outlines in red the actual City2Surf track and in hot pink (naturally) depicts roughly where our buses took us (half way around the fucking world).  

Nonetheless we made it! Unfortunately just after we arrived I realised that I had left my memory card for my camera at home. I had two choices: forget about it and use my shitty iPhone camera instead or brace the line below to get on a bus to go back home and grab my memory card for the sake of the quality of this blog and your viewing pleasure.  

You guys might be important to me but there was no way in hell I was going to join the end of that line below, can anyone even see an end?

So I did what any blogger would do and whipped out my old iPhone 4S, lucky I had a beautiful busty subject that made the pictures all the more appealing...

I think the look on this ladies face to the left is some indication of how painful it would have been not only to run 14kms but then proceed to stand in a line twice as long as that waiting to get on a bus full of sweaty tourists, I do not envy you.

Meanwhile on the beach lady B began unpacking our raw vegan goodies...

Totally oblivious to the thousands of people probably perishing from heat stroke behind us.

And then for the next two hours after our bellies were full we proceeded to lay back in the sun and listen to the loud speaker replay the spiel "Everyone remain calm, you will get on a bus, do not panic, a bus will arrive shortly" over and over again.

Until I zoned out and lost myself in the clear blue sky...can you spot the red balloon?

We finished the day with a bit of a perve and slowly made our way back home. By this time the line has almost vanished, unfortunately our hangover from the night before had not and I was feeling pretty bloody exhausted. This is just one ways that the City2Surf can take it out of you but as I looked down at my fresh new tan I couldn't help but think how rewarding this experience had been also.

P.s All jokes aside next year I'm doing it for real! If you're going to be in the Sydney area around this time too I highly recommend it, if not for a bit of a personal fitness challenge do it for the sea of sweaty hot men in spandex...but if you end up in the beginners section of the race don't hold me to the later thought. 

The Dungeon Diaries: Miss N

The Dirthouse is a magnificent place with many rooms, most of which are occupied by lively young women. There is however one room which we refer to as the dungeon that we like to whore out in order to buy little luxuries such as plasma TVs and toilet paper - shhh don't tell our landlord!

Miss N is a globe trotter who has frequented the dungeon a couple of times now in between her travels. She is a vivacious brunette who originates from Canada or is South Africa but wait I think I remember her telling me she lived in New York when she was one? Who knows, what I do know is that I can't get enough of hearing about her adventures every time she comes to stay.

I don't say this often but Miss N's love life is more exciting than mine and in a way that I don't envy but instead find myself awkwardly gawking at as to say "you're fucking with me right?".

Well my friends I can safely announce that she's never fucking with me in fact the only people she's fucking are that of the much older variety.

Now I'm not inferring that there is anything wrong with dating older men, in fact I very much support it and encourage it amongst women my age but you see Miss N has a thing for slightly more mature males sometimes even 30 years older than herself, which is a little odd for a girl who is only in her early twenties.

Lets remember readers that odd isn't necessarily bad and from here on I want you to all swear that you'll continue to read this piece with an open mind.

You swear?

Good.

Now lets continue...

Since I first met Miss N (around mid last year) she has had an ongoing relationship with a the CEO of a successful shipping company, for the sake of this blog lets call him Mr Shippy. Mr Shippy is separated but for reasons unknown to me still lives with his wife and three kids. The two lovers met when Miss N started hanging out with Mr Shippy's son (Mr Shippy Jr) who is around the same age as Miss N.

Awkies.

Long story short in no time at all Miss N ditched Mr Shippy Jr for his much older and much wealthier father and the rest is history. I was never a big fan of history in high school but Miss N's love life became a subject that I was particularly interested in.

Over a glass of wine one day Miss N casually explained to me how Mr Shippy likes to pay for all of her expenses when she visits Sydney (So Mr Shippy is actually the one to thank for our abundance of toilet paper?). He buys her clothes, cab fares and even gives her a little pocket money for rainy days, err i'm lucky if a guy even buys me a drink let alone a Zimmerman bloody dress. The latest purchase Mr Shippy made was an extravagant holiday package which included flights to Thailand and two weeks accommodation at a fancy boutique hotel for both himself and Miss N. For unforeseen circumstances Mr Shippy couldn't make it but encouraged Miss N to take her best friend instead, he also insisted that he still cover all costs of the holiday... for both of them.

Fuck off!!

Miss N said she had a lovely time on the holiday but wished that he could have been there. By this time I had painted a vivid image of Mr Shippy in my head - I imagined George Clooney crossed with Sean Connery someone who always dressed smart casual, maybe he even walked with one hand in his pocket and the other grasping a dapper cane. Oh come on I don't know!?

After a little hesitation and a whole bottle of red Miss N finally showed me a picture of Mr Shippy who  sure did look like George C alright!

No, no not George Clooney, the other George C...George Costanza (yep, that bald guy off Seinfeld).

I gave her an awkward smile and mumbled something along the lines of - yeah he's cute - before sculling the rest of my glass of wine.

After many more conversations I got the feeling that Miss N did actually care for Mr Shippy which made me think of her a little less as a gold digger (there I said it) and more like a very resourceful young woman with a very interesting taste in men.

I'm not saying that I could pull off this type of relationship nor would I want to but at the end of the day if everyones happy and no ones getting hurt then what should it matter right? While I'm currently sitting here in a dress that barely costs more than a main meal at McDonalds I can't help but wonder if I would ever accept beautiful material things from a man i wasn't particularly interested in, in exchange for my time, company and even my body.

The answer i'd have to say is no.

As for Miss N well she has her reasons and I support that, whose to say Mr Shippy won't go bankrupt tomorrow and Miss N is the only one by his side generously giving up her beloved Zimmerman and piggy bank full of rainy day change just so that they can be together in a dirty unfurnished apartment in Redfern?

Somehow I think if Mr Shippy was to lose all of his money tomorrow the likelihood of the above scenario playing out is very bleak, I mean even the shittest apartments in Redfern now come with some sort of furniture ;)

A Story About A Man Named Bill

I'm not neglecting you I swear, in fact every day I see the number of page views increase and I think to myself why the heck can't I put pen to paper and share with you all whats been going on in my life.

In the couple of weeks that I haven't posted a lot has gone on and what better way to fill you in than with a series of dot points, you know how much I like to get straight to the point...

• Theres been a man
• A very handsome man
• Who's name is Bill (Its not really Bill but there are many reasons why I can't reveal his real name)
• In the very little time I have known Bill he has opened my eyes to many things
• He's shown me some of the finer things in life from good quality food to the most breath taking views, revealed what it's really like to work in the entertainment industry, given me the confidence to not only prepare a meal for a man but for a professional cook, introduced me to an array of excellent music, pushed me up the steepest fucking mountain I've ever seen while still sounding incredibly endearing and not even the slightest bit pissed off at me for making him look bad
• As you can probably guess I have grown very fond of Bill but like all dot point stories this one has to come to an end
• Somewhere along the way there was a realisation
• A harsh realisation that no matter how much I liked Bill things would never be able to progress 
• So, instead of letting this relationship fizzle out or end badly I decided to walk away when we were still able to comfortably sit through the entire duration of Snoop Dog/Lion "Drop It Like It's Hot" in peak hour traffic after spending 24 hours straight in the wilderness together without wanting to strangle each other (obviously this is a very good indication that our relationship is in fine form)
• Okay - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (this is me walking away)
• I'm not going to lie
• Would I ever lie to you?
• It's tough walking away from something that makes you feel really fucking good but... 
• It was probably one of the most mature decisions I've made to date.

As much as it probably seems to you like my life is all about being young, wild and free (thanks snoopy) in the big city there are times when I am caught off guard and find myself wanting to stand still with someone instead of racing ahead to the next story. If circumstances were different I'd try my best to hold onto the good thing I have with Bill but I have to play the cards I've been dealt and realise that right now we are worlds apart. 

For every mature decision I make there is always an equally immature choice hiding just around the corner and lucky for you, there are photos and a little bit of footage:

The dancing wasn't even the embarrassing part the fact that I nearly got stuck half way down a cliff face would have to be the kicker...

But I can safely say I made it to the end and it was worth every little bit, thanks Bill xx