Last night I hosted my first ever slumber party. Oooh, pillow fights and talking about boys. I never had one as a kiddie because our household was rather insane and I didn't want my friends seeing that. Besides, you had to open three different sets of gates, cross a trickle of a creek and wade through sheep shit to actually get there.

Quite often, I am a really crap friend. I go into little black episodes in which I withdraw from everyone. While I do this because I feel wimpy and unworthy of their company, they interpret it as me being a big old snobbypants who doesn't care about them.

But this week I was on a mission. I caught up with my brilliant best mate from uni after three years, dinnered with a highschool pal, slumber partied with some lovely bloggy girls, and coffeed with two other great mates (who I hadn't seen in six months even though they live five minutes down the road). It was all good.

So yes, I am a moody little brat sometimes, and to anyone that considers me to be friend or accquaintance, online or off, just know that you all rock my socks, and if I ever made you feel like I didn't care, I apologise.

I have this thing where I convince myself that if I don't maintain a certain level of entertaining anecodotes, stupid jokes, dirty comments and good cooking that my friends will decide they don't like me. So in an attempt to be dazzling, I cooked this huge leg of lamb last night with all sorts of fancy things stuffed in it.

What I have learned: If you want to impress your friends by serving a hunk of dead sheep, try to remember that some are vegetarian and some don't like meat. Then don't bleat at their boyfriend, "Please. Please stay and help eat the sheep." Because you just look like an idiot and you should know that your friends like you anyway.

In other news, I have LOST my Gomez tickets. I went on a cleaning frenzy (another attempt to look impressive) and now the tickets that were on the kitchen bench have disappeared. I've spent all evening ferreting around the house and even braved the stanky depths of the dumpster to paw through the rubbish I took out yesterday. No luck. And I have a feeling Ticketek won't be helpful. There's $130 worth of Gomez floating around there somewhere. Bah.

mailache n. When the tingly euphoria of seeing one actually has new e-mail melts into sadness and grump when one realises it's just more Check out these ho's in my highschool! spam.

There is not much for a handful of Canberra bloggers to do on a Saturday night.

Quotes of the evening:

As the gang exits the most hideous Adult World

ROW: So where to now?
SHAUNY: Spice of Life is just down the road.
RACH: They better have cardamon!

Earlier that evening, while drinking

BIG BROTHER BOARDGAME STUPID QUESTION: What would you do if someone intelligent and nice but very unattractive wants to sleep with you?

MONKEY: Shag him anyway.

SHAUNY: Ask him to go down on you and keep your eyes closed.

There has been progress in the Learning To Drive A Stick caper. My sister has been such a patient teacher, putting up with me shrieking "What gear?! What gear!?" in the exact same ear-piercing pitch that Tweety Bird says "I did! I did taw a puddytat!"

She's also survived two brushes with death in which I failed to give way (too busy enquiring about the gear I was in) and only slightly rolls her eyes when I stop at the lights, hand poised over the handbrake, asking in panicky tones, "Is this a hill? Is this a hill?", even when the road is perfectly flat.

Rhi's in Queensland this week on a business trip, leaving me to fend for myself. I fully planned to stay housebound and walk anywhere I needed to go, but soon I was eating nothing but Vegemite and some suspect-looking bread. It was time to venture out in Manuel all on my own.

I've driven to work, to the supermarket, to the movies, out to Fyshwick (to order my new puter, NOT to buy porn. I know what you're thinking, Canberra kids) only stalling twice, only crunching the gears three times in total. Not too shabby, I thought. Then today it all came undone.

I went out to buy supplies for a gathering tonight, and the Saturday morning traffic was a little crazy. But I made it home in one piece. I parked Manuel and popped open the hatch, got out of the car and promptly slammed the door shut, locking the keys inside.

My heart turned to shit. We only have two sets of keys, and the other is in Cairns right now. I examined the hatch and tried to remove the cover thingy. It wouldn't budge. I wondered if I could somehow dive over the cover thingy without getting my fat arse lodged in the small gap between the back seat and the ceiling. We've only had Manuel for a month, and I didn't want to have to explain a hacked-up hatch to my sister.

So I decided to be more resourceful. All I had to do was find something long enough to reach from the back of the car to one of the doors, then I could somehow unlock the door. There were no long objects inside the car, so in the end I took off one of the windscreen wiper blades, launched myself into the back of the car, grunting and swearing, poking the wiper around until I finally flipped up the lock.

"Woohoo!" I yelled.

"Well hello there!" said my neighbour, who until now has not said boo to me, but chose the moment when I was wedged in the back of my car with my arse in the air to happen along and introduce himself.

If anyone is any good at reattaching wiper blades, please let me know.

Advice needed: should I get a little loan for a new puter NOW and get double my memory for free (if you purchase by June 30) OR do I stick to my original plan of no new puter until I have a new job?

You see, I've had this master plan for months now, as soon as I get a new job, I will use some of my leave payout (I have almost 5 weeks of annual leave accrued) towards buying a laptop. Why do I want a laptop? Coz I just freaking DO. Well, mostly for this dorky reason: it makes me write like the clappers.

My boss nicked off to Spain last November and I borrowed her laptop for Nanowrimo. I wrote in the garden, in bed, at the library, by the lake, and I just couldn't stop. I felt so writerly and alive. Ever since I handed it back to her, I haven't written a freaking word more aside from this here blog.

So yes, my plan was to get the laptop as a reward to myself for finally finding a new job. But new job has not eventuated yet, and every day I find myself sitting at work doing data entry or photocopying and almost in tears coz I just feel so freaking miserable and grumpy, wondering if that dirty bitch Fate has me destined to be a secretary.

(Speaking of which, I truly stink at being a secretary. The job wouldn't be so bad if I possessed an ounce of organisation skills or attention to detail. That part of my brain must have been in the finger that got lopped off.

I sat in a meeting this afternoon and listened to folks bitching about the legions who hadn't shown up. When I got back to my desk, I saw sitting pretty in the Outbox the email that I was supposed to send out today reminding people about said meeting, and also the email I was supposed to send out yesterday informing people that the meeting existed in the first place. Shoot the messenger!)

Anyway, I have this element of Catholic guilt or something, that prevents me doing anything nice for myself unless I have earned it somehow. Like if I am eating dinner, I won't eat the nice thing (like lasagna or mashed potatoes) unless I have eaten all the yucky things (like broccoli or squash). If I don't do the yucky, I don't deserve the nice. Or I don't let myself have a bubble bath or watch that movie until I've vacuumed the house or cleaned the loo or other appropriate toil.

I don't know where this deranged logic originated, but either way, I feel like if I go out and buy this stupid new puter now, I will burst into flames for being so reckless and as punishment, I will never get another job. But another part of me says, it's a good deal, get it now, do whatever you need to do to make you feel like writing again, whatever it takes to make you a little happier.

Do you SEE what a fuckwit I am? Do you SEE how I spend my data entering photocopying stapling days torturing myself with these BIG issues? Hasn't anyone noticed lately that I am completely losing the plot? Well I am, dammit! You should be paying attention!

And I miss my puppy.

"You know those Slippery When Wet roadsigns with the car and the squiggles and the WHEN WET writing underneath?"

"Yes."

"When I was a kid, I thought the sign was a suggestion, not a warning."

"What?"

"I thought it was telling you, when it is slippery, drive your car from side to side in a squiggly fashion."

"So you thought you were meant to put the car on two wheels and slide around?!"

"Yeah. Everytime it rained I always wondered why Mum or Dad never did it."

"Because our cars were too shithouse to have the Slippery When Wet feature."

I'm on the phone with Shauna right now...yes, right as I speak I'm here blogging on HER blog (the sacrilege!) while I sit here in Seattle, Washington, she's in Canberra, the capitol of Australia, lying in bed.

She says she's contemplating blogicide if she can't think of anything to post. So, she's soliciting ideas. She the promises to consolidate all of your suggestions into a singly, wacky (I'm quite sure it will be wacky) post.

Examples:

"Shauny we haven't heard about Mr. Shakey II recently, write about him!"

or,

"I like it when you use a bunch of weird Australian terms, like 'root rat' and 'stunned mullet'... use some of those in your wacky post."

And don't forget to visit Shauna over at my blog, the tinyblog from the 14th to the 24th, where she will be guest curating whilst I go on retreat.

Commence with your suggestions.

That is all.

I just bought two tickets to see Gomez at the Hordern in July. WOOHOO! Last time was wonderful as I'm sure it will be this time around. Ahhh. Life is sweeter than a family block of Cadbury's.

P.S. It seems noone will agree that the Spiderman movie is a steaming pile of turds. What's wrong with me?

P.P.S. We had a mini-holiday this weekend that I wanted to tell you about but now I am really, really sick and can't talk without sounding like some trashy call now, big boy phone line and I feel brokenhearted and lonely and grumpy and I've lost any ability to write decently and I am photocopying in my sleep.

Spotted outside Salmonella House in Braddon:

Life is so pathetic sometimes that it just becomes fucking hilarious. Let's all go out tonight for some vodkalicious action, yes?