Wibbly-wobbly Apocalypso Christmas

So, once again we've survived the end of the world with nary a cataclysmic event. Disappointing. However, my spirits remain high because the world was once again saved at Christmas time by Doctor Who.

I know this, because I saw him.

Fake snow in fake London Court

Friday was the declared the day I could be bothered heading into the city to see some of the cute attempts Perth is making to imbue summer with the oeuvre of Christmas. The day dawned bright and clear, and I awoke to a day filled with promise and adventure. I stretched luxuriously and went straight back to sleep, only to be woken again moments later by the sound of fists pounding heavily on doors, first downstairs, then upstairs, then on my door before continuing back down the corridor.

Zombies! was my first excited thought in my half-awake state, followed by the far less exciting notion that it was workmen conducting the usual maintenance in the building over the summer break.

I opened the door to find exactly that. He announced that he was replacing my carpet.

'What, today?' I asked, somewhat panicked at the thought of getting all my furniture out without any notice, whilst still in my pyjamas.

'No,' he replied brightly, 'sometime before the end of January!'

Thanks for the heads up... and the precise date of installation...

I'd arranged to meet a couple of friends at the Christmas tree in Forrest Chase at five to twelve, the oddly specific time chosen to allow us time to meet and head over to London Court to see the 'snow' fall as it apparently has every day for the last couple weeks. Due to misadventure, this was not achieved, but I ran into some other friends and the friends I was originally meeting managed to catch the second snowfall at 1pm, so everybody came up daisies.

In the evening I returned to the city to meet another friend to check out the light shows.

Now, the pernickety among you will know that the Mayan calendar ended on Friday, at 7:11pm local time to be exact.

It was around this time that my friend and I were leaving Santaland at Myer to head to Brookfield Place for the promised light show.  On the upper level concourse there were droves of people flocking to see the nativity in the Chase.

We were ducking and weaving around said crowds when we rounded a corner and came across none other than the tenth Doctor lurking in a quiet corner. 

He obligingly paused briefly for a photo then ran off, presumably to avert whatever end-of-the-world scenario was imminent. I have fun mental images of Cybermen struggling to march up and down the escalators and negotiating the make up counters in Myer, while Daleks stream down Hay St Mall looking for that perfect gift.

I looked at the time as he ran off:

7:10.

No wonder he was in a hurry.

And thus, the world once again failed to end, presumably thanks to the Doctor, and we went on to explore the lights and drink hot dark chocolates at Theobroma.

The Brookfield Place lights mid-image change.

Visions of Zombies Shuffle in My Head

Maybe I've been watching too much of The Walking Dead lately, but I've been having a recurring dream in which I'm fighting off zombies.  Not a massive Freudian leap to be made there, I grant you, but with the world all atingle at the thought of the impending apocalypse (again), I thought it worthy of note.  They've been sufficiently realistic dreams that I've contemplated acquiring a sword in case the apocalypse really does come. For the record, I'd like this one.

Recently, our Prime Minister made a speech for our national youth radio station, Triple J.

Some people have criticised her for this. Don't get me wrong - I'm not the biggest fan of ol' Julia, but she does deserve props for being a) the first Prime Minister to actually grace the station with her presence since its inception and b) taking two minutes out of her day to make that speech and show us that she does, in fact, have a sense of humour. That said, the end of the world seems to be a popular topic of discussion these days.

Just the other night I was at a pub with some friends and the topic came up. There ensued a debate on when the world was actually likely to end. I feel proud to live in such Interesting Times.  I have survived the Y2K disaster, the zyzygy doomsday prediction (not sure why the planets aligning spelled death for us but hey, never let logic get in the way of a good premise for an insane doomsday cult), the Rapture, and several different Made Up Nostradamus prophecies about the end of the world. 

So far, each and every one has proven to be an over-hyped disappointment.  No seas have boiled, no rivers have run red with blood, no locusts have wiped out our crops (though the nationwide domination of the cane toad is creeping its way inexorably across the continent), California has thus far failed to slide into the ocean on the back of a cataclysmic earthquake as has New Zealand, much to the chagrin of many a bogan redneck, and there have definitely been no official sightings of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, though the countdown for the annual Stalk of Santa has begun.

So, anyway, Friday night.  This is often our drinks night as, unlike me, most of them hold proper, grown-up, Monday-to-Friday jobs, and we meet at a pseudo-Irish pub in the city which, thanks to the high turnover of backpackers in this li'l ol' backwater country, provides a steady supply of genuinely Irish barman and barmaids. Somehow, we got to arguing over the exact date the world would end this time.  Some maintained it was already the last day, thanks to the power of the PM's speech.  This was enthusiastically endorsed by Guy We've Never Met Before But Who Felt Free To Join Our Table Anyway And Try To Hit On Every Woman There. Somehow, though, I doubt his vote was impartial, as it was inevitably followed up with a suggestion of making the most of our last night on earth.

Others maintained that the 21st of December is D-Day, as per the end of the Mayan calendar, while one person determinedly insisted that it was, in fact, the 22nd, which just reminded me of the whole millennium thing, where smug nerds maintained that, in fact, the True Millennium began in 2001, and refused to celebrate at the end of 1999 on principle. The following year the hipsters got their revenge, by proclaiming those millennium celebrations So Last Year.

Personally, I thought, Yay! TWOFER millennium celebrations!

We've survived the 7th December, so now the countdown is on to the 21st.  It seems kind of mean of ol' God to end the world four days before the day we celebrate his son's birth by contravening his lessons about gluttony and avarice, but hey, maybe that's the point.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS,

IS THIS THE END OF THE WORLD?

LOL, nope.

That said, as I'm writing this I'm snuggled up under a blanket drinking tea while it pours with rain outside, and it's the middle of December.  This would not be any great oddity if, in fact, I was in the UK, as I normally am this time of year to visit family.  However, I'm in Australia - Perth, to be precise.  Where by this point in the summer our brains are usually melting out of our ears from the heat.  This leads me to formulating two possible theories.

OR

That said, there is option number three...

Okay, THREE possible theories - climate change, I'm secretly Storm, or it's a coincidence. Then again, there is another possibility:

Okay, FOUR possible theories - climate change, I'm secretly Storm, it's a coincidence (BORING), or 

THE END OF THE WORLD IS

FINALLY ACTUALLY NIGH.

A red-headed friend of mine often talks about the impending Ranga Apocalypse, reminding us that we'll get ours when it comes.  A ranga PM was one of the major signs of its imminence.  So I put it to you: which is a more likely end for us - armageddon at the hands of some nebulous threat at the end of days, as predicted by the Mayan calendar, or a revolution led by millions of redheads; tired of all the hot-head-on-fire, no-soul, carrot-top jokes and discrimination finally taking matters into their own hands?

Imagine, if you will, the possible impending Ranga Apocalypse on the 21st December:

The streets are abandoned, crashed and overturned cars litter the streets.  The major highways are thusly blocked, so the survivors are making their way into the hills on foot.  Behind them, in the smoky, hazy distance - not because of the apocalypse, but because this is summer in Australia and bushfires are a constant reality - lurch hundreds upon thousands of vacant-eyed, redheaded zombies.  But instead of brains, they are after...

YOUR SOUL.

So far, this blog is proving to be about 50% coffee, and 50% zombies.  I don't want to know what Freud would make of THAT.

Black Beauty

I have a friend.  He asked me to write about him.  He requested it be given the above title. This is his story:

If Rob was a dragon...basically, Mushu with dreds...

Black Beauty was born Robert, in 1980-something. I call him Mushu. And he calls me Moo Shoo. He's not very original with nicknames. But then sometimes he calls me Princess or Lady, and I'm okay with that. He and I first met when we worked together at a boarding school in Perth.  We hit it off and have been friends ever since. I don't exactly remember the first time we met.  In some ways it feels like he's always been a part of my life - our friendship has no clear beginning or end - it just is. Sometimes months will go by when we don't see each other or talk much, but when we see each other again it's like no time has passed.

Rob has one of the biggest hearts of all the people I know. He is kooky, and prone to bizarre behaviour in public.  He loves to scandalise people.  I've been tackle-hugged to the ground, begged for head scratches and tummy rubs, and treated to tantrums worthy of a three-year-olds whilst onlookers look on with expressions ranging from bemusement to judgement.  Life is never dull with him.

He has a pug named Cupid. Cupid both loves and hates the beach, and he definitely loves bacon. Cupid, and his convertible, are the two loves of Rob's life. One time Rob buried Cupid at the beach.  One time we buried Rob at the beach.

Rob spent six months in Miami on exchange for university.  I missed him while he was gone, but I couldn't think of a more suitable environment for him. I think at least fifty percent of my time with him has been spent at or near the beach, and there was a time when you wouldn't see him without some kind of bling; a D&G watch, or a gold-accented Ed Hardy dragon jacket, and his jeans cost more than my first car.  

Rob is not like my other friends.  But that is part of his appeal. 

One time, we went to pick up a sun roof for his dad's boat.  We did this in his two-seater convertible, and of course it wouldn't fit in the boot.  So we did the return trip with it in my lap, wedged under my chin, while Rob teased me for looking like a Teletubby.

One time, he decided it would be funny to textbomb my phone, and sent over a thousand messages in a row of just emoticons.  It took several hours for my phone to work through the queue. I even caught him sending them while I was driving us to go get food that night.

One time we played Connect 4 by text. But he cheated.

One time we played Chess over frozen yoghurts.  It was the most amateur game of Chess ever played, and he was the ultimate victor when we finally ran out of pieces to capture.  I'd like to say I let him win, but I didn't.

It blows his mind that my chiropractor has the same name as him, and tries to steal his business card from my desk when he comes over.

He's lots of fun to hang out with. But be warned, he bites. Randomly, and without warning or just cause.

Mushu is a big, black Fijian dude, and one of the most hilarious sights is him playing my Dance Central game on the Xbox 360 Kinnect.  He is one of the whitest black men I know when it comes to dancing. But I can't talk - I'm sure seeing me to do the 'Superman' is quite hilarious too.

At an interview, he described how he caught all 151 Pokemon, as an example of his dedication and commitment. He got the promotion.

Rob enjoys really bad puns, and loves to test me by sending me messages entirely in emoticons and images to see if I can break the code. When he wants me to ring him, he sends me a picture of a ring.

I always know exactly where I stand with Rob, and if he's thinking of me, he'll text me to tell me. I like that. I know I can relax around him, because he never lies to me and he accepts me for who I am.  He lets me cry when I'm upset, even though it makes him uncomfortable, and he doesn't even run away. Though he may sometimes do the "there there" pat on the shoulder.  He doesn't judge me for my insecurities, but instead reassures me that I'm all right in his book.

He has a joie de vivre that is infectious, and a love of sushi and Grill'd that knows no boundaries. He is five years old, and he is fifty years old, especially when it comes to his sense of humour. He is very brave, since he has let me publish this without seeing what I wrote. He is a legend in his own lunchbox, and the coffee in my clouds.

He is the Buzz Lightyear to my Calamity Jane (let's face it; I'm no Woody), always showing me that you really can go to infinity and beyond.

Like a boss.

Driving with Alfred

Like all the iPhone junkies out there, the day the iPhone 5 came out I was in line to get one.  I won't say first in line because, while the intention was there, when the day came my bed was far more attractive than the idea of getting up early to line up for hours for a phone.

I had a Cunning Plan instead.  I noodled on down to the Garden City store around mid-afternoon, figuring that, as it had only opened three days earlier, most people would head to the more established flagship store in Perth proper.  It would seem my instincts proved correct, given that Perth had apparently sold out by then, while at Garden City I was able to walk straight in and had my pick of phone colour and storage capacity.

I'd determinedly hung onto my iPhone 3GS for as long as possible - I liked the curved shape, and I saw no great benefit to getting the 4.  But by the time the 5 rolled around I was ready for a new phone; my phone's internet had slowed to a crawl, the lag and the bugs were starting to drive me mental, and the home button was starting to get dodgy. I wanted something shiny and new after three years of phone monogamy.  It was metaphorical convertible time in our relationship.  So I dumped it for a newer, sleeker, faster model.

Now, as many of you know, the iPhone 5 propaganda attempted to woo us with a slew of new, sexy features, and one of the most talked about was the new Apple Maps, which was to replace Google Maps. (While we're on the subject of their supposed innovation, check out the launch videos for the original iPhone, and then compare it to the latest.  While there is no doubt that the original's release revolutionised the smartphone, each launch since has been very similar - refinement and improvement, certainly, but it's still essentially the same phone.  Well played, Apple.  Style wins over substance once again).

Lots of people joked about how awful the new maps app was, but I initially scoffed at this.  After all, I liked the new interface with the green direction signs, and I liked the way they automatically advanced as you passed them.  Of course, my initial experiences were of my entering street addresses and driving, for which it functioned well.  It also didn't bother me that their apparently amazing 3D maps were actually just the flat map at a slightly different angle - a pointless feature, if you ask me, but hey, let them have their fun.

That all changed when I then started trying to use other features that were so convenient in the old Google maps.  Walking directions would lie to me, sending me ever further from my destination like one of those nightmares where no matter how fast you run, you just don't seem to get anywhere.  I would walk up and down the same streets and paths, never finding my destination, while it fed me false information.  True story. Just ask a friend of mine whom I arranged to meet at the Nespresso store in Perth last week - eventually I had to get him to come fetch me and take me to the store, after wandering the malls for ten minutes as Apply maps insisted it was in the opposite direction from reality.

And don't get me started on the search feature - enter in a business name or a street name without the suburb and, instead of searching for the nearest thing, it attempts to search in America first.  Hence looking for the nearest Ben & Jerry store in Brisbane produced the intersection of Ben and Jerry Lanes in Judsonia, Arizona, while searching for the Subiaco nightclub, Red Sea, whilst IN Subiaco produced the actual Red Sea in Northern Africa.  Not illogical, I'll grant you, but back in MY day, Google maps took your current location into account...while walking five miles barefoot in the snow.

One feature that appealed to me was the "eyes-free" route maps, which was supposed to sync with your bluetooth and provide verbal directions, just like a proper Sat Nav. Except it didn't.  So I was stuck with peering at it when stopped at lights and hoping for the best.  Because looking at your phone, or texting, is Wrong and Should Never Be Done Under Any Circumstances. <shines halo>

Then, miraculously, it suddenly decided to work Thursday night on my way to the Astor Theatre for a function.  Suddenly, without warning, my phone starting issuing commands to me through the car speakers in a crisp British accent.  I was entranced. I named my Nav Man Alfred, and suddenly found a new form of entertainment whilst driving as he and I differed in opinion as to the best route to take to the theatre.  There ensued a battle of wills while he repeatedly instructed me in a stern tone of voice to turn, then do a u-turn and so on, until we reached our destination and I switched him off.

The experience was so much fun that I opted to turn it on for the trip back home, even though I already knew the way, and I was delighted to see that, once more, Alfred disagreed with me. The journey home consisted of him issuing turning, u-turn and then amended instructions as he attempted to compromise for the sake of our relationship, while my replies somewhat resembled the chorus of this song. In fact, as fate would have it, that song came on my iPod while I was driving, so the driving instructions were interspersed with the lyrics "f*** you, I won't do what you tell me" as I blithely ignored poor Alfred's polite, if overly forceful, instructions.

Never do what they tell you.

Diary of a Klutz

So, I'm having one of those weeks, and I thought I'd document it, to provide a snapshot into the Laurel and Hardy film that is my life sometimes. Though some might disagree, I'm quite dextrous much of the time, but a goodly portion of my life is spent displaying a spectacular lack of coordination.

Monday: Rushed home from work to change for end of semester drinks at the university where I do some tutoring part-time, only to find that my key wouldn't go in the lock - the tumblers had collapsed.  Joy. Rush to reception to talk to my boss, who kindly offered to sort it for my so I could go to the drinks (he's a man who appreciates the value of a good drink).

Tuesday: Last night, I had check my schedule and noted my meetings with my students I'm supervising started at 10:30, so I set my alarm for nine.  I woke up early was catching up on emails and texts on my phone when I decided to double-check my meeting times for today. First meeting at 8:35.  Look at the clock. 8:10.

OH MY STARS.

I frantically dressed and attempted to make my hair look less bed-head-y, threw some shake powder in my travel coffee mug as an impromptu breakfast, threw that, my laptop, phone, cords and notes into my bag, realised I'd left the tap open on the cup lid, cursed at all the powder now strewn through the bag, closed the lid, ran out the door, made it to work with a minute to spare, if slightly out of breath.  Then my first student forgot his meeting so I had to chase him down, thus negating all that effort to be on time.

During a break, I found the time to empty my bag of possessions, shake out the powder, wiped down my travel pack of emergency wet wipes, then used the last wipe in the pack to clean the powder out of the corners of my Kindle, the irony of the last two not lost on  me.  Then, once it was all clean and dry, I knocked my water bottle over and had to start the process all over again.

Then, in the staff room, I discovered some delightful individual had stolen my mug.

DEATH TO THE MUGSTEALERS.

A friend took pity on me and lent me a mug, thus protecting the world from me in caffeine withdrawal.

In the evening, I went to see Judge Dredd with a friend.  Awesome film, by the way, but definitely not for the faint of heart.  In the bathroom before the movie, I dropped my brand new phone, somehow managing to dent the metal edge DESPITE having a case on it...

Wednesday:  Managed to make it through the morning accident-free, then was eating my wrap at lunch with the boarders when the bottom of the paper bag it was in gave way and deposited a goodly amount of hot mayonnaise and tomato juice on my chest.  Burns plus public humiliation. Thanks.  To their credit, the boys didn't pass comment.  Dashed to my room to change, hurriedly unlocked the door...

Only to realise that it wasn't my room.  I moved into the apartment upstairs nearly 3 months ago, yet somehow forgot that.  Luckily the apartment's new occupant wasn't home, saving me that embarrassment at least.

Then, in the afternoon while collecting my laundry, I dropped my phone AGAIN, this time breaking the protective case, but fortunately doing no other damage.  But NOOOOOOoooooooo, my new Game Boy case....

Nearly managed to set fire to myself in the evening. Matches and the like can hold all kinds of risks for such as me... maybe I should rethink my love of candles...

Thursday: I'm blaming sleep-deprivation after a late night for this, but decided I badly needed a coffee and set my Nespresso machine to go.  Then realised when I glanced in its direction that I'd neglected to adjust the milk nozzle and the machine was now an island in a sea of frothy milk. I picked up the milk jug with a view to refilling it to finish making my coffee before cleaning up - priorities - but managed to knock the glass off the edge of the counter where it smashed, sending glass and coffee in an impressively-sized blast radius.  It was one of those awesome Bodum double-walled glass mugs, so it made an interesting double-smash. Glass littered the floor between my bare feet and my shoes.

Dilemma.

It was at this moment my luck changed; there was a knock on the door which turned out to be the cleaner.  She kindly insisted on cleaning up the mess, and even fetched my thongs (flip flops to the Americans) for me.  Such a nice lady.

Went back to bed after that.  Seemed the safest place for me.

Friday: Flooded the coffee machine with milk again.  Seriously, when will I learn?!?! Found some of the glass missed in the clean up yesterday. With my foot. Managed to make it through the day otherwise accident-free. Even managed to make a strong show of steady hands at Friday Night Jenga at work.

Saturday: Crispy-fried in the sun at a festival.  Idiot that I am.  You'd think I'd remember by now that the sun is trying to kill me.

Sunday: DID THE FREAKING MILK THING AGAIN.  Seriously considering testing for some kind of memory deficiency, perhaps early onset of Alzheimer's...

It continues, but at least I've learned how to properly operate my coffee machine... until next time, anyway.

The Witching Hour

'Tis Halloween tonight and, even though it's a Wednesday, I'm somewhat aquiver.

It's one of many times of the year that, regardless of what I am actually doing for it, I find a little magical.  There's something in the air, I can taste it. Tastes like rotting flesh.  Mmmm.

On Saturday a friend and I went to Fright Night at Movie World in Queensland.  This coming weekend there's the conclusion of the city's week-long Carnival Macabre, and Vampiric immersive theatre and ball.  Tonight I'm attending a casual little Halloween celebration, then there's a stage performance of Rocky Horror in the city.  Thanks to the event falling mid-week, Halloween has become a week-long Festivus.

This was the second time we've gone to Fright Night at Movie World, and though it was more crowded than ever, we had an amazing time of it. We dressed as zombified doctors in medical scrubs spattered with blood, white face paint, and blood dripping from our eyes and mouths. We made these costumes last year (well, I ordered the scrubs and my friend who is talented at blood spatter decorated them), and decided to reuse them this year as they worked so well.

Best. Costume. Ever.

The theme this year was The Walking Dead, so the place was crawling (literally) with actors dressed as zombies.  Mocking laughter in queues turned to shrieks when they turned and lunged at people over barricades, snarling and hissing as they groped for fresh meat.  Our costumes led people to be unsure whether we were part of the cast, or fellow punters, and we made this even more difficult by remaining in character any time we weren't part of a queue, and certainly whenever we went past the camera on rides. This was particularly satisfying at one point in the evening when a zombie paused in the dark alley, his head turning to follow a woman walking past, who freaked out when she noticed him.  He turned back from his efforts to find my friend by his head staring at him vacant-eyed and snarling, her teeth hovering near his throat.

Have you ever seen a zombie jump from a fright? You haven't lived until you do.

The night opened with us being let into the main street lined with the bodies of dead girls. We gathered in the roped-off sides of the street as various characters from horror movies wandered into the street; Ghostface, Leatherface, Jason, Freddy, Dracula, that creepy chick from The Ring, Sweeney Todd and many more.  Notably no JigSaw this year, which is a shame - the sight of him slowly cycling down the street in the middle of the night last year was quite disturbing A few zombies shuffled through the audience, to the girlish screams of some nearby teenagers, then "Thriller Night" started blasting over the speakers.  

It was at this point that the dead girl lying near my feet grabbed my leg and lurched to her feet. Zombies and serial killers shuffled their way into formation and the boogied to the beat.  I must say, seeing killers from a dozen horror films doing the Thriller dance in unison is something of a sight.

Thriller night.

As part of the Halloween festivities, several warehouses are converted into giant mazes.  Last year I was mocked for ducking when a man wrapped in barbed wire lunged at me over a fence.  Yes! I ducked! And I'd do it again! I'd say that's a perfectly sane reaction! My favourite maze last year was the Zombie Apocalypse, which was also the most simple of the mazes.  It consisted of a series of wire mesh fences, bright flashing lights and lots of smoke - the result was extremely disorienting.  Add three witless teenage girls clinging to my shoulders and screaming in my ears, and it's a wonder I ever made it out of that maze with my sanity intact. (Some would argue that I didn't...) The maze often left you with two options as to which route to take; choose the wrong one and you would be confronted by a zombie who forced you back to the correct path.

A zombie trying to make friends

My favourites of the zombies were the twin girls in blue dresses carrying a bedraggled teddy bear, and Zombie Jesus; a guy with long brown hair and a beard who shuffled towards us and then leapt.  Suddenly he was hanging spread-eagled on the fence right by us as the wires of the fence quivered dramatically.  I don't know how he did that, but it was damned impressive.  

Other notable mazes included the aforementioned Saw maze, and Arkham Asylum, which was filled with the various villains of the franchise.  My favourite there was Poison Ivy, who stood poised on a dais in the centre of the room wrapped in ivy, completed motionless as our group made its way around her, only to pounce on the rear members of the group who shrieked rather satisfyingly.

This year the Zombie Apocalypse was replaced by the Film Vault.  A similar setup, but this time we were haunted by horror film villains.  It all went pear-shaped when the leader of the group took a wrong turn down an alley to be met with Ghostface.  Three of the fourteen year olds at the rear of the group fled in a panic, leaving one behind.  We turned around, and I allowed the kid to move in front of me after he tried to climb me in his haste to put some distance between him and Ghostface.  This left me  glancing nervously over my shoulder now and then as Ghostface continued to follow us down the corridor.

Bringing up the rear meant the nape of my neck itched for the rest of the maze, as I was followed by Freddy Kreuger and Jason.  I was amused when the leader of the group pushed his way through some rubber curtains and I heard, "are you freaking kidding me?" When I made my way through, I understood why.  Crawling towards me along the floor on my right was the girl from The Ring.  I quickly dodged left, to be met by her twin shuffling towards me.  A very quick dodge around the corner and I was met by a couple of zombies.  Yep, definitely feeling the adrenalin by that point.

Zombie Amy Winehouse
My favourite costume
sighting of the night!

The new Walking Dead maze was similarly interesting, as we wound our way through a hospital.  Dead bodies lay in piles of gore, or dismembered on hospital beds, while zombified doctors and nurses tried to hunt us down.

The night finished, as it did last year, with a vampiric burlesque.  Last year we had no idea what awaited us.  We sat down to watch a burlesque group strut their stuff, as they pulled men out of the audience and treated them to a lap dance.  They slowly unbuttoned the men's shirts, and then - 

They started to feed.

Enter Van Helsing, and a bloody battle ensued, with him the ultimate victor, the street littered with gored bodies.  Uncle Fester came along at that point with a wagon and the cleanup began.  As he drove along, he cried, "bring out your dead", much to the delight of the Python fans in the audience.

It will be interesting to see what Perth brings to the Halloween action, but meanwhile I need to decided whether or not to wear my mad zombie doctor costume to a Halloween party tonight at which there will be small children....

Oh, the temptation is strong in this one.

Happy Halloween!

Everybody was siamese fishing

Having recently moved, I was all inspired to do a bit of redecorating, and in the process I decided it was time I got a new pet.  I've been wanting one for months, but my small living space made something furry undesirable. I love dogs, and hope to finally have one of my own someday, and even considered a ferret, but the smells that accompany furry animals are not compatible with the size of my accommodation. Dogs and their odours need room to breathe, as it were.

I finally decided to revisit fish ownership, specifically a siamese fighting fish, as it's the only kind I've ever owned, they don't require much space, and they're pretty.  I last owned one when I lived in a share house with 3 other girls while studying for my teaching degree.  Three girls in one house? I'm sure visions of pillowfights in our lingerie are dancing through the heads of some readers, while others are shuddering at the thought of hormone-driven bitchfights with so many females under one roof.

I'll admit, there was the odd fight over cleaning duties, and the odd bitchy comment about someone's cooking, and there was the odd argument over who made which phonecall (remember the days before unlimited texts?)

And yes, there was the occasional pillow fight in our pyjamas... and the odd water fight, talcum powder fight (combining the two is NOT recommended....AHEM, Kate...), and my best friend had a suicidal tendency to try to take me down on occasion, despite being 7 inches shorter than me, at which point 'Judo Chop' was deployed (actually judo-drop-to the ground). There was the occasional knock-down-drag-out fight over some trivial domestic matter or another, but eventually we learned how to coexist peacefully.

But that's another story.

Anyway, the fish.

My best friend, Tenille, has always been a fan of The Scaly Ones.  To this day she still dreams of owning a chameleon, and in the time I've known her she's had a great many fish, hermit crabs and axolotls. Some lasted a long time, some were not meant long for this earth.

I remember well The Great Fish War, in which she came back from uni one day to find some sort of massive war and cannibalism had gone on in her fish tank - it was horrific, there were bodies everywhere, including behind the chest of drawers as some attempted escape from the madness. But in general she had a very good track record.

We decided one day after we'd all moved into the share house that it was time to get fish.  Tenille was really keen on getting a siamese fighting fish, and I thought they looked really funky with their bright colours and flowing fins and tails, so I agreed to get one too. The fact that they flare their fins and try to brutally maul each other whenever they see each other had a certain appeal too.

It should be noted here that at no point did we consider actually testing this out; I just liked how crotchety the species is.  I have to respect such commitment to being a loner.

I chose a pale blue fish. He was little compared to Tenille's fish, but I thought he was cute. I named him Zhaan after the blue alien in Farscape, which we had recently started watching.  (I know Zhaan is a female character, but it's a fish. Deal with it.)

Two days later, I found Zhaan floating all manky-like in his bowl. We held a beautiful funerial ceremony for him over the toilet bowl and I headed back to the pet shop.

I'm not some heartless monster; I was in mourning. But I'd just bought this fishbowl... I was a uni student - this was a considerable investment of funds at the time.

I chose a blue-red fish whom I named Beatle (pronounced Beeattle, like in Help!). He was big and burly and looked like a survivor - the Rambo of siamese fighting fish.

Unfortunately, he proved to be the Steve McQueen of siamese fighting fish.

He was a jumper, and no matter how I tried to find ways to keep him in his bowl, he had a will to be free.  Or he had a will to make it across to the far side of the cabinet to take out the enemy fish... At any rate, he made several escape attempts over the next few weeks which were thwarted at every turn.  While Tenille's fish swam docile and content in his bowl, Beatle did everything he could to strike out for greener, drier pastures.

He finally made a desperate bid for freedom one evening while we were cleaning their bowls.  I'd transplanted him to a temporary bowl of water while I cleaned his.  He saw I was distracted by my task and seized the opportunity to make his last best escape attempt.  He leapt from the bowl, and somehow managed to make it the 30cm from his bowl to the sink.

I lunged for him, horrified, but he desperately wiggled his way to the drain, somehow managed to worm his way through the grating and was gone.

"Beatle, nooooooooooooooooooo...." I screamed fruitlessly down the drain. Observers claim is reminded them of the moment Luke finds out Darth Vader is his father.  It wasn't true. It wasn't possible.

But it was. I never saw him again.

I like to think he made it, Nemo-style, and that somewhere out there his descendants are still telling the story of his great escape.

Meanwhile, the newest addition, Experiment 626, is still happily living out his days in his bowl, and alive.  Frabjous.

Apple to the core

As a child, I was raised to believe in the same religion as my parents. My father believed, and still does, in the deus machina that is the Windows PC.  I can't really remember a time when we didn't have a computer of sorts in our home, though I do remember that our first computer involved a tape deck and a keyboard that were hooked up to the television.  Our first cartridge console appeared not long after in the form of a John Sands Sega thanks to his job and then at a Christmas not too long after that we landed our first Nintendo. 

I was hooked.

My assignments in primary school were frequently typed up on the family PC and then duly printed line by line by our dot matrix computer. For you Gen Yers out there, this was a printer which ran a sort of ink ribbon along the page and printed the ink onto the page in the style of a typewriter, only in lines of ink which formed together to form letters and images.  The resulting bubblesque fonts and somewhat streaky dot matrix effect was possibly not quite as aesthetically pleasing as the child-like, painstakingly lettered creative projects, but I was enchanted by the greyscale page generation and the thrill of typing words and being able to delete mistakes instead having to resort to the liquid paper on the typewriter.

The computer craze similarly hit the neighbourhood kids; I remember many a winter afternoon spent with all the kids in the street patiently lining up for their turn on Safari Race. (In summer we were too busy jumping from Cubby's tree house in his pool.  I'm sure Cubby had a normal name like James, or David, I just honestly can't remember what it was...)

I was a PC girl all the way.  I mocked Apple and its Stoopid cutesy apple symbol button.  I scorned their clunky box shape.  I derided their promise of pretty fonts.  Why would I need them, now that True Type had come to PC?

When the day came for me to buy my first computer, I rebelled against my upbringing for the first time.  I defied my father's insistence that desktop was the way to go, and I bought a laptop.  It was still a PC of course, but its shiny blue shell delighted me, and I made sure it had all the bells and whistles I needed under the hood.  It had a sweet 21" screen and a remote for watching media, a good graphics processor to cope with my film and photographic projects and a goodly amount of space. I named him Sergei.

Sergei was my faithful travelling companion while I worked in country postings, and provided many an hour of entertainment when I was stuck in some ungodly middle-of-nowhere-tumbleweed town where the locals didn't much care for out-of-towners and where there were few people even remotely my own age, and where drinking beer and kicking a footy were the primary social activities. I was particularly grateful for his presence when, in Cue, I contracted one wicked ear infection which was to ear infections what Superman is to Tom Thumb. For a week I was unable to stand upright without getting dizzy, the noise of the shower so amplified in my infected ear that I needed to block it just to survive a shower without going crazy.  The nurse who inspected my ear (and gave me symptomatic treatments to tide me over until the flying doctor dropped in to prescribe real drugs) commented on how lovely and clean my auditory canal was, "no flies or eggs or anything!"

The HORROR.

Sergei and I had many good times, and he's still sitting in a corner of my desk to provide a lifeline to my PC hard drives, but my love for PC had, it turned out, an expiry date.

I blame a friend of mine who, having recently received an iPhone 3G for his birthday and fully enamoured of it, talked me into replacing my little blue "20 messages inbox full" phone for an iPhone 3GS.  "It's changed my life," he told me.

I was curious, having had a first gen iPod back in the day, the bugginess of which had not overly enamoured me, but the concept of a multi gigabyte mp3 player had opened up worlds of possibility for me.  I had upgraded to an iPod classic more recently, and was happy with the functioning of it, but the thought of my phone, email and iPod all being integrated into the one machine intrigued me and, after an afternoon playing Falling Balls on my friend's iPhone, I was hooked again.  

That was in 2009, and I haven't really looked back.  Between then and now, I've had five different refurbished iPhones, thanks to the fact that I seem to repel cellular technology.  The first iPhone had been acquired to replace a Samsung that had stopped working a year into my contract. No matter how many times it was sent away to be fixed, it just wouldn't work. Oh, how I miss my old Nokia - I dropped it down several flights of stairs and it just laughed.  And oh, the games of Snake we had together!

Last year, when my phone contract expired, I held my ground, waiting for the much-anticipated release of the iPhone 5.  I was quite disgusted when all that Apple delivered was the 4S.  I preferred the curved shaped of my 3GS, and was hoping for something new and exciting.  

Since the new iPhone 5 was announced, I've been looking at the various smartphones on the market, trying to decide whether to stick with iPhone and upgrade to the 5, or to seek greener pastures in the Galaxy or the HTC.

Despite my lack of luck with the iPhones, I knew I was kidding myself by shopping around.  Come 21st of September I became the happy owner of a new iPhone.

Not only is it pretty, and well-crafted, but I can copy all my contacts, texts and playlist straight across without any hitches.  Plus, I won't lose my progress on Smurf's Village.

Priorities.

First Position

When I was a child, I wanted to be a ballerina. Well, briefly, anyway. Then I wanted to be a gymnast, and then an astronaut. And then I wanted to be Rainbow Brite.

Being a child of the 80s, ballet was not quite what my mother enrolled me in when I expressed a burning desire to don a leotard and ballet flats. Instead she enrolled my sister and me in jazz ballet.

Yes. JAZZ ballet.

My rather vignetted memories from my early childhood reveal only pieces of what this dance medium entailed. From memory, it involved us running around a big room doing somersaults. I'm sure there was more to it than that, but that's the only part that stuck. I didn't last long in jazz ballet - I'd specifically wanted to do ballet, and the lack of pliés and tutus was a source of great disappointment for me. Given that I have grown to a freakishly tall 5'11" and am less than petite, it doesn't really matter - I'd never have made it as a ballerina anyway. Anyway, soon after, I moved onto netball, then basketball, then judo.  

However, my fascination with ballet lingered. 

I have been reminded of this youthful obsession in recent weeks because of two things. First, the new Amy Sherman-Palladino series, Bunheads. Not the catchiest of titles, I must say, though fairly sel-explanatory, and which was explained rather awkwardly in an early episode when one of the main characters referred to the ballerinas by this title. This may be the correct slang term, but it doesn't make for a pleasing embouchure. But I digress.

The announcement of this show was met with great excitement by my closest female friends, as we all have worshipped at the altar of Lorelai Gilmore for many years. The quips and quirky characters of Gilmore Girls delighted us in our teen years, and have continued to do so as we have grown closer to Lorelai's age than Rory's. The thought of a new series by Amy S-P excited us greatly, and Bunheads delivered not only the fast-paced, witty dialogue we craved, but even provided us with a reinvented Lorelai and Rory. Watching it has thrown me back into the world of ballet. The show itself smacks of familiarity - a small town filled with quirky characters, with many of the same actors filling the roles.  

Julia Goldani Telles plays Sasha, the most talented of the ballerinas. If Alexis Bledel (who played Rory Gilmore) had been a ballerina, this is what she would have looked like - the similarities are eery. As are the similarities between Lauren Graham (Lorelai Gilmore) and Sutton Foster (Michelle Sims in Bunheads), though no woman has yet to dethrone Lorelai Gilmore in my estimations - she remains the woman, factual or fictional, that I most idolise.

All this makes for a rather surreal viewing experience. Watching it is somewhat like a nostalgia trip on acid.

The show has, however, renewed my interest in ballet, and my favourite pair of shoes at the moment is a pair of pale pink satin TOMS which remind me of ballet shoes.

And then there's been my more recent forays into the local ballet scene.

A friend of mine has a three year old son who has recently shown an interest in ballet. I'm going to call him Bastian, after the character from Never Ending Story, for the purposes of this story. His daycare group has an activity called "Happy Feet" in which they introduce the kids to different kinds of dance. Bastian Loves Dancing. His favourite proved to be ballet, so his mother enrolled him in the local three year old ballet class. He's the only boy in that age group, as most boys tend not to come to ballet till they're a bit older; parents tend to push the footy on their boys in Australia more than ballet.  

I was invited to see his class and, curious what a ballet class for that age group would look like, I went along. Plus I was promised hot chocolate afterwards. The girls were allowed to wear pretty much whatever they want, which varied from plain leotards and tights through to floor-length princess outfits. Ah, to be three again and able to wear such things in public without anyone calling security. The boys, on the other hand, have a fairly strict uniform. As in ballet, as in life. Bastian was thus decked out in black tights, a white t-shirt, white socks and black ballet shoes.

The class itself was rather well-designed - the kids were introduced to a series of games which actually taught them ballet moves without them fully being aware of it, couching them in a series of games. They pepper the activities with the correct terminology, so Bastian now knows how to stand for first position, and is learning how to plié. Jelly. That said, it IS still a class of three year olds, and everything that implies, so the highlights of the experience were somewhat incidental to the discipline of ballet.

First, there was the wand. When walking around the room in a line, learning to point their toes, the leader of the group gets to carry a metallic plastic wand with a head shaped like a star. The drawback is that whoever is designated group leader is so mesmerised by the shiny star wand that they promptly forget the rest of the world and instead gaze in rapt wonder at this idol of plastic shiny, or run off to proudly show it off to their mothers.  

Then, there was the scarves. They are given scarves to swirl in the air and practise their arm movements. Bastian took to this as keenly as he did the jumping, vigorously making windmills in the air, but one little girl was having none of this. Instead, she crouched by the box of scarves and proceeded to fold and stack the chaotic pile of leftover scarves into some semblance of order.

Lastly, there was the galloping. In pairs, the kids were instructed to gallop sideways hand in hand down the length of the hall; good practice for future steps the length of a stage when they are older. Bastian went All-Out Boy on this one, careering down the hallway at full-tilt, dragging a poor little girl with him. Their slightly differing tempos ended in the only way possible - they tripped over each other and crashed to the floor, Bastian crashing down on top of the luckless little girl.  

Unfazed, he staggered to his feet and dragged the luckless girl, still dazed, from the floor. He gave her about a fraction of a second to shake it off before hauling her off again. Somehow they managed to make it to the end, but the poor little girl just didn't seem the same after that.

Now, if that wasn't an entertaining enough image for those who know me, picture this: I've agreed to try an adult ballet class with Bastian's mother. If you don't hear from me again, you'll know how THAT turned out...

Teach me how to zombie

I used to have a hula girl jiggling her booty away on the dashboard of my car, a gift from a friend from her trip to Hawaii, but the harsh Australian sun was unkind to poor Leilani and she ultimately died a grisly death, bleached white and a little melted by the sun. Now I have a zombie.

The two are in no way related.

Recently a friend decided I needed a new commuter friend, and bought me a dashboard zombie.  I've named him Emerson.  I have no idea why, he just looked like an Emerson. I was given him at a fourth birthday party. I wasn't four, the guest of honour was.  As a grown up who hasn't really grown up, I often feel a bit like a poor man's Carrie from Sex and the City when I roll up to one of these soirées, minus the hangover and the heels.  I tend to roll in a bit late and feel distinctly out of place as proper adults discuss things like mortgages, gas bills and rates, babies and schooling systems.  I haven't owned my own house since before the property boom, and I currently live in accommodation which includes utilities, so I'm a bit vague on topics like this, and somehow chatting about my most recent trip overseas in the face of such fiscal woe just seems a bit tactless...

Anyway, the zombie. It was a source of some fascination for my friend's five year old nephew - let's call him Oscar. Because I like that name. And Sesame Street.

At the end of the party, several of us headed down the road to the car, including my friend and Oscar.  Oscar and I were discussing zombies - you know, the usual.  Like what we would do in the event of a zombie apocalypse, the most effective method to incapacitate a zombie, and what it would be like to actually BE a zombie.  While discussing the possibility of disguising ourselves as zombies, we decided to practice our zombie walks on the way down the road to the car.

We shambled along, some distance behind the rest of the group.  It's hard to walk quickly when your nerves are barely firing, your ankle is twisted into a weird angle and you have to pause every now and then to moan, "brrraaaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnnnsssss," and sniff out fresh meat. Plus, we would pause to critique each other's method - "try to hunch over a bit more," or "drag your foot a bit more" or "slower! We aren't those new zombies from Resident Evil" (not that he has seen it, of course) or "nice shambling there".  As we rounded the corner, we nearly crashed into a middle-aged man and his young son and daughter casually riding their bikes down the street.

I apologised, and Oscar explained that we were searching for fresh brains.

"Not at all," he replied in a crisp British accent, "I've been in your situation myself."

We did the only thing a couple of zombies could in such a situation; moan "bbbbrrrrraaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnssssss," and shamble after the group as fast as our decaying flesh would allow us.

I think of that moment whenever I'm in the car and I see Emerson quivering in anticipation of fresh human flesh as I drive.

Road ragers beware. Emerson is looking forward to meeting you.

Loving this song right now.

Takestock

I've been in the process of moving house this last week, and moving always seems to make me take stock of my life.  There's something about your entire life being reduced to a pile of boxes that really puts things in perspective.

I've just come back from a trip to Paris to study French, and I've been extremely restless since I've returned, hence the sudden move.  The move has been a much-needed change of scenery, but it's also been an opportunity to sort through and weed my possessions.  I have a bad habit of hoarding things - virtually everything I own has some memory attached to it.  Some were once very important to me but this has faded with the passage of time. Some are reminders of the good times I've had with people, some remind me of absent friends, some inspire me. And some I just think are pretty. Some wouldn't have been things I'd have chosen for myself, but which I have come to love dearly and would be devastated to lose.  A couple of minor damages incurred during the moving process thanks to my own clumsiness made that much clear.

The most visually satisfying aspect of my home for me is the collages I build on the wall of my desk.  I have one that has been evolving over the last 5 years.  Each time I've moved I've taken it down piece by piece, discarded the mementos that no longer hold much meaning and then started a new one.  This move has been no different.  This last one was developed over the last two years, so there was quite a lot of stuff that needed culling, and it was interesting to see how much was still important to me.  It's had a heavy injection of French-themed paraphernalia this time following this trip, and remains a favourite feature in my home.

I'm about halfway through constructing the desk collage in my new digs, and the memories the individual pieces evoke always makes it an interesting experience.  I have been to some truly amazing and fun places like Berlin, Paris, London, New York, Florida and Prague, and spent time with such amazing people, some of whom are past tense, some present.  Some have been weeded from the wall now, but many still remain; cards or notes people have made for me, tickets from trains in distant locations, or exhibits or shows I loved, images that have inspired me in some way. Some may seem silly to the casual observer, but each holds a meaning for me.

It's the little things that I love the most; a ticket from a walking tour in Berlin which opened my eyes to a whole different world, a cryptic card which reminds me of a crazy night of silliness via text which culminated in my being given a present containing frozen sausages wrapped in handmade paper and a card decorated with staples at work, discovered hidden messages my best friend used to leave whenever he visited, ribbons from various treasured gifts, miscellaneous free postcards from trips to see my other best friend on the east coast or random adventures around my home city, a little blue birthday card from a few years ago whose brief, simple message touched my heart, a poem written for me, business cards from various cafes and restaurants which remind me of scintillating conversations in delightful company, a note I found rolled up in a wine bottle in an alley in Erskinville during an evening adventure bearing the instruction 'read me', a cross-stitched 'bee-yatch' from my best friend, the note from the bouquet she sent me the day I completed my masters degree, tickets from favourite concerts and plays, either because of the content or the company, romantic mementos, an autographed Rocky Horror picture which reminds me, 'don't dream it, be it'. Plus many random images that I simply find inspiring in some way.

I'm glad of these memories, even the ones tinged by sadness and regret. I regret the mistakes I have made, and the losses which proved beyond my control, but I have never regretted the friendships or the experiences.  They have helped make me what I am today. I am grateful for them all, and though I miss the people and the times which are long gone, I am also buoyed by the reminder of the experiences. There are many situations I would have handled differently had I had the clarity of hindsight, but there are others which I now realise were inevitable. But, even knowing that, I'd do it all again. For all the drama and badness that I've been through, I've known some very special people, and I've had a very good and happy life so far.  Sure, there are things I wish were different, but I'm learning to accept that which I can't change and weed out the negative, and I'm continually endeavouring to improve on that which I can.

As John Lennon said, 'life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.' There's always something new and exciting around the next corner. The collage reminds me of where I've been, who I am, and who I want to be.

Douché

I have a deep, dark secret.

I am a total, and utter, klutz. Well, okay, for those who know me, maaaaybeeeee that isn't such a big secret. I came into this world with a virtually cone-shaped head thanks to South African doctors' mis-use of forceps, in an age when the use of such medieval torture devices was all-but extinct, so I wasn't exactly deposited into this world with the greatest of beginnings, and I have continued on this course.

My friends have at times called me Wolverine, after the X Men character.  Not because I have cool adamantium claws or rock hard abs (I wish), but because I have an acerbic wit (okay, again I wish) and freakish healing abilities which allow me to recover from my frequent mishaps quickly (the healing abilities that is, not the acerbic wit.  That's just useful for making cutting remarks when people say something helpful like, "did you hurt yourself AGAIN?!") Medical professionals tell me I have unusually high levels of collagen which speed the healing process, but I think it's more a case of practise makes perfect. Since I first learned to walk, I have been falling over.

My best effort was probably knocking a large bowl of scalding water and tomatoes over myself as a three year old while my grandmother's back was turned for all of three seconds. My mother dumped me in the bath, poured cold water over me and pulled of my tee shirt, taking most of my skin with it.  But a mere few months later I was healed and virtually scar-free.  The childhood injury that took the longest to heal was actually a split head, and that only took so long because I split it open again when my baby sister bumped heads with me after it had just healed over.

I could fill a book with tales of my injuries; during my sojourn learning judo, I managed to rack up a spiral ankle fracture, a dislocated shoulder (no biggie, it popped right back in), a broken ear (yeah, you heard me), and a torn ACL which led to a knee reconstruction, and simultaneously ended my enthusiasm for the sport. During the course of my childhood there were the usual occasional scrapes and injuries, but I preferred to go for quality rather than quantity.  I repeatedly sprained my wrist while spending the bulk of my childhood on wheels of one form or another, took a lot of skin off my knees and hands on many occasions, managed to slice a finger clear to the bone once on a bread knife hidden in the dishwater (I suspect foul play) and once managed to give myself a fat lip on the day of my father's birthday when I was ten, which resulted in my having to sip the champagne that accompanied the meal through a straw. Oh, and I sat on a bee.

In school camps and during my teaching career I managed to frequently spectacularly injure myself, tearing the AC joint in my left shoulder in a freak flying fox accident, completely wrecking my back when a student assaulted me once and I twisted as I fell, as well as more of those run-of-the-mill scrapes (forcing a clumsy person to hike, climb or catch things in front of her students and expecting her to maintain her dignity is just mean, if you ask me).

One time, at a friend's housewarming, I was asked to cut up some cheese and other nibbles-type things for a platter.  The knife I was given was rather blunt, and I couldn't get it to cut through the packaging on the cheese.  Turns out it WAS sharp enough to slice through my finger when it slipped off the packet.  My friend's youngest brother was in cadets and luckily had his school bag with him, complete with first-aid kit, so we managed to find enough medical supplies to staunch the blood-flow and squish the tip of my finger back on.  By the end of the week it had managed to grow back together in a manner reminiscent of the T-1000 in Terminator 2.

I felt immortal.

Last year I managed to drop a pan while frying some meat, and somehow managed to splash myself with the boiling oil and marinade when it fell.  It burned a heart-shaped scar into my chest, and took all the skin off my chin.  I had to walk around school with a giant white dressing on my face for a week.  When they took it off, it was as though there had never been a burn there, and all the students were very suspicious of me, implying that I'd faked it.  Why on earth someone would Choose to wander around looking like that is beyond my comprehension.

I was reminded of all this a couple of days ago when I managed to massacre my thumb in the shower.  Said thumb is, I think, more than a little put out with me because it  was only a few weeks ago that I took a chunk out of the knuckle when I slipped while hacking ice out of a clogged freezer at the behest of my host while living in Paris. This had healed over nicely despite the general prevalence of filth and germs in that fair city, and was feeling rather smug about it.  I think the most noteworthy aspect of this particular incident is that I managed to cut myself in the shower, on a Bottle Of Conditioner. You know how it is, you get to the end of the supply but there's enough left in there to squeeze out a few more doses.  Like toothpaste, conditioner seems to drop to nearly empty very quickly, and then I try to make that last bit last As Long As Freaking Possible.

While I was squeezing out those last few drops of conditioner, the bottle slipped.  Hey, my hands were wet, okay? Totally understandable and Not At All Clumsy. Unfortunately, BECAUSE my hands were wet, the skin had softened enough that the lid of the tube managed to take a good-sized chunk out of the side of my thumb.  After the initial moment of painless, bloodless shock, my body recovered and starting pumping both blood and pain like freaky boat ride in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I wrapped my haemorrhaging finger in a face cloth (I have a white shower curtain - I didn't want it stained) and finished showering at lightning speed, feeling a little light-heated between the heat, humidity and blood loss.

A few bandaids later and I'd staunched the blood flow sufficiently.  Since then, I've been showering with a surgical glove on my hand to protect it, as any moisture hitting the wound is excruciatingly painful. I can't decide if this look is more Michael Jackson or Hannibal Lecter, but it certainly is a somewhat creepy experience to wash your face and hair with one normal and one rubber-gloved hand.

Two days later it's a sucking vortex of pain, but I'm confident my Wolverine abilities will kick in soon and it will either heal up, or I'll start to sprout muttonchops. Either works for me.