The Party (like that movie, only better and with more dogs)

Yesterday was the day. It was Monty’s first birthday party. I know, I know; throwing a party for your dog is so fucking lame and i’m totally going to die alone. But I love my puppy, and I love having get togethers and I love Halloween so it was valid, okay?!

I woke up at 8am, trying my hardest to sleep in for longer but failing. After stumbling to the kitchen for coffee and toast, I retreated to the loungeroom to watch the Simpsons (Halloween specials, hells yeah) and hide from my family. After watching the episode where Bart has special mind powers, and those statues come to life because Homer steals a donut, I jumped in the shower and scrubbed myself clean.

Feeling refreshed, I enlisted Jeremy’s girlfriend’s (Kiah) help for putting up the decorations, since Jeremy was much too busy playing PlayStation and being a wankface. Kiah and I trumped downstairs with my bag of Halloween shit, and started decorating. I had a Halloween tablecloth, some witch and Frankenstein platters (which I filled with body part lollies and cheap toys), some ghost and pumpkin bowls (which were also filled with lollies), a light up skull (his name is Hector), and some other little bowls for food.

Then we hung up the ‘Happy Halloween’ banner, which involved Kiah standing on a chair and me standing below her being useless, followed by wrapping some poles with Frankenstein streamers. I was quite proud of the finished product.

When that was finished, I made another coffee and then went up to the shed to see what mum was doing. The neighbours called so we had to go and meet them at the fence to give them vouchers for their granddaughter.

Their granddaughter just stood there smiling at me shyly, which kind of freaked me out but she was still pretty cute. She told us about how she will have a new brother or sister in December, and that she calls it Turtle at the moment. It was pretty adorable. Monty was with us and just stood there barking at them for a while until I threw his ball for him. He sure knows how to get what he wants.

The neighbours let us go so we could start our party, so we wandered back to the patio to set up chairs. While Ma and I were doing that my older brother (Chris), his girlfriend (Yoland) and their pup (Fynn) arrived. Chris and Yoland went straight up to Jeremy’s room to watch him play PlayStation, because they’re all boring motherfuckers.

The party was scheduled to start at eleven am, but just after eleven, people started texting me saying they’d be late (because they’re all assholes. Yes, even you, Miss Professional Ex. Girlfriend). I put some music on, screamed at my family to come downstairs and start mingling (with themselves, since no one else was there) and then went out the front to have a smoke, put a party hat on the letterbox and wait for people to arrive.

Thankfully, the Chancellors arrived while I was mid-smoke, so I didn’t have too long to sit there stewing for. The Chancellors are old family friends of ours, (Mr. Chancellor is responsible for starting his car while our cat was inside the bonnet, resulting in the loss of his tail) and have three kids, so they always bring the noise.

This officially kicked off the party. Monty didn’t know what to do with all of these people around, so he decided to hide under chairs and bark at the Chancellors. They’d brought him a massive stuffed dog for his birthday, which he promptly barked at and backed away from. Everyone was laughing at Monty, and Mrs. Chancellor was stirring him up by shrilly telling him to stop being stupid and then cackling at him. She’s an awesome lady.

Eventually Monty got used to everyone and started playing with Fynn, which provided us with a bit of entertainment. At around 12pm my ex, Seb arrived, which meant that the only person we were waiting on was Professional Ex. Girlfrien (PEG). Half an hour later, she showed up, so I finally relaxed and got into the conversation. Up until that point, I was half listening to people and was frequently getting up to go out the front to wait for people.

PEG’s arrival also signalled that Chris could start cooking lunch. Chris, Jeremy, Yoland and Kiah all got up to supervise the BBQ, while everyone else yelled that they weren’t doing it right, and asking who put Chris in charge. Good times, good times.

We all tucked in to a yummy lunch of sausages, hamburger patties and numerous salads, which shut everyone up for a while. After lunch, Ma was putting party hats on the dogs, which was pretty much the most hilarious thing any of us had ever seen.

Nicky

After laughing like maniacs at that for a while, I went upstairs and cut up the cake. The Chancellor kids and PEG came up and helped me carry all the plates down and everyone tucked in again. Well, most people. You know, the sane ones that like cake.

Then it was time for presents! I dragged the basket of toys into the middle of the circle and sat down with the youngest Chancellor child (Mr. 4) and Monty to get stuck into it. Monty ripped open his first present, which was a packet of tennis balls (he has a thing for balls, heh heh) and then took off to chase them while I sat there stupidly, trying to call him back so we could open the rest of the presents. At this stage, Mr. 4 decided to take things into his own hands and started opening Monty’s presents and handing them around to all of the dogs. He opened most of them, while everyone laughed and asked who’s birthday it was. Monty finally started realising there was an abundance of toys, and got stuck into them, and we all watched as Seb threw numerous toys onto the lawn at once, while Monty, Fynn, Nicki & Mulder all ran around like idiots.

After cake and presents, everyone had bulging bellies and we decided the best idea ever was to go and have a swim. I’m too fat for bathers right now, so I put a dress on over the top of my togs in an attempt to hide. Jeremy, Chris, Seb, Kiah and the Chancellor kids were all in the pool when I decided to get in. It was a tad cold, so I was standing on the steps like a pussy, trying to get used to the temperature before I got in fully. However, Jeremy decided he would make it easier for me and pushed me into the pool. Little shit.

I got used to the water pretty quickly though, and we all played a deformed game of water polo with two balls instead of one, both flying around at the same time with arms and bodies flailing around in the air accompanying by numerous “shits” and “cop thats”.

Mrs. Chancellor brought Monty down to the pool and I swam around with him while everyone laughed at how much he looked like an otter. He swam to the steps almost straight away, got out and starting running around like he was on crack. Fynn joined us for a swim (much to his disgust), then ran around in the garden with Monty while I got out and attempted to dry off.

After going upstairs to get changed, I made myself a coffee because of how stupidly tired I was. It was about three o’clock by that time, and I hadn’t had a nap so I was feeling pretty dang drained.

People started leaving at about four o’clock, which was when Ally arrived for our horror night. We all started cleaning up and once that was done PEG, Ally and I went upstairs for more food and to start watching some movies.

After only watching two movies, PEG and Ally made their way home. I went to bed pretty much straight away, but I wasn’t the only one who was tired; Monty was already passed out on my bed by that time.

I really should have more gatherings like that.

You dirty thieves.

I got to work about ten minutes ago, to find B1 sad and angry in his office. He went on to explain the reason for his mood.

Basically, someone stole one of the work trucks from his B2’s driveway last night. This is eight weeks after B1’s ute was stolen from HIS house. I swear to god, if someone touches my car, I will kick some bitches. HARD. In the privates.

The people that stole B2’s ute last night smashed the window to get in, then smashed the steering column so they could hotwire it, which they obviously succeeded in doing as the ute was found in NSW (which is a totally different State, people). Whoever stole the ute tried to drive it up a rock wall, so they must be highly intelligent people.

They also tried to torch it, but only managed to burn the seats, so the police think there is a good chance that they will be able to recover some fingerprints. Those assholes are going down.

It’s very subdued here today, for obvious reasons.

B1 only JUST got his ute back from when it was stolen, so another ute being stolen seems to be too much for them. I imagine they’d also be feeling quite unsafe in their homes now.

As I mentioned earlier, B1’s ute was stolen from his home. They broke into his house while everyone was asleep, managed to get a hold of his car keys and off they went. It’s lucky that no one got hurt, but it’s still an infuriating situation.

So I’m just going to blend into the wall today to avoid any angry bosses.

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I just stumbled upon this website, where five year old Aidan Reed is selling his drawings of monsters to raise enough money to pay for his medical bills. I just ordered two of them, and you should too. You can get to AidansMonster’s shop here and for more information about the cause and to follow Aidan’s story, visit the blog  here.

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HOLLA! It’s Thursday, bitches.

"I'm a big believer in The Secret"

This conversation happened yesterday at college. I only go once a month, but it still manages to completely drain me of any and all hope. This was with a girl that started yesterday. Guess who got to be her buddy? We had to pair up and practice asking each other open ended questions.

Her: Uhm okay so I have to ask you some open ended questions.

Me: Yes.

H: Okay...*giggles* This is hard.

M: *smiles and nods*

H: You have beautiful hair.

M: Oh. Uhm thanks.

H: Is it real? *points to the ends*

M: Yes.

H: Oh, I was just wondering. Because I’ve been trying to grow my hair for ages, but it’s really hard.

M: Oh. Dang.

H: Yeah. Hey I really like your top. It’s beautiful.

M: Thanks.

H: Yup. Real beautiful. *pauses* So what’s your middle name?

M: Rae.

H: Really?! Omg, that’s so unusual. But such a beautiful name. Like, seriously beautiful. Wow. Yeah, so unusual and beautiful.

M: Uh, yeah.

H: Hey look! My daughter wrote an open ended question. *giggles and points to a scribble on her page*

M: *pretends not to have heard* So, uh. Open ended questions?

H: Oh yeah. Gosh, this is hard. Uhm.

M: Ahuh. How about I ask you some?

H: Okay! I still can’t get over your middle name. *writes it in her book*

M: It’s spelt R A E.

H: Oh! Wow. That’s even more beautiful.

M: Uhm, yeah. So, tell me about your job.

H: *launches into a disgustingly boring story, with words like “amazing”, “spectacular”, “positive energy” and “meant to be”*

M: Oh, look, time’s up.

By my calculations, that equates to five months of my life wasted. She drained me of that much life, it’ll end up taking five months off the end of my life. Great. Thanks lady!

It's possible I will die alone, surrounded by dogs.

Today is a very special day. On this day last year, my little baby dog was pushed out of his mum’s vagina and fell into the world as a ball of goo and fur. It’s a nice picture isn’t it?

So because of the momentous occasion that was his birth, Monty is spending the day with me at work. I love it when he comes into work with me. He barks at the boys, and gives me an excuse to go for walks outside so he can go to the toilet. It’s always a cruisy day when Monty is in the office.

As soon as we got to work this morning, I gave Monty one of his presents to unwrap. I only brought three with me, as I want to give him most of them at his party on Sunday (yes, I’m having a party for my dog, shut your face). He started ripping into it and when he got a good hold on the toy inside, dragged it out and started flinging it around.

Donkey is already dirty as all hell. He’s such a whore.

Then I gave Monty his brand new collar. It’s black, shiny, has a bell (you know, so he can’t pounce on any birds) and says Macho in diamante letters. I think it suits him perfectly, as he’s quite manly. He runs around with flowers in his mouth, and his favourite toy is a pink bone with love hearts all over it. See how much of a man he is?

Now I’ll always know where he is by the jingle of his bell. How handy. Also, his last collar was fucking ugly. It was mustard yellow with stupid silver bones on it. Now he’s a pimp, just like his mother.

The last present he got for the day was from Ally. He chewed on that one for ages, ripping at the paper like a demon, and then chewing on the blanket that was inside. I had to take it off him so he didn’t destroy the lovely blanket Ally bought with her hard earned money from working the streets. Uh, I mean selling giftwares.

It’s on his little bed now, and he’s finally realised it’s not a toy, so he’s having a nap on it. It’s been a big day for Monty. You know, barking at people, sleeping in the car, running around with a donkey in your mouth, peeing on things and ripping paper really take it out of you. And it is 8.30am, so it’s definitely time for a sleep.

I should take him for a walk soon to give me something to do.

Is this fiction?

I hate you so much. So very much.

Do you know why? Because you make feelings that I had long ago buried and forgotten about, come back up to the surface. They burst and I am suddenly a different person. I’m no longer cold and calculated. I’m not able to walk away with a shrug of my shoulders, having resigned myself to the fact that I am alone, and will be alone for a long time to come, therefore knowing nothing can come of this.

It’s my fault, I know. I should keep this in check. But there is something about you that makes me do the opposite of what I know is right. I obsess about little things you may have said or done, things you may have written about, and scramble around hopelessly in an attempt to uncover some secret longing for me you may have.

You make me act like a fucking girl, and I hate it. I like to be in control. I like to make others sweat it out, make them obsess over how I feel about them. I like being indifferent. Oh he doesn’t like me? No big deal, I don’t need him. Now it’s as if I will explode if I don’t get what I want.

It may not even be you. It may be an accumulation of suppressed feelings and frustrations finally becoming too much and being unleashed on the next appropriate person.

The last time I saw you was when I knew I couldn’t kid myself about this any more. It was too real.

I never used to feel this way about you. It was always friendship and nothing else. But lately I have been having doubts about friendship being all I want from you. I can’t tell you this, which makes me hate you more. If I tell you this, I know I will ruin everything. You won’t know how to let me down, and will feel awkward for a long while. Our friendship will be over until we both get over the situation. I don’t want that.

I don’t want to keep this to myself though.

Give me a few weeks and I’ll be back to normal. I just need to make it that long.

I need to pee, but I must blog first.

Yesterday was Ally’s 21st birthday. It was all very exciting and a lot of exclamation points were flying around in text messages and on Facebook and Twitter.

I was invited to her place for dinner, so at 6pm last night, I drove the half hour to her place. When I got there I knocked on the door, and her mum yelled out for me to come in. I could hear her and Ally in the kitchen, where Ally was saying she shouldn’t just yell for people to come in without checking to see who it was first. Her mum said she knew it was me from my knock, so there was no point checking. Great, I have a predictable knock.

Once I had said my hellos, I reached into my big bag of presents and started handing them to Ally. The first present was a bottle of champagne which she doesn’t really drink, but as it was her 21^st I deemed it appropriate. After unveiling that, I handed her the next two presents. She fumbled around with the wrapping on the first one, and opened it to find two cupcake candles. One had little wax cherries on top, and the other was just white icing. The other package I’d handed her was a couple of small glass plates for the candles to sit on.

After numerous exclamations about how cute they were, and how there was no way they were going to be lit, I gave her the next present. This one was definitely my favourite, and was decided upon after reading Ally’s text messages and tweets and being appalled at her spelling. It was a dictionary. She laughed when she saw what it was, but it was a for realsies present. Kinda.

I’d written on the inside cover of the dictionary, but I can’t quite remember what I said. It was something along the lines of, “Next time you tweet or text me, crack this baby open. He’s a helpful little shit”. Oh, and I named him, but now I can’t remember what. Dang.

After her mum had had a look over the dictionary and the message on the inside and giggled a bit, I handed Ally the next present. It was a glass candle holder and a lavender candle. She seemed to like them.

Then it was time for her last present. This was the present that I had dropped a few hints about and Ally couldn’t figure out what it was, and was also a bit scared about what it might be. My hints weren't exactly helpful. The first one was something like, “I just realised one of your presents might try to kill you. I will not be held responsible if it comes after you in the middle of the night and grinds you into ice cream.”

The next was that it wasn’t a rapist in a box.

I don’t understand how she couldn’t have guessed what it was from those amazing hints, but whatever.

It was a “BFF” Momiji doll from the UK. She’s really cute and kinda heavy, and on her package it says that she loves pistachio ice cream. I call Ally “Pistachio”, so that’s where the killing and making into ice cream thing came from. On the bottom of the doll is a little hole (lulz) where you can put a secret message.

Anyway, I had written something lovey dovey on it, and stuck it back inside her so that Ally could read it when I gave it to her. I’m quite sure that Ally liked her little BFF doll.
So the presents were a success! Hoorah!

After all the presents were inspected carefully by Ally, we went out the back so I could have a smoke and pat her pretty little dog, Jed. After chatting away about her day and what she’d done and rah rah, a dog in one of the adjoining properties started going crazy and barking at a tree. Its owners came out with torches, and started looking at the tree.

This was when Ally reminded me about the over 6 foot carpet python that was living in a few people’s backyards, including hers so it was probably the snake that the dog was barking at. It was really exciting, because the snake totally could have eaten the neighbour’s dog (it would have been horrible, but you know, exciting).

After that, we went inside for dinner. It was some chicken carbonara dish...I think. Anyway, it was yummy. As everyone was dishing their dinner up, Ally’s sister decided she wanted a bottle of red wine, and it happened to be corked. She attempted to open it, couldn’t and passed it to her mum. SHE attempted to open it, couldn’t, and passed it to her husband. He sat there working away on it for some ridiculous time before he finally got the cork out. It was broken though, and half the cork was still in the bottle, so there was another struggle to get that out.

It was pretty dang amusing. I pretty much just sat there the whole time giggling. Because I’m helpful like that. Yup.

After dinner, it was time for CAKE. Yeah, cake! Ally and I lit the candles, and we all sang Happy Birthday to her, while she tried not to smile and FAILED. She blew out all of the candles but one, then went back to get that last little fucker. Once they were all blown out, we turned the lights back on so we could get photos of her cutting the cake.

For some stupid reason, Ally wanted a photo of me and her next to the cake. Uh, I hate photos. It was okay though, because her mum was saying funny things WHICH I NOW CAN’T REMEMBER. Curse my horrible memory.

Whatevz. We ate cake and hung around at the table for a while, talking shit and berating each other. Her family have some odd choice of conversation topics, but what the hey, it made for an amusing night.

I was feeling pretty sleepy from all of the food we’d eaten, so as soon as her family starting getting up from the table, I hit the road. The drive home was boring as usual, but I was blasting the Labyrinth soundtrack, so I entertained myself by singing along. I got some concerned looks from other drivers, but I'm pretty sure they were just jealous that they weren't as cool as me.

You know, because I'm pretty great.

Spiders! Everywhere!

I seem to suffer from night terrors. Google says this is what a night terror is, for those that are unaware:

A night terror, also known as a sleep terror or pavor nocturnus, is a parasomnia disorder characterized by extreme terror and a temporary inability to regain full consciousness. The subject wakes abruptly from slow-wave sleep, with waking usually accompanied by gasping, moaning, or screaming.

This has happened a few times, the most recent occurrence being last Sunday night.

I woke up from a dream that I can’t remember, and my bed was covered in spiders. There was a thick blanket of the fuckers, and I panicked. I vaguely remember screaming, and then I bolted out of my room to the dining room, where I sat on the ground shaking uncontrollably and attempting to regain my composure. Monty followed and crawled up onto my lap to go back to sleep.

Then Jeremy’s light came on in his room (which is right next to the dining room) and he came out, sighing and asking what had happened. I don’t recall much, but I’m certain I just said that spiders were on my bed, over and over until he went in to check. He came back out, helped me up off the floor and informed me that there were no spiders anywhere, and that the house had been sprayed so there was no way they could have been in the house at all.

By this time I was breathing normally again, so I thanked him, picked Monty up and went back to bed. The next morning I asked Jeremy how he knew I was in the dining room. He said that he heard a lot of screaming and gasping and knew I was having another little episode. I’m well known around these parts.

A few months ago, I started to have frequent nightmares and night terrors. One time as I woke up, I saw a white orb swirling around the door in my bedroom. I stayed still, silently freaking out, and watched it as it hung around. After thirty seconds or so, it started moving rapidly and then lunged at me. At this point I got the fuck out of bed and ran for the lightswitch, because I knew if I turned the light on, I’d be okay.

As soon as the light was on, the orb vanished. Monty was still sleeping peacefully so I knew it had been another night terror.

A few nights after that, I woke up as suddenly as the other times to see a black shadow standing at the end of my bed. It looked like a man, just staring at me sleeping, but I didn’t know if he was real or not. My solution? I picked Monty up and threw him towards the end of the bed where the shadow was so he could protect me. He curled up and went back to sleep, so I ran for the lightswitch again, by which time the shadow had vanished.

The shadow incident happened a few more times after that, each on different nights, and each time it felt like my heart would burst out of my chest because of how fast it was beating in my terror.

Every time I have a night terror, it’s the same feeling of absolute horror. You know something is wrong, but you don’t know what to do about it or if what you are seeing is real. It certainly FEELS real, and you can see it right there in front of you. Supposedly, you’re still in a dream state, and most people who have night terrors aren’t able to move. I’m different in that respect though, as I can get up and run whenever I have one.

I’ve had numerous other experiences with night terrors, too many to count, so it’s kind of an accepted thing. It’s still a horrid experience, but I guess it makes for a good story the next day.

When I was fourteen or fifteen, I was living under our two storey house in a bedroom my mum had built specially for me so I could have my own room, and get away from my brothers. I loved that room. It was massive, and the walls were painted a deep red. There was a pole in the middle of the room which I covered in band stickers, and would run into frequently. It was also great because it had no windows, which meant my room was pitch black at all times of the day. It was great for hangovers or naps during the day.

The only downside was that the lock didn’t work properly. All someone had to do was jiggle the doorknob and it would unlock itself. I wasn’t too worried about anyone getting in, but I wasn’t exactly comfortable with the situation as my room was in the garage, which was easily accessible by the laundry door that was never closed so the dogs could come and go.

One night, I woke up abruptly to see a shadow at the end of my bed, much like the one I described earlier. It was definitely a man, and he was just standing there watching me, but as it was pitch black, I couldn’t see much. I pretended I was asleep, and after a few minutes I heard soft footsteps on the carpet and then the sound of the door closing.

I was shaken, but went back to sleep as I figured whoever it was wouldn’t come back, and there wasn’t much I could do about it anyway. I found it odd that if that really was a person, they had gotten past the dogs without them barking up a storm. I couldn’t think of any other explanation for it though. The next morning I told my family what had happened, and mum freaked out. She immediately installed a bolt lock onto my door so I could lock it properly. I put it at the back of my mind and a few days later my older brother showed me a newspaper article he had found. It was about a man who had been breaking into houses, sneaking into girls’ bedrooms and watching them sleep. He had been arrested.

To this day, I still don’t know if that was another night terror, or if it was the man in the newspaper. Either way, it was a pretty shitty experience.

I could go on to tell you about other times I’ve had night terrors, but this post is already longer than I thought it would be, so I shan’t bore you any longer.

I'm going to google the shit out sleep disorders now.