A Nice Fuck Up

When I was at this performance a guy sat down at the table and bumped it so hard that a few glasses of wine completely tipped over. Guy was a dick, just sat down and pretended nothing had happened. The table cloth was soaked and everyone was staring in disbelief, like what the hell just happened? I said let's all lift everything off the table and at least get rid of the table cloth, which we did. The guy said sorry and stared at the as yet empty stage. Two women beside me asked what he was going to do about their wine (Dreaded One and I had a bottle, natch, which hadn't spilled). His boyfriend said it wasn't his fault. The women asked whose fault it was then. The guy pouted and said do you expect me to buy you drinks? They said that would be the decent thing to do. I couldn't believe he was trying not to. He reluctantly gave in, looking grumpily into his wallet as he left the table. The show commenced while he was away and we didn't see him again. His boyfriend glanced at his watch a couple of times but mainly laughed and enjoyed the show. God knows what happened to the bumble arse. The women murmured to each other from time to time, no doubt speculating about the what had become of their drinks. I really felt for them because they had done nothing wrong and had just had that edge taken off what was going to be (and was really) a fun night out.

At one point I leaned over and said to The Dreaded One, "I think we should offer them some of our wine."

To which she replied, "Yeah, you would."

Then last night The Dreaded One told me that she had a dream that we were at a restaurant on a beautiful sunny day and we scored a great table with a brilliant view. It was a table for six but the waiter gave it to us anyway because it was the last empty table. Then a group of six came in and she was thinking no way are we giving up our great table with its brilliant view. However I piped up and insisted that the group could have our table if there was another smaller one for us. There was another smaller table for us. It was very small and wobbly and tucked around the corner in the hallway just outside the toilets. The Dreaded One was not very happy.

I think The Dreaded One thinks I am nice, but a fuck up.

Falsies

Oh dear. I usually pooh pooh the concept of writer's block because I've never had it, but here I am a week out from deadline for my Grumpy column and I've had three false starts today. Usually the editor reminds me about my deadline on the day and half an hour later he has something that by all accounts is reasonably funny. But he's totally cocked it up by reminding me a full week ahead of time and I've stalled.

An emo kid came into the shop today with shaved eyebrows and I thought there's my column. I mean, have you ever seen how freaky eyebrowless people look? Anyway it just didn't work. Just wasn't funny.

Then I started on about the time I was drunk and decided that my eyebrows were long overdue for a trim, and by the time I'd finished trying to even up my pruning, I was damn near eyebrowless.

That wasn't really working either. Move on from eyebrows, I decided. Eyebrows are not The Thing. There's just nowhere to go with eyebrows. And fuck it if I don't have a strange urge to shave my own eyebrows off now. Just to see how freaky I would look. Anyone dare me to shave my eyebrows off?

Anyway, my third aborted attempt is below. I dunno. Maybe I'll keep going with it, but it kind of feels like it's going nowhere either.

Grumpy

One of the things I love about being a writer is that people tell you what you should write about. It’s a crack up. There’s an Irish guy I work with who seems to think that his Irishness means that by default, he is a funny guy, a raconteur and expert on all that is funny. Erm... sorry Paddy, but the only thing that’s funny about you is your tweedlie doodlie doo leprechaun accent that’s so hard to resist taking the piss out of all the time. “Ah – so yer a wroiter are ya?” he tweedlie doodlie dooed the other day. “What sorta tings do yer wroit about den? You know what ya orta wroit about? You orta wroit about bein’ a chef, dat’s what ya should be wroitin’about.” It was extraordinary. He was absolutely dead sure he knew better than I did what I should be writing about. He hadn’t even asked to be sure (to be sure) that I wasn’t already writing about being a chef. Thing is, he's not the first to do this and I doubt he’ll be the last, but he is the easiest to rip the piss out of with some pretty cheap shots...

What do you think? Keep going or back to the drawing board?

IMLNWMDGTD

First actual day off in eons and I awaken to find that apparently it's International Make Loud Noises With Motor-Driven Garden Tools Day. Awesome.

Escargot

I think it's Monday night. I saw three live comedy acts last week in between the cracks of another big Faux Chef week and the reviews will be out in the mag tomorrow. I wonder what I wrote. I do know I wish I had more than 400 words for each review (which is 50 words more than I am officially allowed). I'll post the reviews here when it's appropriate. I fucking love live comedy.

Oh and get this - I'm really discreet about taking notes at comedy things because... just because. But sitting next to me at the Ross Noble gig was this fucker who was VERY PROUD to be a reviewer. You should have seen the size of the bastard's notepad. Hyooge. Huge and requiring great flourishes with each page turn. And when the lights went down he took out a fucking torch. Jesus.

Mind you, as with the Arj Barker Spastic Doodle fiasco, I also couldn't understand my notes about Ross Noble. Next time, I'm going in with one of those head lamp things so I can see what the hell I'm writing.

I'm seeing a dance performance called Glow on Wednesday, and no doubt some more comedy for the Cracker Festival. And The Dreaded One and I have the day off together on Wednesday. Man are we going to lunch hard. Hope I'm not too pissed for the 7.30 performance of Glow. Hmm. May have to do that self-restraint thingy.

Death By Nana Nap

Just finished a 60 hour week which was joined onto the previous long week and which is joined on to yet another one. Am I crazy?

I had offered to end the week by extending my Sunday shift by five hours but I was feeling a little peculiar towards the end and bailed on that.

Got the bus home instead of walking because it's a long walk and I was a little fatigued. Started to fall asleep on the bus and have weird dreams until Mr Stinky got on board.

Took all of my clothes off (I suppose you don't really need to know that bit but I can't be arsed deleting it so you'll just have to deal with that image of a nuded up Quick, okay? Also I should add that by the time I took my clothes off I was at home and not still on the bus with Mr Stinky) and went to bed for a nana nap.

Woke myself up in a panic, convinced without a doubt that if I did not wake myself up immediately I was definitely about to die in my sleep. I was groggy but happy because I had saved myself from death by nana nap yet again. I truly am my hero.

I padded ("padded" because of the bare feet, nude thing but I didn't want to remind you I was nude by saying something like "I wandered nude out to the longeroom") out to the loungeroom to watch the 6.30 news but fell into another nana nap from which I forced myself to wake yet again because of the dying thing. Phewee - another close call.

6.30 news was over and I was none the wiser so I switched over to the 7 o'clock news whereupon I was attacked with yet another deadly nana nap. Three in one afternoon is a bit much. Usually if I have a nana nap, this is the way I wake from it, but not three times in one day.

Anyway, I missed that news as well and as a result I don't know if anything is happening in the world. Maybe during my naps everything got fixed up and maybe now there's lots of water and no climate weirdness and the world is peaceful because it has been taken over by penguins. Wouldn't that be lovely?

Went out for beer. I am enjoying the beer very much as we speak. And I am wearing a sarong I bought in Lombok, so you can stop imagining me in the nude now, you smutty little readers.

Also, this morning I got a very nice email from a man in America (I think) telling me that he loved a short story which (I forgot that) I sent to him and he would like to use it in his e-zine. There are writers on his site who have novels published and everything, so it was a very nice way to start the day indeed. It's a dark crime-type story. I am about to start writing a dark crime-type novel, so this is a good sign.

Maybe my next dark crime story will be called Death By Nana Nap.

Timing

I seem to be cursed when it comes to making it to the theatre on time. I seriously don't think that there has been a single time I've managed to live out my fantasy of strolling on in at a leisurely pace, collecting my tickets and sauntering over to the bar for a couple of civilised drinks. It just doesn't happen. Ever.

What does happen is stuff goes wrong and I invariably end up in a mad rush to make it on time, arriving at the theatre still doing up my pants and lacing up my mismatched shoes, sweating like a pedophile and hoping that this time I got the venue and time right. Just last week I had to go to this theatre and it's literally three minutes walk from my home, but did I make it on time? Well, yes, but not in the comfortable and relaxed manner I dream of. On that occasion it was just as well I hadn't arrived early because there was no bar and I would have just had more time to squirm anyway.

Last night it was just all horribly familiar. There was doubt that I would be able to make it at all due to work commitments, but I managed to get away a little early and commenced the trek home through the city on the slow bus to Surry Hills. I was going out of my head with the stress of it because I had promised The Dreaded One a lovely night out, pictured us enjoying that leisurely glass of wine and I'm stuck on a bus full of annoying people and quite obviously I'm only just going to make it again.

In the end it wasn't looking too bad. Getting off the bus instantly put me in a good mood (it was full of your usual annoying public transport types), and a bit of jogging is always good for you anyway.

I made it to the crowded theatre with just enough time to get the tickets and have a quick glass of wine. Spotted The Dreaded One looking for me, drink in hand. I joined the queue. I arrived at the counter, told the guy tickets had been put aside and told him the name of the magazine in case they had used its name instead of mine. He looked through the tickets and said there was nothing under my name.

Fuckinitalicsawithanexclamationmark.

"Erm... are you sure?"

He was sure. One thing you cannot do in such a situation is make a big deal about it. Well you can and people regularly do. What they also do is make total twats of themselves. Still, I felt like I had moved mountains to make it here on time... or at least sat on a crowded bus for too long. I have a deal with the mag that my deadline is some time over the weekend because I like to review stuff early in the season and now I was going to have nothing. I neglected to print out the email confirming my tickets because this kind of thing has not happened for so long. And I couldn't even remember the name of the person who had (dis)organised this. Fuck fuckitty fuck.

I found The Dreaded One and told her what had happened. I could see she was disappointed; we had both been looking forward to this. Not enough time to make it home and get the email. Opening night so it was probably sold out. There was nothing I could do, and all I had done was the right thing. I was so cranky I wanted to punch old ladies.

"The guy," I hissed bitterly at The Dreaded One, "looked like a complete airhead. Idiot probably got my name wrong. Malicious fucker. Fucking Nazi."

In fact people get my name wrong all the time. I forced myself to calm the fuck down because I was going to give it another shot. I had promised The Dreaded One a night at the theatre, so a night of theatre she would have. I promised the magazine a review, so a review it would have.

The guy was dealing with someone and the girl at the counter waved me over. I didn't want her because then it would look to the guy like I was trying to pull a swifty, or that I didn't trust him... which I didn't but he didn't need to know that. In fact it was tactically much better for all concerned if he didn't know I didn't trust him. I had to make friends with him and I couldn't do it by questioning his professionalism. I pretended I hadn't seen the girl with her smile and her wave and her "Excuse me sir - can I help you?" Interfering bitch.

I worked out my blag, studiously avoiding the words airhead and Nazi. The Dreaded One has cancer of the ears and this would in all likelihood the last opportunity to hear the sound of Kitty Flanagan's comedy and the resulting laughter, so if he wouldn't mind terribly much double checking about those tickets it would really mean a lot to us...

In the end I left out the bit about the ears. I had something about the deadline which I intended to mutter to him very quietly because if anyone overheard I would just sound like a blagging wanker.

Further in the end I didn't have to say anything. He smiled and said he was glad I came back because he strongly suspects that the list hadn't been sent because about three other people had the same problem. He handed over my tickets with a courteous smile that made me feel guilty that I had thought of him as a malicious fucker. The only words I had to utter were, "Oh. Thank you."

I turned back to The Dreaded One, tickets in hand, an air of satisfied smugness at the ease of my blagging victory. "I think he knew my name," I told her. "I said it quietly and clearly and I think the penny dropped. I think he knew how deep the shit was that he was easing himself into if he didn't find my tickets right bloody now..."

Her look told me I didn't have to keep going with this one.

True to form, I got the time a little wrong and we were actually two glasses of wine early, and we enjoyed a very fine night of music and comedy.

Monday Tuesday Whatday?

At one of my part time jobs (Faux Chef) I have clocked up fifty and a half hours. I am impressed with this. I have no idea what day it is. I just saw Kitty Flanagan's Festival Of Me and have to write a review for Drum Media. It was funny sometimes... oh fuck I am so tired I think "It was funny sometimes" is going to be the full extent of my review.

Also, Kitty Flanagan is another Australian spunky funny chick, like my beloved Melissa, AKA Meow Meow. The fantasies going on in my head...

If none of the above makes sense, scroll down and hopefully smirk.