My Lungs are Raw

It really is quite obscene, how unfit I am. Normally my exercise consists of running up the stairs to my office (4th floor, not exactly a workout), after which I require a cup of tea and a lie down. However, all that is about to change, as I have gone and committed myself to competing as part of a team in a triathalon in February.
After a couple of wines the other night after work, P & J asked if I was keen to join their team, and of course, not realising what I was getting myself into, said yes. So now I've got until Waitangi day to be able to bike 10 kms, remarkably fast, because of course we have to win.
This morning I biked from my house to university in less than 20mins, and its nearly 7 kms. Not exactly a record breaker, but given that its my first day of training, I'm not too worried. When I got off my bike though, my legs were all wobbly, which was kind of funny, and a strange feeling. I was going as fast as I could, and got remarkably puffed, which I believe is a good sign, especially if the amount of puffed-ness decreases over the next couple of months.
Not being an expert on physical fitness, I'm kind of bluffing my way through this, but I figure if I bike 10kms a few times a week, and try and get faster each time, then I'm doing ok. Oh, and possibly lay off the nachos a bit too, which might be tricky.
Damn, now I want nachos.

Feel Good Hit of the Summer

I've been flicking through Windows Media Player and its 1069 songs, looking for a good blog title. This just happened to be the next song up, but its given me an opportunity to tell a story further revealing to the reader (cos I know theres only one, hi Grace) what a dork I am.
Heres a scene; the bar of the Crown Plaza, Central Auckland (where the Orcs are from), 2003, night before the Big Day Out. Me, Tam and a bunch of other people we drove to Auckland with are having a few drinks, and hanging out with such noted celebrities as Chino from The Deftones and PJ Harvey. Fun. So this tall guy comes over, and I bum a cigarette off him (back when I used to smoke) and we get talking. I notice hes American, so I ask if hes here for the BDO. Yeah, kind of he replies. So are you in a band, or are you crew. I'm in a band, he says. What band? asks Claire innocently. I'm the singer in Queens of the Stone Age, my names Josh Homme. Oh, cool. I really like your new tune (Claire proceeds to sing "No One Knows" to him). I guess thats not particularly cool of me to not recognise you, is it. No, don't worry about it, can I buy you a beer? Go on then, Josh, that'd be grand.
They were one of the headline bands, their videos were all over the telly, and still I had no idea.
Nice bloke though.

But back to the topic at hand. Hang on, we didn't have one yet.
What did I want to talk about today?

Last night I went to see Shaun of the Dead. Funny. Especially the fact that it takes Shaun quite some time to realise that everyones a zombie. I also made a decidedly scrummy lamb salad for my friend, cos I am an awesomely good cook.

I went to the Fetish Ball on Saturday. A bit of a diversion from one's usual Saturday night activities, but dressing up is fun. I have to admit, I was a little shocked at some of it. There were things there that I felt I really should not have been seeing, but I think that was the point, what with voyeurism being a fetish in itself. There was a bondage area that was a little disturbing, people standing around watching other people getting off on being physically hurt. Takes all sorts, I suppose. There was a guy wearing a leather outfit from head to toe that had spikes sticking out of it, there was a woman wearing a catwoman outfit that had a hole cut in it in a most unseemly spot, presumably to show off the piercings she had there. Ouch. I wonder what her gynacologist would say about that?
There were also three harem girls accompanied by a blue genie, my friends, who should have won some sort of costume prize, I think. I also think I should have got a prize for cleaning all the blue body paint off my bathroom the next day, but I did invite everybody over to get ready together, so I can't complain. In my knee-high boots, black Cleopatra wig, short skirt and top, I was remarkably conservatively dressed compared to some other punters, especially the guy that was stark naked.
Its a whole other world, which was fun to visit for a night, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there. Kind of freaky.
So to compensate for Saturday night, on Sunday I went to my sisters house, read bedtime stories to the children and played with the kittens. Ask a two-year-old what she wants to name her kitten, and its usually going to be an interesting response, so now Rosie has a kitten called Neow. Yes, a meow sound. This is from the family who previously had a cat called Dude. I guess the fact that they share a little DNA with me is going to surface eventually.

Anyway, I've started the applications for grad school. Argh. One has been sent off already, and another two are nearly ready. The problem is, I can't remember what schools I put down on my GRE form to recieve my scores, and I called the number this morning to find out what my scores were (they said to call after the 27th) and they're not ready! Fuck. I had got all psyched up for it, and then nothing. Arse.
I'm also supposed to rewrite the dataset for the project, the same dataset I believe I've finished about five times already! What sucks about this is that it won't be my intellectual property, even though I'm doing all the work.
And all I really want to do is sleep, cos I had a completely bollocks sleep last night. But I have to do some work on the dataset, and then get myself to work by 4.30, so that I can work until midnight! Fun fun.

Maybe I'll have a wee nap. Bollocks to The Man, he can just bloody well wait for his dataset.

Hypothetically speaking...

If one was to have a piercing many years ago, and subsequently remove the jewellery concerned, and leave said piercing until it had shrunk so small that one would possibly fit a hair fibre through the space where the jewellery had once been, and then one was to have a sudden rush of blood to the head and decide that one needed to return jewellery to the original piercing site, and instead of starting small with a fine piece of jewellery one decided that a full size piercing ring would be a really good idea; my advice would be to have a cup of tea and spend a few minutes recalling the pain of body piercing before one began on this venture.

Just a thought.

This Blog, Part One

Things that are awesome.
1) Interpol. I've just listened to my Interpol cd and liked it so much, I'm listening to it again.
2) Having a big ol' house in the hills all to oneself, and being able to sit out on the deck and look out over this beautiful city and laugh at the poor people living on the flat. Ha.
3) Slippers.
4) Tea and toast with Marmite. The Marmite goes on the toast, not in the tea. Although...
5) Orange Martinis last night at Di Lusso, although they had apparently run out of oranges so the nice barman couldn't put caramelised orange zest on the top. They were still yum.
6) Texting. I am constantly amazed that we managed to attain this level of civilisation without cell phones.
7) Garage sales. Whilst getting picked up by my sister at 6.30 am to go to her in-laws for our joint garage sale was a bit of a struggle, especially when one had got home from work at 1am, its pretty nice to have people give you money for crap that you would have thrown away otherwise.
8) Having a job where after a busy night, one can crack open a Corona to make clean up and cash up that much more enjoyable. Then clocking out and having a few more Coronas with ones very cool workmates.
9) My thesis. It both kicks arse and takes names. In an academic kind of way.

This Blog, Part Two.

(after some ice-breaking conversation in a group of friends)
Me: I'm still mad at you, by the way.
Lying Bastard: Yeah, thats fair enough. I'm sorry.
Me: I saw her, your new girl.
LB: Oh yeah?
Me: The fact that you would choose her over me tells me all I need to know about you.
LB: ......
Me: (feeling all empowered and awesome) Nighty night then!
LB: (looking like he'd lost lost the winning lottery ticket) Yeah, bye.
Me: (inwardly) Go Claire!!!

This Blog, Part Three.

I'm at that point of the day where its time for the standard Sunday mission into town to recover my car (see above note re: Coronas), but its got all windy and I've had five hours sleep and I really can't be shagged getting on my bike, going all the way into town in a head wind to get the bloody thing, when I could just bus to work tonight. Ooooooo. Bus! Public transport!! How novel.

I got home at 5.30 this morning, which is fine, cos having a big sleep was top of my list of things-to-do-on-Sunday. But then 10.30 came around, and I was wide awake. Go figure. I see a nana nap in my near future.

Last night at work was a record breaker. Previously 299 was the maximum number of diners, and we'd done that several times, but last night we made 314.
Thats over 314 meals, because people are inclined to have several courses. I can't even comprehend that. Imagine cooking 300 meals. Especially given that everything is made from scratch, and that those meals were all done over the space of about 4 hours. Say 4 1/2 hours. Thats 270 minutes. Thats over a meal a minute. Phew. I'm tired just thinking about it.

I have to go now and start my US graduate school applications. Part of it involves writing a personal statement, which is a bit harder than it sounds. How do you tell academics that you are far more awesome than your academic record suggests, without sounding like a complete dork. The fact that I am a complete dork is an additional handicap.

Dork is a funny word.

Help.

Random Shit

I am watching the brilliant and beautiful and heartbreaking and traumatic and terrible and wonderful Angels in America, which I first saw at the Court Theatre about ten years ago, and which has haunted me since. You should all be watching this. I don't pretend to be any sort of theatre critic, but I did spend a significant amount of my academic career studying literature, and the levels on which this play is superb are continually amazing.
It is as good as Equus.

And thats saying something.

My weekend was fairly good, aside from the having to clean up after the former flatmates who quite obviously did sweet FA in regards to cleaning up our former residence. But me and Dave laid the smackdown on the filth, and it ran in terror, and the landlord agreed to give us back our bond. Yay. We rule.
Went to Charlie's party on Saturday night, and I think I might have scared Nic. He was looking all scruffy and stubbly, and quite frankly looked really hot. So, of course being the mistress of subtlety, I told him so, and so kept having Mugatu moments with the whole "Hes so hot right now" thing.
It was all a bit amusing really.

I had a night off work on Sunday, and so spent a goodly amount of time just chilling out at home, which I don't do nearly enough.
I got an interesting phonecall today. You see, as faithful readers may know, I have been trying to find a way in which to get full time work at university so that I can leave the restaurant, cos quite frankly, I'm over it. The restaurant manager called me today and asked me to come in half an hour early today, cos she wanted to "talk to me". My immediate response was "am I in trouble?" and spent the rest of the afternoon wondering if I had inadvertently done something horribly wrong in the last few days to merit a talking to. However, it appears that management had heard the rumour that I was intending to leave, and so they offered me a better job and more money. They love me, really. So thats nice. So now I have a lot of work, and will be earning arseloads of money for the rest of the year. One is very conscious of the fact that in one and a half years one will be turning 30, and would very much like to have a few thousand dollars stashed away somewhere. I'm getting to be OK with turning 30 soon, but I think that a significant factor in my being OK with it may involve the fact that Sarah, Bridget, Bianca, Hester, Chizuru and Faine will all be 30 before me. So as it turns out, there are advantages to being the youngest in your class at school.
Anyway, I'm starting to talk shit now, so I think I'll be off, perhaps some sleep might be in order.
I did intend to mention the fact however, that these are some cool lyrics, and I think that the line
"I was walking around the flower show like a leper
Coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria"
is up there on the coolest lyric of all time list.

Theres my two cents.
Good night.

PS. I saw the new girlfriend of someone formerly known as Good Thing (now known as Lying Bastard), and quite frankly, woof.
Ha ha ha.
One is reminded of a classic Pacey quote from Dawson's Creek, and I'm just gagging to say it to the chap in question.

Not that I ever watched Dawson's Creek.
Never.
It was complete arse.
Really.
I just watched it once.
Honestly.

Step one is admitting you are powerless over your addiction.

Go to bed Claire!!

Conspiracy Update #47.

I predict that before four years is up, Monkey-Boy is exposed and he is turfed out of the White House on his right-wing intolerant Islamaphobic arse.
It has already begun

Who wants to make a bet with me?

I can't let this go unsaid

I'd just like to extend an open invitation to all Americans who are clever and sensible and aware of the world and not bigoted and believe in peace and democracy and who abhor notions of imperialism and retaliation and hatred.
You can all come to NZ and stay at my house for the next four years.
Cos I really feel bad for you guys. I know that the entire free world is affected by the actions of your president, including our wee piece of paradise here at the bottom of the world, but at least we will not be judged by his actions. You poor fucks, I mean, I can really see a massive trade in t-shirts saying "Don't blame me! I didn't vote for him!".
I send out my heartfelt apologies to all intelligent decent Americans, that you have to live with monkey-boy there as your leader for another four years.
Our PM isn't exactly perfect, but hell, my nine-year old nephew has a more comprehensive understanding of international issues than Dufus W. And I'd bet my boots that hes better read.