One Angry Monkey

We’ve had a problem with seagulls in our street recently. Well, the whole suburb really. You see it’s that time. Council hard rubbish collection, where everyone takes all the crap that’s been cluttering their spare rooms, garages and back yards and pile it up on the nature strip. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for it. We’ve even gotten rid of a few bricks from the Great Wall of Adelaide. In theory I think it’s a magnificent piece of public service and worth every cent of the council rates we don’t pay because we’re renting. In theory.

In practice it’s a different matter. Now I have nothing against the idea of people going through my garbage. If someone can put something the Man of the House (tearfully) parted with to good use then good for them. They must be creative people. Really creative. It’s a time-honoured tradition, and half the reason why the council puts out brochures advertising when they’re going to do it. Have your stuff out by sunset on the Sunday before your collection is scheduled, the brochure says. Here’s a helpful list of when all of the collections will be. It’s kind of clever really. By doing it that way, by the time mid-week rolls around and they’re actually doing the collection half of it’s been picked over by scaven… recyclers.

Unfortunately it makes leaving the house a dangerous proposition. If you’re carrying anything, like a bag for example, the second you open that front door a ravening horde of Wombles will descend upon you, pinning you to the ground and hunting for anything they might use. Wombles notwithstanding, people walking down the road (or worse, cycling) become more interested in the piles of stuff than in, say, watching where they’re going. On Monday night I saw one cyclist just about run headlong into a car that was backing out of its driveway because his head had turned around almost 180 degrees as he studied a particularly promising pile of crap. The bad news for him was that his search was doomed from the start. 24 hours after it was put out, the Wombles will have stripped it of anything with any potential at all.

It all just goes to show, one man’s trash is another man’s traffic hazard.

Submitted for your consideration:

Yes but no = yes / but / no = 3 syllables

Your argument has merit however the underlying premise is fallacious = your / ar / gu / ment / has / mer / it / how / ev / er / the / un / der / ly / ing / pre / mise / is / fal / la / cious = 21 syllables

Oxygen is a finite resource and should not be squandered by using 21 syllables where a mere 3 would suffice to convey an equivalent albeit abbreviated message. Therefore not only is my use of the phrase “yes but no” perfectly valid it is also better for the environment.

So one of the things I do when I’m trying to make myself feel better about the fact that I haven’t written anything for days is clean. I clean things because cleaning things is productive. Cleaning things is a worthwhile endeavour. Even when you live in the dustiest state on the dustiest continent. Cleaning things when you live in a place like Adelaide means that in three months time you won’t be sleeping in hollowed-out depressions in the thick layer of dust on your bed and you won’t be needing to shift the Dusty Ranges from the middle of the living room to off to the side somewhere so it doesn’t block your view of the TV.

The latest chore in my eternal quest to justify my failure to finish my rainforest-destroying work of pure genius? The window frames. We live in quite an old building. It was built in a time before aluminium window frames became standard. The windows are therefore held securely in place by bits of painted wood. There are lots of corners and the paint is coming off in some parts because whoever last painted the place doesn’t understand how painting actually works. I’m not making baseless accusations here. You can see through the single layer on the red “feature wall” (thank you Better Homes and Gardens), and the door frame on that wall got a liberal dose of the same crimson disaster, only there was no undercoat used there and if you’re not careful (or if you’re a habitual picker like I am) you can detach that single layer of red from the gloss paint it was slathered upon.

I’ve cleaned those frames before. Not long after we moved in, in fact, I was looking out the window, as you do, and I noticed the terrible state of the frames. So I got out my cleaning products and got to work. That was something in the region of eight months ago. Now living in the dustiest place on earth means that clean frames last only until the next time you open your window, but I could live with that. Then came the Great Procrastination. So I decided to clean them again. This time I had a secret weapon - my old toothbrush. Armed with that and a big bucket of very warm water I got to work.

I was scrubbing away at my first window (today, I did the bedroom yesterday) and a flash of movement caught my eye. Something was skittering across the window right next to where my head was. I glanced over, disinterested, before returning my attention to what my abused former toothbrush was doing. Every muscle in my body clenched. Reluctantly the ones controlling my eyes released and I looked back at the moving thing.

What I meant to say was something along the lines of “Oh f$#k Brendan there’s a massive spider right next to my head!” What actually came out was, “Aaaaaafuuuuubahaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.” It’s a word. Look it up. It’s there, you just have to kind of squint a little.

The Man of the House, true to form, made it two whole steps towards me before stopping dead in his tracks. “What is it? Are you okay?” All I could do was point at the spot right in the middle of one of the panes of glass where the thing had stopped so it was framed like a frigging picture and kind of ‘rabble’ at him like a severely traumatised gibbon. “Which side is it on?”

I wish I’d stopped to think about my answer. Instead out of my mouth popped the first thing to enter my head. The truth. “The outside,” I wailed.

Word to the unwise, MotH: If you want to be painted in a better light when I tell people about you, don’t laugh almost until you puke at things like that.

I’ve spent hours recently staring at a wretchedly blank screen. I’ve passed 100,000 words on my monsterpiece and now that I’m on the home stretch I have a cramp in my leg. Yeah, I know, baseball analogies only work if you like baseball. But whatever, it’s my blog. Continue reading…

People today. They’re obsessed with “the secret”. Wow! You look ten years younger! What’s the secret?

For the record, I don’t look ten years younger. If I looked ten years younger I’d look eighteen. I don’t.

No, my secret revolves around weight loss. When I was having my crohn’s flare I lost something in the region of thirty kilograms. I don’t know how much that is in pounds. Google it if you care. (The real achievement? I kept all but twenty-five of it off! Yay me!) As I lost the weight all of my friends kept asking me, “What’s your secret?” I told them. I have a chronic illness. I can’t keep much food down. What food I can keep down just fires out the other end a couple of hours later, undigested. In essence my body has issued me with an eating disorder I don’t need to maintain myself. My stomach does that for me.

Wrong answer. Continue reading…

I’d never realised how socially awkward I am until today. I mean, I knew I was socially awkward but the full extent of it escaped me. I got a phone call from the Matriarch to inform me of the sad passing of Young Boobs’ beloved puppy. She suggested I should email Young Boobs to pass on my sympathies. When the Matriarch says “jump” you’d better not waste time asking “how high?” so as soon as I got off the phone I cranked up the old email (that fat hamster got a workout and all, my email doesn’t see much use).

I stared at the screen. “Hey sis,” I typed. No, too casual. “Hi.” Too terse. “Greetings?” I’m not a f$#king Vulcan. Continue reading…

Normally I have a little voice in my head. That little voice performs a valuable task on a daily basis. It inspects every thought and idea that passes through my mind, checking each for sanity. Ironic, really, since it’s a voice in my head. Last night it was distracted, perhaps by the return of Grey’s Anatomy. Perhaps it was just a little tired. After all there’s a great deal needing a sanity check inside my mind. Whatever was going on in there, it was lax. I’d fire it, but I really need that pedantic little bastard.

There I was, sitting on the sofa, wondering what the Chief would think of Izzy using all of those hospital supplies to save a bloody deer for Christ’s sake, I mean honestly surely she could have found something with only two legs, when an idea occurred to me. I passed it on to the veto department who, to my surprise, passed it right back with a “Great!” stamp decorating it. What was this idea?

I could wash our underlay tomorrow! I can do it in the bath tub! It’s going to be warm and sunny for the next few days! Even if it doesn’t dry tomorrow, it will by Tuesday! Continue reading…

I’m the first to admit I have a hoarding problem. I’ve gotten better. Circulars are now thrown out as they arrive, instead of being kept in case I need to clean the oven and don’t have any newspaper. Every little bit counts, right?

During my hospital stay last year the Matriarch came over to help out and take care of me. Part of the duties she took upon herself (with absolutely no guidance from me, of course) was clearing out some of the junk I’d managed to accumulate. One of the first things she inquired about was the rather large collection of coffee jars I had in my pantry. “No, keep those,” I said. “I’ll need them if I decide to make jam one day.” Continue reading…

Calm down, Brendan, I don’t mean ours. Just general anniversaries of important events in my life. Er, other important things in my life. Our anniversary is, of course, important. Whew, smooth-talked my way out of that one.

A little over a year ago, I quit smoking. Well, we both did, but you know, if Brendan wants recognition Brendan can post about it on Brendan’s blog. This is all about me, baby. 12 nicotine-free months and counting. I should light up to celebrate! Oh, wait, that won’t work. The only real side-effect I’ve noticed is a strange urge to set everything I see on fire. That, of course, could just be a subconscious attempt to justify the continuing existence of my old lighters.

As a side note, do you know how many half-full lighters the average smoker will have in their house at any given time? More than they could conceivably need, that’s how many. Continue reading…

On the second weekend of my stay in New Zealand last October, I took a photo which still provides me with a little amusement. I’ve decided to share it with the world because, well, I’m just that generous. Yay me. Shall I share the back-story? I think I shall!

The Coromandel region was once known for more than just its surfing beaches. It was quite the booming gold mining region, back when people still did that sort of thing. I lie, there’s still a working gold mine. And a museum with a severed thumb preserved in, like, formaldehyde or something. When you’re a kid, that’s pretty cool. It’s also a geographically unfriendly sort of place, needing much taming from the early prospectors. Evidence of that remains, in the form of a hole in a rocky mountain. Continue reading…