Workaholic Hostess’ Neighborhood

On going to see 'Couples Retreat'. I'm just saying, because you won't get that hour and a half, or your $20 back.

I was really looking forward to it, and we even went to the drive in to see it. But it was so lame. Vince Vaughn is just not that funny, and I say that with love because I like him, but he co-wrote the damn thing so has to get some of the blame right? He seems like one of those people that, in real life, are pretty funny, with a dry sense of humour and all. But this didn't translate on screen as his character just monologued on about random subjects such as Richard Simmonds (FFS) while missing the point and making you lose interest in whatever he meant to get across.

After the couples ending up on the island for 'couples therapy', it seemed to negate the point when they all had their character break-throughs on the 'party' island across the ditch. And the one couple that were all fucked up and intent on cheating on each other, only stopped because he caught her dancing with the yoga instructor. That probably doesn't make sense, but neither did the movie. Keep your money in your pocket and use your time to go do something that won't make you feel like you've just spent it being subjected to a film reel about why you should not get in to a relationship but remain single.

In the Tik rating system, this lead balloon gets a 3/10

G's post on age bought it back to my mind, but I was thinking the other day about when I started showing 'the physical signs of aging' and ironically it was AFTER I stopped smoking, dabbling in recreational drugs and drinking myself (literally) under a table two or three times a week.

This strikes me as a little bit unfair. Now, when I'm healthy I get punished?? I mean, had the lines or the bags under my eyes shown up while I was dancing on a table while gut-dragging a malboro under the influence of whatever I'd stuck up my nose/down my throat/inhaled, I'd most likely have taken a bit of notice and thought about stopping it all sooner than I did...

So now, its when I'm not smoking (almost one year!), and am drinking in moderation, and haven't touched any drugs in as long as I can remember, that the wrinkles jump all over me and everything starts to head south.

Not fair.

Everything hurts. This 'next level' of fitness is bloody painful. Even my fingers are sore. It kind of hurts me to type.

I don't know quite what is out the back of my house. Well, obviously there is a backyard and a walkway to the lane, but its the business across the lane that I don't quite know about.

There are no signs. There is a skip that is full of boxes and other rubbish. I never see anyone coming or going. But every Monday morning at 4am an industrial truck pulls up and does 20 minutes worth of scrapping and making so much noise that it must wake up the entire neighbourhood. Maybe they are emptying the skip? My place is pretty sturdy, but it shakes like a Tokyo apartment in an earthquake, whenever this truck arrives. It's so annoying. So, I've been awake since 4am.

I'm tired and grumpy and its only Monday.

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It's going to rain too. After yesterday I'm not surprised. We had a 32 degree day. Was beautiful, but very, very hot.

I went for a walk to Newtown to get an ice cream around 4pm. I nearly died. Came home and passed out on the couch... Did my nails (bright pink for the toes and light purple for the fingers) then dyed my hair and watched 5 episodes of Arrested Development. It's a little better than before, but not by much. I still have reverse regrowth - light roots and dark tips. I dyed it dark brown, because I couldn't go black... the tips of my hair are black though. I look a bit strange.

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I did the Bay Walk on Saturday. It's a 7km walk, which was nice. Beautiful day for it. Then I came home and washed my car before going to boxing. The class was soooooo  hard. Most of the class were men and they weren't there to mess around. I went so hard, and I'm still hurting now. I think that with all my walking, this weekend I probably clocked about 20km...

No wonder I'm exhausted.

Which explains why this post is so boring...

Laura Ling and Euna Lee speak about events leading to their capture in North Korea

I used to be a massive Apple advocate.

I've used them (both privately and professionally) for years. I was one of those annoying people who totally aligned themselves with the 'cool' stereotype of Macs and thought that PC users were boring and annoying. I believed that Apple = creativity while PC = work station.

This theory extended to MP3 players. iPod's were the way forward, everything else was just catch-up technology sure to be outdated by the mighty Apple.

This was all until I bought an iPod Touch last year and had the thing replaced THREE times because it's software kept failing - it wouldn't recognise wifi signals, or it wouldn't hold a battery charge or it just plain died. ugh. I gave up, sold my third replacement on eBay and bought the iPhone earlier this year. In doing so, I paid my contract out on my old phone to the tune of $400.

Now my mother f*cking iPhone won't let me hear call's unless its on speaker. Piece of crap.

I'm due for a new computer. I was going to buy a Mac, but there is no way that is going to happen. I'm vowing right now, Apple's not getting anymore of my money.

\  / take that Steve Jobs.

Is it the weekend yet? No? OK, it's close, only one sleep away...

Can't wait.

The end of my month-of-living-breathing-hell is coming to an end. After today and tomorrow I should be able to function like a normal person, with the busiest projects of the year out of the way. Woohoo. I don't know how we have pulled this off. We're a tiny team at the best of times, without throwing a trade show complete with major events, plus a bi-yearly 400 page resource book into the mix. Usually we have one month to get our main magazine out, this week we have 4 days - hmmnnn, not that my bosses expect too much from us...

But, it's nearly over. I haven't taken my blood pressure in days, ever since I couldn't get it lower than 90 I decided that I'll leave it until next week when Vippy and Big Boss are up to QLD for an event and I'm sleeping in a lot and eating lots of good food and having NO stress. THEN I'll take my blood pressure and give it to the Doctor to make her decision about whether or not I need to be on blood pressure medication. My mother who is a nurse, doesn't think this is a good representation to give to my dr, but I argued that I'm not measuring my blood pressure over the highest stress-period of the year and giving that to the dr who will determine if I need to take medication for the rest of my life. My mum said, 'I'll not argue with you, it'll increase your blood pressure'. Mum's are funny.

So, for this weekend I'm chilling. And I'm so, so, so excited about it. I'm staying home tomorrow night. I'm curling up on the sofa in my oldest, ugliest, rattiest clothes and doing guitar tutorials off youtube (loves having the interweb at home!), and eating pasta and ice cream and having the hottest, longest shower in history before sleeping the hell out of my bed.

Saturday night I'll do the boxing class in the early evening before heading out to see a band at one of my favourite clubs, The Metro. Sunday night I'm planning to see 'Inglorious Basterds'.

It's going to be a wonderfully chilled out, relaxed and drama-free weekend. I'm going to sleep and rest so much that come Monday I'll be a new woman.

I am so excited by the prospect of sleeping for more than 4 hours at once. Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait.

Big Boss has swine flu. I'm not surprised, he spent yesterday coughing his lungs out and saying stupid things like, "I really shouldn't be here, I'm sick, but I have to meet this deadline", to which I'd say, "yeah thanks, I've just taken my last antibiotic, I don't want to get sick again so stop coughing on me", but he kept doing it.

Anyway, he's in hospital having chest x-rays the poor buggar. He emailed me saying he doesn't remember ever feeling this sick in his life. Poor thing. I feel sympathy for him.

But this morning I woke up with a sore, dry, scratchy throat!! If I have fucking swine flu because of him I'll be so mad! I'm probably just being a hyperchondriac... but I'm taking an echinacea just in case...

I have a rather embarrassing addiction. It's something I've hidden for years. Something that causes people who know me to question my intellect.

I'm addicted to solitaire/Klondike. When I worked on a PC at a previous job, I had to get the IT guy to uninstall solitaire because I was so addicted (luckily Macs are too cool to have the game already installed). "I'll just play one game then I'll do that task", or "wow, that task sucked, I should reward myself with a game of solitaire", but one game would lead to many and then I'd finally win and feel slightly disgusted and guilty about the whole thing.

Once I got my iphone I downloaded the klondike application and have been secretly playing ever since. Sometimes at work I'll whip out my phone and give myself the pleasure of a quick game. At night if I can't get to sleep I'll play a bit. But I mainly play while I'm waiting for the train - and, if the train is empty and no one can see what I'm doing, I'll play.

The other day I was on my way home. It had been a pretty shitty day and I was playing klondike waiting for the train. It was busy when I got on and I forgot that I was still playing. I was sitting next to this guy and he was texting away on his phone, and I had my headphones on, lost in my little klondike world.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder, the guy next to me says "That" and points to me playing klondike, "Is pathetic". I felt soooooo stupid and embarrassed and was about to be all 'well, it's my life and I'll play whatever mind-numbing games I want to', but then he held up his phone and showed me he was playing klondike too... made me laugh.

I think this post is a new low. Is my life so boring and uneventful that I'm reduced to posting about solitaire? Seems so.