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addiction!

I think I have an addiction, to reading blogs when I should be working. The thing is though, I still get everything done, I still get my job plus someone elses job done, so whats the problem really? I just need to be able to read something else besides the truck article I am writing, to let me continue writing the truck article.

I read all these great blogs about peoples interesting workplaces, and it makes me want to write about mine. But then, I think, there’s not too much to write about. Sure, I'm a chick writing on a truck mag, and while you think that might make for great fodder, everyone I meet in this industry is sadly kinda normal.

Sure, theres the odd truckie wearing little shorts, a wifebeater singlet and a flannel top while sporting a long white beard, but those guys are nice. Although their interview usually goes like this. “yeah, she goes alright mate, yeah its good mate, yeah she drives alright, yeah mate, mate.” But can't make a blog out of that right!

And my office is small… we all get along, although the boss is a scatter brain and if anything, he lets our team down. But you can't tell the boss that now can you.

But I do think my book idea would make a great blog. What is this idea? Well… you’re just gonna have to wait and see if I ever get off my ass and do it!

The problem is time. I hate using my computer at home because its located in the nerd room, where the housemate bitches if I use my computer because its making his game lag. And if I write at work, I can never do it justice because I'm just writing it sneakily in between writing articles.

Must ponder…

probably a good thing we cant own guns in Australia!

On Monday night my housemate knocks on my door (then opens it without me saying to come in. I could have been naked people.) and asks if she can park in my car spot while I am at work. I'm like, yeah I guess… and she promises to move the car by 5:30 at the absolute latest…which is usually later than I get home, but whatever.

So anyway, turns out I get stuck at work on a photo shoot (which didn’t even work out because it was so damn late) until 6… I get home around 6:20, her cars in my fucking car space! I swear if steam could come out of my ears, it would have. The problem here people is, if you can't park in your car spot, you can't park in the garage because they're all taken by different apartments and I can't park on the street because I don’t have a permit (she does.)

So I go upstairs, and she is sitting on the couch in her track suit pants and an ugly rugby top watching tv. I look at her… she doesn’t say anything… then this follows:

Me: Can you move your car?
Her: I was going to get Nick to do it later
Me: Well I don’t have anywhere to put my car, so can you please move it?
Her: But aren’t you parked on the street, I saw your car out there.
Me: Obviously not. I just got home
Her: Can I move it later?
Me: No. I'm double parking your car so you’ll have to move it now.
Her: Oh ok, no problem.

If it wasn’t a PROBLEM why did you argue with me you stupid bitch? Its my car spot and had you have continued with this stupid shit, I would have double parked you in all tomorrow morning so you were late for work.

Why does this make me so mad you ask? Well, its just one thing in a long line of things. They got the big giant room and no car spot. We got the teeny room and a car spot. On top of getting the big giant room, Nick also takes up 50% of the spare room and she takes up extra space downstairs with this hideously ugly chair that she never sits on and a giant beanbag that she never uses. Their crap is everywhere.

Despite my repeated requests for them to cook something healthy, they won't. last week I came home on Friday to a dinner of fucking sausages and packet pasta. This makes me extremely mad because I bust my ass off at work, to earn less money than them, I come home and I friggen cook healthy masterpieces that take into all their stupid accounts: “ewww I hate corn” “eewww brocolli” “ewwww vegetables” “rice? I hate rice. Why don’t you make pasta!” only to never get any fucking thanks and bitchy comments from her “this is good, but when I make it I put this in it and it takes sooo good” you know what. Ive lived with you for SIX months and I have yet to eat a meal of yours that I didn’t hate. They don’t know what a vegetable friggen is, and for someone doing their best to eat healthy (as I drink a chocolate milk. I'm stressed, its what I do) it pisses me off.

The boy has the best tactic for dealing with them. Every week he makes fish in a box. As in fish fillets from a box with a shit load of vegies. He has done this for 6 months, never changes. There are a few reasons for this
1- He hates to cook
2- He asked if he could clean an extra night instead of cook, they told him he had to cook
3- The first night he cooked he fucked it up so bad that they both bitched at him about his inability to cook.

So now he has found something they hate to eat and refuses to make anything else. They're like “do you think you could try making something new?” hes like “I could.”
Them, “are you?” him “No.”

I'm getting back to the stressed stage again… I couldn’t sleep last night for all the knots in my stomach and the early stages of a panic attack. In the end I think I worried myself to sleep. I dreamt of turning up to the hairdressers today only to find out it was Saturday and my hairdresser wasn’t in, and the mullet-giving lady was willing to chop my hair! I woke up and I'm like “WHAT DAY IS IT” freaking out because I really didn’t want it to be Thursday because it meant 2 more days of work to get through. It is Thursday though, but luckily for me, I am leaving early to go to the hairdresser and visit my family from NSW who I haven't seen in years. That’s stressing me out too! I won't know who is who and it makes me feel like a shitty cousin!

Annie get your gun

Ive been reading a book on spree killings and it talks a lot about America and survivalism, and how the reason Americans are so protective of their gun laws is because they believe at any moment if another war happened or the dollar was not worth much, they could trade in guns. Guns have value in terms of currency in a war type situation and also offer protection.

Ive always found it fascinating how any time someone in the government suggests changing the laws so that Americans can no longer own, oh I don’t know, machine guns, all these crazy Americans harp up about their constitutional rights.

But really, why do you need to own automatic weapons that can kill numerous people in just a matter of seconds, if you don’t want to go killing?

After Australia had their taste of spree killing – Martin Bryant who killed 35 people in 1996 – we changed our gun laws. I don’t know the specifics but I am pretty sure it restricted gun ownership to only those who might actually need one – say if you had a property with animals you may need to put down. And that gun won't be an automatic one that will allow you to shoot of hundreds of rounds in a minute.

Fair enough, people in America want to own guns. Its their constitutional right. Their right to have a readily available weapon to kill people – if the need be. According to the quick google I did over 30,000 people are killed by guns each year in America by guns… and that was in 2003. I'm sure its gone up a heap since then. I also found this fun statistic - A gun in the home increases the risk of homicide of a household member by 3 times and the risk of suicide by 5 times compared to homes where no gun is present.

So hey, why shouldn’t we all own guns?

I just don’t understand why Americans fight SO hard to protect this “right” of theirs. In 2003 only 230 people were killed by guns in Australia.

So if any Americans want to explain why they cling to their rights of gun ownership, even though it kills so many people unnecessarily, go ahead.

kiss and make up

Last night the girls and I from work went to a “Martini, Manicure and Makeover” night. Must say, a lot of fun. For $35 you get a cocktail (thankfully we weren’t subjected to the martini, but a cocktail of our choice), makeover, manicure and a short massage. And if you consider the fact that the place it was held charges $15 for each cocktail, not a bad deal.

The group got split up in half and duly received massages, manicures (I have a mood ring type polish on – it changes from neutral to purple with gold flecks in cold – they’ve been purple all day!) and our drinks, and then went to the makeup artists. There were three of them lined up, all Napoleon students.

They were pretty good, albeit new into the course. Having studied makeup for work at the body shop and doing my few makeovers there, I always find it interesting to get my makeup done. I just told my person to go crazy because I don’t care how bright the colours are, my skin just tends to suit brightness. She did a pretty good job, and the other two girls did alright jobs – although one of them did make a comment about only learning last week from a random shopping centre about where blush should go – and it wasn’t even right! Shes like “yeah you just get them to suck their cheeks in and put the blush where their cheekbones are” I was thinking yeah… try you just see what face shape they have and if they’ve got a long face, you do circular sweeping motions across the cheek to try and correct the horseyness… or if they have a round face, do not do circular blush motions, pick a light colour, sweep across and make sure it blends in well. If they’ve got an oval face, then you just put it where the cheekbones are.

It got me thinking about how I love to do makeup and how watching one girl, who wore very little makeup, only applying very little makeup to one girl, and the girl with neutral colours, applying just neutral colours to her people. Just because something suits you, doesn’t mean it suits everyone.

I'm a big believer in trying colour out. It might not suit and you may not be comfortable with it, but how can you do others makeup if you don’t really understand how different colours work together, how an eye colour can really stand out with different shades. Sure a neutral look suits most, but I really love experimenting with colours on my friends to see how it will bring out their features.

I know myself, ive got quite blue eyes and while aqua greens and bright greens can make my skin look really smooth and an even colour, it doesn’t make my eyes sparkle. Where as pinks look great with the blue eyes, but don’t have that same cooling effect on my pink toned skin.

You’ve got to experiment. And when I say bright colours you are probably thinking clownish blues and bright red lips, but it’s a simple matter of this – heavy on the eyes, easy on the lips. Want to play up your lips, go easy on the eyes. I hardly ever wear lipsticks, just a light gloss or balm. I think that is partly because I'm too lazy to think about it.

Breaker Breaker

When I was at Uni I had visions of everything just falling in to place for me, I thought that one day fate would just magically give me a position working on a magazine as a beauty writer or features writer… something I have a big interest in.

But fast forward and I am writing for a magazine alright, only a truck mag. The funny thing is though, I don’t hate it. It is a massive challenge and it amuses me to no end the fact that this butch magazine is run by pretty young women.

Seriously, of the 8 employees in this small business, 5 are girls and the majority of staff are under 30. We cop a lot of crap for it… even our freelance Sales Rep had the nerve to tell me that women can't be in the transport game because they can't tell the clients to fuck off. I said to him, you shouldn’t be telling people to fuck off and he said sometimes you’ve got to tell them to… I'm like well, us girls have been running the magazine for the past few years, we’ve buried our competition and are extremely successful, so I guess your theory on telling people to fuck off is wrong.

Through my “journalistic” work I get to meet some interesting people. Yesterday I drove to some place 45 mins away to meet a truckie at his depot to take some photos… he gets out and he had a flannel shirt on, jacket with beer name on it, massive long beard and a beanie… so stereotypical but he was the nicest ever – put the truck into some funny positions for me and was just excited to be in the magazine – that’s what I love. You get some people who stand glumly in front of the truck pissed off about it, and you get some that purposely edge their way into the frame!

While I might not be writing about my dream content, it’s definitely a challenge to write about things like axles, hydraulics, metals… and while my writing isn’t perfect, I actually feel for almost the first time in my life that I am learning something. All throughout Uni I just kind of coasted… they didn’t teach us different styles, just said write what you want. So I did. My post grad was a little more productive – due to the forced history writing subjects, but really, until you get out into the real world where you are paid to write, you have no clue.

the health kick

Recently, I got myself a personal trainer. Now, because this seemed to coincide with the biggest loser, everyone thought it was pretty funny. But I felt like I had to do something because I had lost all motivation.

When I moved out of home I started eating better, working out a little more regularly and then I lost a bit of weight… within a few weeks everyone was asking if I had lost weight. A good feeling.

But then, I got so stressed from the housemate issues and I started having anxiety and my motivation slipped away. The real eye opener was the Saturday I got dressed in my gym clothes but continued to sit in the bed for the next 6 hours. I then did the same thing Sunday, because I simply felt like I couldn’t get out of the bed and do that.

So now, once a week my personal trainer – Heath (was there ever a more personal trainerish name!) comes over, makes me work hard and sets me some homework, so I feel guilty if I don’t do something. After all, I am spending a good $30 a week for this, therefore I had better perform. Haven't really noticed any results yet (although I have only had 2 sessions) but I am going to the gym a little more. Its not so much about weight loss, because I don’t really carry that much extra weight, at my biggest I'm a size 12, but that’s mainly due to my hips being so damn curvy and I know that even if I lose every bit of fat from my waist, they will still be a 10/12 and my hip bones will jut out like they did when I was dancing. So even if I lose a stack of weight, my clothes are still going to fit… I do hope to get a flat stomach one of these days… I know that’s a lot to ask for someone who adores their chocolate and alcohol, but I figure if I can just once get a flat stomach it won't matter when I'm 40 and pudgy because I can look back and go “but I used to have a flat stomach!”

The inevitable thing about getting older is that you will get pudgy because the older you get, the harder it is to lose weight and retain muscle. Look at my dad, one of the fittest people out there – runs numerous kms a week, does marathons, rides his bike to work everyday, but he has got a beer belly from all those years of good aussie beer drinking. So I figure, while I am still young enough, I should be trying to get myself into shape and hopefully start some good habits for the future, because one day, no matter what I do, I'm sure ill be pudgy and I won't really care because I want to be healthy. At the moment I can't run or do cardio for more than 5 minutes without getting wheezy (and a lot of it is brought on by my asthma in the cold weather) so I hope to boost that up!

One of the biggest things I’ve noticed since I moved out of home is the fact that eating healthy feels really good. its not that I ate a lot of crap back home, but I did eat more junk because if I was coming home late from work, or there was nothing for lunch in the fridge, it was just easier.

So now that its my house, my kitchen, and there isn’t a maccas drive through nearby, it feels good to eat good. each day for breakfast I have toast, yoghurt and maybe some fruit, for lunch its usually leftovers or soup and bread, for dinner I make things like curry (my all time favourite food! I make so many kinds now!) or spinach pie (so damn good I should put the recipe up!!) or chicken and vegies, or paella… I could go on. I try to make at least one new recipe each week. And I aim for each meal to have 3 types of vegies or more.

The only thing ruining the good eating is the housemates. Example: the boy made fish and vegies for dinner Friday night. We sit down to eat and N complains about the amount of vegies, then refuses to eat them.

What does N make for dinner? Tacos, chile, frozen lasagne, or spaghetti with a bunch of cheese in it.

What does E make for dinner? Her specialty is what me and the boy call ASSTA. It is pasta, covered in a jar of sauce, covered in cheese and baked in the over. Gross. Or she makes a roast, but covers the vegies in so much oil you feel like you are eating oil and the only green you get is a few peas. Or she will make some crazy recipe she found that looked “weird” so she thought she would make it. But she hardly ever puts a vegie in it. Last week as the boy looked mournfully down at the assta, she said “but I put some parsley in it so theres some green!” she wasn’t joking.

Currently we are trying to work out how to tell the housemates that we can't stomach their cooking. Last week after getting home from 2 days working on the road, eating junk because it was all I could get, i came home to my dinner in the oven – a burger (egg, meat, tomato, cheese, thin slice of lettuce) with a side dish of sausages!!!! I took one bite and then threw it out. The boy had a go at them “sausages aren’t vegetables. Make some fucking vegetables” and got told “whats wrong with lettuce. It’s a vegetable?”

God damn.

So my health kick is hindered by them… just like everything else in my life at the moment!

i think my head is going to explode..

I’ve only just started this blog and I am yet to get to the crux of all my current anger and frustrations. The housemates.

I used to call them friends, but since moving in with them, I can barely call them that! To give you some background, I am living in a 3 bedroom place with my boy and another couple – E&N.

We were a little unsure about moving in with them, because we knew them to be spoilt and lazy, but I always thought that hey, my friends would leave me to do everything. How wrong we were.

From the day we signed the lease and one of them didn’t have enough to pay their bond, to their refusal to buy the fridge they had promised until at least 2 weeks in to living their… you know what, I could go on.

So we have been there for over 3 months now and in that time I have nearly had a breakdown. I asked them nicely to help clean, suggested schedules, only to be met with “yeah we will help, just tell us when to do it” and it never to be done. All this came to a head in a big massive fight – initiated by them – which I basically kicked their ass and told them to get off their asses and act like grown ups. For fucks sake, this is the first time Ive lived out of home, but E has been out for a year now, while Nick is older than the rest of us.

I made the decision to stop being nice to them though, and for some strange reason they respond to that. You ask them to please clean up, they do nothing. You yell “clean up your fucking mess” and someone comes running.

I'm not too sure what my goal is with this post because if I was to explain everything they do we would be here all day. But even our mutual friends can't stand them anymore because they seriously just have no respect for anyone else.

I never thought that friends of mine would be happy to live in a house where they don’t care about hygiene and the fact that their friends are spending their weekends cleaning, doing the cooking, whatever.

We have a roster for cleaning now, but they still weren’t doing it, so I asked her when they were going to clean this weekend and she cracked it! She was like “N already vacuumed upstairs and I'm going to mop when I get home from dinner tonight!” and I'm like “sorry, didn’t mean to offend you it just doesn’t look like its clean because theres still mess on the floor.” So yeah… she got home at 10:30 at night, I'm nearly asleep, makes the biggest raquet you’ve ever heard, mops the floor in 5 minutes, then comes upstairs and starts yelling at the boy and N to not walk on the floor downstairs. They're like yeah ok. And shes like “NO I JUST MOPPED DOWNSTAIRS SO NOBODY WALK ON THE FLOOR DOWNSTAIRS.” And the boy is like “we heard you the first time, we aren’t going downstairs and can you stop yelling because people are trying to sleep!” and shes like “JUST DON’T GO DOWNSTAIRS!!!!” then slams the door. I was tempted to yell out “its ok I'm not asleep anymore!”

So Ive decided not to be nice anymore, they're stupid bitches and if they hadn’t made such a big deal about signing a 12 month lease, id be out of there!!