'Cause I'm just a girl, little ol' me, Don't let me out of your sight...I'm just a girl, all pretty and petite, So don't let me have any rights...

I sometimes feel that for someone who doesn’t know me except through my blog, they probably wonder a little at my seemingly endless alcohol capacity and they probably even think I’m somewhat of a ditzy blonde type character what with only writing about partying on my blog. So I am now going to try and dispel all these notions by telling you more about myself and the things I love slightly more than Bacardi Rum… only slightly, mind ;-)

I love my significant other, mind, body and soul. You would think we’d be mildly bored after 7.5 years (getting quite close to 8) but honestly, without wanting to get all sentimental and mushy, it’s even better than when we first started out because now we know who we really are and how we fit together whereas then we were such clueless kids stumbling our way through the sweltering Madras social scene and those first couple of cold, lonely Melbourne years. Now, the 7 year itch has well and truly passed and each day is better than the next!!

I love my baby sister and she is the only person so far I would willingly take a bullet for!

I love my parents and all of my immediate family in spite (or maybe because) of their exasperating ways

I heart Labradors (and ok, most dogs)… again this is mind, body and soul. One despondent look (particularly from Labs) and I am a slushy pile of putty for them to do with me what they will. I love and miss Holly and Chocolate and Fudge and Biscuit and Ginger and Teddy and Rusty and Tipsy and Frosty. Now is probably a good time for me to introduce the latest additions to my family in Madras… presenting Tipsy the Holly look alike and Frosty the little mongrel rescued from the Blue Cross (yet another birthday present)!

I love my friends and I have some pretty darn great ones… I believe you can tell a lot about a person from their friends so obviously I am pretty freaking AWESOME since my friends are pretty freaking cool too!

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I love my job but I do feel gratified when I have a clear deliverable to work towards and there’s a total adrenalin rush until I hand it in… then I get a bit bored because the fun part is over and I hate going back into the document to simply change things based on feedback… it’s just too boring. But I do love a glowing commendation on a job well done. I guess it’s hard to really love a job when it’s a job, rather than a profession. I never really leaned towards a doctor/lawyer type of thing… I think the closest I got was wanting to be a chartered accountant. Not sure what happened there… I think computers came along and that was the end of that. So 8 years later, I’m still in IT and I can’t complain… I think mostly I do like systems and processes better than I like numbers. But on some days, I’m not so sure…

There are plenty of other things I love in my life but they might be on par with a party night out or just under… I love reading… I’ll read absolutely anything although I do prefer fiction. Reading and my alcohol intake do not go so well together because no matter what the time and irrespective of how blind I am, I will pick up the book on the bedside table without fail and attempt to read… sometimes I’ve managed to get through whole chapters but the next day it’s all such a blur, I have to go back and start over. And this has happened time and time again… nonetheless I persevere…

I love eating chocolate and going out for Italian and Indian food. I love drinking my hot chocolate in the mornings, even in summer… although I’ve cut them down to about 2 a week. I love flowers… white roses and colourful tulips… I like going to the movies or curling up on the couch with a DVD… I am also a total couch potato Monday to Thursday and have numerous favourite must see TV shows per day. I love eating potato chips and ketchup… I’m not sure why I’m bringing this up but I suddenly thought of them and can’t help drooling… I completely drench the chips in ketchup and then mix them up with my hands and eat them like rice and yogurt… it is to freaking die for! I also love eating ice cream but that’s the last thing I’m going to say about eating since this is not a food post! I love listening to music on my way to and from work and I love singing along to live guitar playing. I like reading other peoples blogs (when they update them… hmph!) and my newest online obsession is Facebooking! I also like catching up with friends on MSN, the phone or email but there’s never quite enough of it, one feels. Oh my god, how could I forget… I love owning new stuff (and hence, have to carry out the necessary evil of shopping to get there)… I love driving with the sun roof open on a warm sunny day and I love crossing the river when walking back home (because as you may or may not know, I heart bodies of water)… I love sleeping… if there is no alcohol in my system, I can sleep and sleep for even 12 hours each night. But alas, alcohol does not mix well with my sleep patterns and I jump right up with the slightest noise and the smallest toss or turn from the person lying next to me. It’s just punishment for how well I sleep during the week I feel. This is why my Saturday/Sunday mornings are always crap! That’s enough for now about things I like to do.

Concerning my personality in general, clearly I am not blonde and I am certainly not ditzy… I’m quite the opposite of ditzy really… I’m a control freak so I know exactly what’s happening when… that doesn’t mean I don’t go with the flow and don’t do stuff unless its been planned and I’ve been told well in advance… if such a spontaneous plan comes up though, I mentally have to readjust stuff in my head to get my life back into sync i.e. laundry postponed until tomorrow, grocery shopping absolutely has to be done today so whatever happens getting to Safeway by 6:00 pm, after two beers won’t have mood to cook dinner so any leftovers available… nope… dinner out then, etc. etc. I also feel I have borderline OCD but let’s dwell on that another time. I guess another thing about me is that I am rather a lazy person but once I get started on something, there’s no turning back. So this is where my mental to do list helps me move my ass because when it gets over 5 items, I’m in serious trouble and that motivates me enough to cross off at least 3 items in the one go. So yes, I am also a bit of a procrastinator. This also explains my couch potato habit for most of the working week… that’s why, when the weekend rolls around, the promise of alcohol and fun times with good friends is what perks me up and gets me off the couch. And once I’m off it, I am never very keen to get back to it (metaphorically speaking) and insist on partying till the cows come home.

This leads in nicely to the next topic – the one regarding my bottomless pit of desire for Bacardi Rum… it is not true at all that I have a bottomless pit… quite the contrary… sometimes I am terribly hungover and no amount of coaxing will convince my stomach that drinking again is just the ticket to recover… at other times, my stomach gets full really quickly and again no amount of coaxing will convince my stomach that 2 drinks is not an acceptable limit at which to stop drinking. Then there are other times where I stupidly start off with beer or wine and then try and switch and oh boy does that fail miserably most times. If I’m lucky I just get really tired and want to pass out. If I’m unlucky, I feel like I’m seasick and almost always have to throw up to recover. So as per that other control freak aspect of my personality, since I know what I’m doing most weekends i.e. birthday parties, etc., I am mentally prepared to have a great time so somehow that helps me drink heaps and since I am also off the couch, I really just love to stay out and party on! Sadly, not everyone is off the same temperament and on most occasions I am forced home when people around me are passing out or the party is packing up! But look me up on the Sunday and chances are I am back to my couch potato mode and it will take rather a lot to induce me to drink and even then I will stop at like 2 or 3. Luckily, whether I have plans on Friday or not, I am totally up for anything because it’s just terribly depressing to hang out at home on the couch on a Friday evening and I am only tempted to do it if I have a very very big Saturday planned.

That about wraps it up for now. My next post will go back to it’s partying ways and be all about the last one month and it’s 101 birthday parties, concerts and other events. Things are also brightening up considerably... glorious daylight savings time is back again and we've had a couple of wonderfully warm summer days... This weekend I am off to the eastern most tip of mainland Australia – a delightful little coastal town called Byron Bay. Going with 6 others so should be heaps of fun. And in the meantime, be safe and drink responsibly :-p

It's so hard to get old without a cause, I don't want to perish like a fleeing horse,Youth's like diamonds in the sun, and diamonds are forever

So I've got to be as quick as I can... the laptop battery is so going to die in all of 15 mins and I'm so not braving the cold in the lounge just to freaking blog... I mean, this is spring and all but it's like mid-winter really... it's not fair, really, but there ain't much we can do. Anyway, enough about the stupid weather... I hope and I pray for warmer weather soonish!!

So the strange thing is, how that song from the last time still has a total hold on me... I mean, honestly, that's the only reason I'm even blogging tonight... if I hadn't had to listen to that song, I wouldn't even be awake right now. And I don't even freaking like Coldplay... as a matter of fact, I'll go as far to say I hate Coldplay...

That'll probably ruffle a few freaking feathers... but what can I say or do...

So anyway, I had the awesomest birthday... I think it always helps when your birthday is on the weekend... that means the whole world can party with you without missing work and feeling guilty for whatever reason. So my birthday began on Thursday evening when we prepared to go to the Steely Dan concert... it was full on... we had many drinks and tapas and then headed to Rod Laver and once the concert started, fully sipped on the hip flask and before I knew it, the concert was finished. I mean, I like Steely Dan and all but I'm not their biggest fan. I really love Dirty Work but they had some total Mary J. Blige type character sing it which just totally pissed me off and ruined it for me!!! Anyway, we all had a blast though and had many more drinks after the concert also. Friday was a total mess... recovering from Thurs night and attempting to clean the house in preparation for Sat night but not really making any progress. Anyway, Fri evening arrives and my lover and me go to dinner and have a couple of drinks and then he pretends like I absolutely have to go to this friends house to say Hi and way before I get there, I totally know all my friends are going to be there drinking away. So that's exactly what happens... and I have many drinks on my birthday eve with my best friends and we smoke cigars and all, just for a change. And at midnight, a home made cake comes out and champagne and all... and many overseas calls also arrive and it was just freaking awesome!!!

At about 5 am, we stagger back home and I open all my presents from my lover and try a few things on as well and somehow get to bed by about 5:30 am... alas, I am forced awake by 10 am thanks to many more overseas phonecalls... seriously, it is the only day in the year, I actually give a crap about my mobile and keep it beside me at all costs!! Anyway, there is no hope left after that and I still don't even have the energy left to clean and all... at about 6 pm, things are exactly the same and I am just many more phonecalls down. Finally, I force myself to get my act together and sleepwalk my way through cleaning the house and get ready and stuff and before I know it, it's 9 pm and my guests are arriving. And from then until 7:30 am, Sunday morning, who even freaking knows what happens. It was just madness all around. It was really awesome. And I got soooooooooo many presents, it was crazy. So much fun. And I think everyone really had a blast, that was really the best part. And the biriyani that I ordered totally got cleaned out in all of 2 hours... it was crazy... not even one grain of rice was left over. :-)

Absolutely nothing exciting has happened since then... I mean, obviously the week was completely crap and this weekend was supposed to be easy but with someone's birthday drinks last night and someone else's birthday drinks tonight, it's hard to slow down!!! So it's not strictly true that nothing exciting has happened, but for me, my birthday and all it's associated shenanigans are the eptiome of party time for the year.

The strangest thing... for a few years in between, life was strange... it wasn't as happening and I honestly wondered how smart I'd been with some of the choices in my life!!! But now, I can honestly say that I love my life more than ever and it doesn't really matter that I'm 26... I still feel 18 and my life is still as exciting as if I was indeed 18 :-) I mean, honestly, 18 till I die baby!!

Speaking of babies, my best friend's baby is almost 2 years old and obviously I still haven't met him yet but amazingly he's learnt my name... it's sooooo adorable... I spoke to him the other day and he's totally like Hi, Bye, Ithi.. awwwww.. sooo cute!!

But speaking of other babies, my baby sister is now 18... she still totally breaks my heart though!! I can't wait to hang with her in December and hopefully I can show her the way. Oh my god, did I mention the fact that she got a freaking Labrador puppy for her birthday... I'm so happy cos I get to hang with this puppy in a couple of months but I feel so sad that I can't get a dog of my own :-( And apparently, she looks like just like my beloved Holly... that figures... Christmas and New Years is going to be soooo weird this year. I'm not exactly sure why...

So I've decided to open up commenting again... haha... I'm really not sure why I stopped... but, whatever...

Sometimes when you take a step back and think about life in general, it's a bit frightening... because life is incredibly strange and it really takes you full circle... with the things you do and the people you meet and the way you change...

Also, this Forever Young song... I used to love the original by Alphaville until I actually listened to Youth Group and then it was totally like, oh my god, what were Alphaville thinking?! That just goes to show... old is not always necessarily best... this song I only like the remixed Youth Group version now... Alphaville is just yawn... but there are obviously other songs where this doesn't apply at all and old still rules!!!

It's going to be another freaking awesome year... what else is new ;-)

Forever young, I want to be forever young

And the hardest part was letting go, not taking part… you really broke my heart…

Wow… can’t lay claim to the mid-20’s for much longer… how the world turns and how the time flies… It’s like I blinked my eye and there went my childhood and my adolescence… happy days, all.

And now here I stand, a young adult… I guess this is kind of the end of another era… my last unmarried birthday… by next year this time, I’ll be someone’s wife… woah… that just feels slightly older than young adult.

Anyhoo (sorry Guitarman :-))… as per my new life outlook, no melancholy about getting older. Instead, I will embrace the fact that I am technically another year wiser… (really, I am)!

So since we last chatted, that weekend didn’t turn out to be quiet as originally thought after all… Fri night was a drinks on the town session, Sat was an all day bbq and beer session (not that I drank) and Sun was quiet recovery. Then the weekend after, again, the Fri night was a drinks on the town session and this one went kinda outta control again what with agua shots and jagerbombs yet again… we need to sooooo stop visiting that bar… the bartender is our new friend and he fully encourages us. I vaguely remember everyone coming back to our place and playing Pink Floyd and Toto and singing at the top of our lungs at 4 in the morning… poor neighbours. That Sat was another wedding dress expedition… I am soooooo over it. Then we hung out in a music store for about 2 hours while the Guitarman purchased a brand new electric guitar and I mused the sad fact that that guitar of mine has just been sitting in it’s stand untouched for almost a year… I really must learn a song or two… let that by my resolution in this new year of my life. Then we went to the bar beside the river of yours truly fame for a couple of beers with a couple of friends. And then we welcomed back Sam newly returned from a trip home and I finished a whole packet of murukus by myself… it was unreal heaven, and the best part was I got to take a packet home with me (not that it lasted long)!!

Finally, last weekend was a trip to some friends’ parents’ house out in country NSW called Grifith. It’s about 5 hours drive and we rented a people mover to take all 7 of us… the car was great… it was roomy and comfy and had 8 cup holders which were incredibly convenient because even the esky so sweetly fit between the front 2 sweets so it was almost tooooo easy to fix drinks the whole way up. And that’s just what we did… it was awesome… we also had great music so we sang a lot and after the stars came out it was just totally surreal to look at the sky, sip my drink and sing along to the songs of my youth and occasionally laugh at something someone else says or something I say myself. I also remember stumbling in to meet the parents and eating the most amazing biriyani we’ve eaten in a while since it was all so wonderfully home cooked. Oh, and who can forget the cutlets… my all-time favourite item.

The Saturday we woke up after very few hours of sleep and after a healthy brunch of idli, dosa, departed on a winery tour since the Region is big on wine and wine making. Tasted about 3 wines and the buzz from the previous night just came rushing back. Met a few cute dogs, took pictures beside a body of water called Lake Wyungan, and then paid a visit to a farm. It was a total Ol’ McDonalds farm with sheep and horses and chickens and dogs and a special little treat… we see kangaroos hanging out in the wild. It was a great experience… we got a crash course in sheep shearing and crop planting and land leveling and we saw first hand the impacts of the drought and water restrictions… so terrible… it really breaks my heart.

The rest of Saturday was a blur with plenty and plenty of alcohol and more cutlets and some mouth watering pork curry, potato and paneer mutter. It was unreal… for real. One by one people dropped like flies until there were only 3 of us left (me, as usual… I can party till the cows come home, man)…

The Sun was truly terrible… the channa bhutoora and chicken chettinad helped ever so slightly. And then it was time to depart back to Melbourne… it was actually a fun drive back considering we were all so f***ed up… we smoked a couple, laughed about the events of the weekend, watched the fingers of God reach out through the sky, I tripped out watching the trees this time, sang even more songs, witnessed a truly insane wind and dust storm, stopped at a 24/7 diner for coffee and a snack only to have the power go out and them telling us to get out… it was spooky… very Texas Chainsaw Massacre like… the wilderness, the storm, the power cut and everything… But we reached Melbourne safely after all. What an awesome trip!!!

It didn’t end there… Mon night, we caught up to eat the leftover food the parents sweetly sent back with us… was even better because we were actually able to remember what we were tasting this time. Also, considering the excesses of the weekend, it was mind boggling that we all had a few drinks that night. I decided to put it in my birthday week quota ;-)

And now we are here in the middle of my birthday week… it’s only getting better… I have the Steely Dan concert tomorrow, not sure what I’ll get up to on the Friday but I have my presents to look forward to at midnight, and then the birthday on Sat with all the exciting overseas phonecalls and finally, the mandatory partaaaaay on Sat night!!! It’s going to be great. I really miss my sister though and wish we could celebrate our birthdays together… it’s hard letting go… it really breaks my heart. Happy birthday baby sister…

Wouldn't it be nice to live together in the kind of world where we belong

You know it seems the more we talk about it
It only makes it worse to live without it
But let's talk about it
Wouldn't it be nice

Dear Penny Lane

So, the other night, us Fort Knox alumni got together for our monthly poker night. The usual bottle of Jack was cracked open and beef tasting nibbles were passed around and good ol’ Fudge, he had a great treat for us… special brownies… yeah, that’s right, don’t look so surprised… talk about being baaad assss!!! Gosh, I remember how you used to smoke it in your bathroom. I’d be all fast asleep in the comfort of your bed and you’d go do your thang and then come back to bed and annoy the crap out of me. I mean, what’d a dog have to do to get some sleep around that joint? So anyway, Chocolate, Fudge and me, we were just shooting the breeze and to be completely honest, we had gotten rather giggly thanks to the brownies, when who should show up but young Ginger. I tell you, I was pretty darn shocked she had the nerve to show up after all the nasty rumours she’d been spreading about Fudge and Teddy all over Dogtown. But we didn’t turn her out because well, you know, she’s a young un’… never had anyone to show her the way really what with her arriving here so young and all and she always had a bit of a tail on her, that she did! So then she broke down with everyone glaring at her and apologised for making up all those lies and it was hard not to melt, that look in her eyes. Next thing we know, we’re all high pawing each other and look up to see Teddy shuffling in in his trademark purple coat, sunglasses and carrying his walking stick. There was a bit of an awkward moment while he took in the scene in front of him but he caught on in no time and enveloped Ginger in a warm hug. Good ol’ Teddy… you don’t live to 90 and become elected the Head of the Underground Society of Dogs Against The Adoption of Cats as Household Pets and not get wise to a few things. We don’t keep these catch ups exclusive to Fort Knox you know… we like to keep in touch with the family dogs too. So sure enough, Max and Dinky joined us and Dinky brought along that grumpy smelly sourpuss Gizmo. I know he’s family and all and that’s why we tolerate him, but really that doesn’t mean I have to like him.

By now, we’d started playing and we were well into the brownies… I’m telling you girl, it was insaaane in the membrane! I should’ve joined you when I had the chance… can you imagine me and you rolling around the bathroom floor in giggle fits!! It would’ve been da bomb. By the way, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my vocab has gotten way better since I moved here… I know I could just about manage Woowoowoo when I was with you but these dawgs sure know how to teach a beyatch a word or two. My main man is this cat named Snoop Dogg and he has us chanting all sorts of fun stuff like bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yay…

But anyway, back to our poker night. We were playing Texas Hold ‘Em and I was doing alright… even stevens really… so were Max, Dinky and Gizmo. Ginger was down pretty bad, so were Fudge and Chocolate… Teddy was just raking it in as usual. It was a stormy night and it was coming down something fierce when suddenly the door flies open and who should run in soaking wet but Biscuit. Ginger nearly fell off her chair because he cut a most dashing figure with his dark eyes and chocolate fur, engaged in the act of shaking the water off himself. They’ve never met of course… he having lived with you in the early 90s and Ginger only in 2004. It was puppy love at first sight… I felt so very wistful watching them… god knows how different things might’ve been if Scooby from down the road hadn’t been so goddamn obnoxious… I mean, that is what attracted me to him in the beginning but towards the end it just got so tiresome our whole barking-madly-at-each-other-through-the-gate routine. I’ve heard on the grapevine that he’s taken up with a black Lab from down near the supermarket. All I can say is good luck to her.

So that’s really all the news from our end. Things might’ve gotten slightly nasty that poker night when Gizmo and Teddy faced off for all or nothing but luckily Dinky was way past his alcohol tolerance level and chose that moment to return from relieving himself, completely miscalculated where his chair was, and fell flat on his tiny bottom! We were all on the floor laughing after that. Chocolate sends her love as always. How are things going with you? How’s baby sister? How’re mama and papa Lane? Is mama Lane still sadly under the delusion she has any kind of control over the canines she lives with? Ah well, we must leave her with some hope to hold on to, harmless thing that she is. I routinely call Rusty on his mobile to tell him to give ‘er hell and sometimes text him fun ways to make mischief! And what about you then? Still missing me? I know you are. I looked at all those photos of all of us with you the other day. I don’t know if you felt my paw on your shoulder but I was there.

Oh I almost forgot to tell you… I ran into my old man Crispy on the street the other day. He is one good looking mo fo… now I know where I get my drop dead gorgeous looks from. He’s doing alright and invited me to a meal next week. I can’t wait to look at more baby pictures of myself.

And oh, oh, met up with Appachen when he visited Dogtown on a daytrip. I told him I'd be writing to you so he said a big Hi.

That’s it I guess. Write soon and I’m attaching a pic of us from the other night.

Miss you and love you as much as the day I left you.

Holly xoxoxo



Wouldn’t it be nice if they were all living it up like so? Wouldn’t it be nicer if they still remembered us? Wouldn’t it be nicest if they hadn’t had to leave us at all?

I don't quite know, how to say, how I feel

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don't need
Anything
Or anyone

Those three words
I've said too much
But not enough

Oh my god, this is one of them songs… I haven’t had one of these songs for a while… you know, one of them songs you listen to over and over one night… I don’t know man, I have these songs once ever so often and then for a long time, I completely lose interest pretty much in music all together and suddenly that song comes along that brings it all back… So tonight is one of them nights, and this is one of them songs. It’s called Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol and I’ve heard it on tv/radio/in the stores for the last I don’t know how many months but never had it but tonight I’m just like, I have to have it and so I downloaded it and right now its on iTunes repeat and I guess it will be on repeat until I finish this post… and I imagine that’s gonna take a while. Unfortunately this is the same song that was the finale for Grey’s freaking Anatomy this year in Oz (oh, sorry, 2006, last year it seems) but I hate the freaking show so it hurts that I like the song so much but it’s ok, I’ll adjust for tonight…

Oh right, so first off, Happy Birthday dear friend Rael… we missed you over Christmas and New Years and I guess it’s going to be a while before you’re back again after your jettsetting global adventures… So anyway, I’m just back after many drinks at his birthday party and I thought now is a good time as any to update blog… haha, it’s taking twice as long to spell right, but anyhow…

Where the hell do I begin??? I guess I could begin with the first couple of nights that they got into town (they being Rita and Phil aka auntie and uncle but never wanting to be introduced as such)… oh man, it was the most awesome time ever… they’re the coolest people I know… on par with my baby sister and my baby cousins… and none of them are babies no more… oh god, I miss my family!!! It just went by so quick…

Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads

I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

So anyhow, there was Christmas prep with the tree and presents and shit and then there was Christmas Eve where I forced everyone to stay up pretty much and so we tried to go to Crown Casino and stuff and the whole world tried to convince me not to go to Midnight Mass, but I went anyway, by myself, I might add… It was good though, I sang carols soulfully and missed my parents and sister like no tomorrow and then the next day my mom refuses to even believe I went to Church… geez, I’m a devil, but not that much of a devil that I’d lie about going to Christmas Mass… But anyway, I got home and we all wished each other and then exchanged the few hundred presents we had for each other and it was so good. I got so many cool clothes… I’ve pretty much worn all of them this whole little holiday of mine… Christmas is awesome!!!

Christmas Day was insane in its own little way… I’d had about 4 hours of sleep and then we went to this lunch where everyone was gathering at and oh my god, I drank like 3 drinks of Old Monk which was on offer and then it finished so I went back to Bacardi but basically we were all there from 1 pm until about 7 pm and who even knows what happened in between… This sweetheart was one of the highlights of my Christmas… no other dogs in my life at this point… there’s Rusty of course, but he’s so freaking far away!!!! Don’t worry though Holly, I still think of you evey fucking day… why? Why? Why were you taken away from me?

I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things
Will never change for us at all

Then I had about one good night’s sleep after 5 days and Boxing Day I conscioulsy said I would not even take a sip of alcohol and I didn’t and that night we flew to Cairns and got to Port Douglas really late but it was sooooo good to be back in tropical climates… guess what, so called summer in Melbourne, it freaking hailed on Christmas Day… too depressing! The only thing I don’t miss about tropical climates is freaking lizards… gross as “pallis”… gross man, they creep the shit out of me… But anyway, we chilled on the beach, we ate some awesome meals and then we went on a tour to one of the outer reef areas… I tried scuba diving and unfortunately for me it didn’t go so well :-( The water just went fully into my nose everytime I tried so I didn’t do it eventually and went snorkelling instead and went on some strange ocean walk where they put this space type helmet on my head and I walked about 6 metres down the ocean floor and it was just quite mad… it was stupid man, I was just like, what the fuck is this shit… but I got to touch some fish… haha, don’t know if I ever wanted to touch fish… anyhow, the Great Barrier Reef is awesome… and the warm water is unbelievable… the last day we went on some Rainforest tour and went on a cable car ride a couple of thousand metres high and it was pretty fucking scary! And then we took some scenic railway and I think I saw some Aboriginals in Australia after 4.5 years finally! The trip was soooo good… I’m sooo going back and I’m so getting certified to go diving so I’ll have more time to get used to the breathing underwater crap!



Then we got back to Melbourne and had a whole other kind of trip… haha, I so don’t want to talk about it… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… there are some trips better left unsaid!!! All I am willing to say is how much sense Penny Lane by the Beatles makes now!!! And I am sooo Penny Lane!!!



If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Then there was New Years Eve… I suppose it could be considered rather tame compared to various other years… but it was great… all our near and dear ones in this city were around us! I had a great time… one of the best moments was talking to baby sister dear when we were almost going to bed at 5:30 am and it was just her midnight then. Man, I don’t know how she’s going to grow up without me around… I don’t know if I’m a positive influence, but I’m certainly her older fucking sister and that has to count for something… well, I’m not around either way, so I just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best!

And then there was New Years Day where I walked around in a daze and we went to Mexican Margarita dinner and then we went to a drive in movie and I freaking slept and I don’t think I’ve ever slept at a movie before, drive in or otherwise, so believe me when I say I was fucking done to have done that! And then there was their last day where we went to the wildlife sanctuary and I finally got to see a freaking kangaroo after 4.5 years… I don’t quite know how to say how much it meant to be able to finally see one… and they are so freaking adorable!! And then we got fucking wasted that night and then they left :-(…

All that I am
All that I ever was
It’s here in your perfect eyes
They're all I can see

I so don’t enjoy being at work right now :-( Life sucks when you nothing and no one to look forward to!!

Man, it’s 2007… we can’t even pretend to be little kids anymore even though that’s all I’ll ever be at heart… what’s up with this shit that we have to pretend to be responsible adults… and I don’t even mind being a responsible adult… but, it just sucks when your age and the year kinda dictates that you have to be one… 18 til I die baby…

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

This song makes me so sad though… I don’t quite know why… it just reminds me of a time when it wasn’t like this… of course, at the time, I wasn’t satisfied at all… all I wanted was to get away… I guess, just forget the world… but it was that same time that so many amazing things happened… I remember some days, I’m not sure what we did but I know we laughed a lot and the hours just went by so quick and we thought it was never ever going to get any better and maybe it hasn’t… and I remember some nights, the first few times we went out, we went to dinner each time and then we’d buy a quart of Old Monk rum each and get fucking wasted on that one little quart… and then we’d pick up some friends who’d we give some more quarts to, haha, and then we’d go to EC-41 and we’d both get in for free because we were cool that way… that’s a whole other story, how I got a lifetime free membership to EC-41… it’s a brilliant story, but not tonight… so then we’d be in EC-41 and most nights most everyone else was there… but there were some nights that it was pouring down rain and hardly anyone’d be there… but we were there… and we’d dance and we’d sing and we’d drink and we’d smoke and we’d laugh our asses off… so it isn’t as easy as that anymore… nobody does the same shit anymore… there isn’t the one place to go to anymore, the one place that is guaranteed to get you into a good time…

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me your garden that's bursting into life

I don’t know what’s going to become of us… I mean, at one point in your life you’re so used to having a certain group of people around all the time and then one day that just doesn’t happen no more and maybe you get a different group of people and that’s also just wonderful but what about that first group of people? How do you get them back into the groove? Because you miss them and love them like you did when you were 18-20??!! But perhaps they don’t remember it like you do, and it’s as stupid as chasing cars to them to even imagine that it could ever happen again! I’ve been having these dreams these last couple of weeks, all filled with old times and old people… such good times… and this is at a time in my life where I’m completely enjoying my current life (apart from work of course)! I don’t know, I wake up highly disturbed because I feel like something’s gone terrribly wrong in my hometown and there’s nothing I can do to make it ok. I swear, it feel so real I honestly wonder what happened that I should dream of all of them so vividly… these kinda dreams haven’t happened since the first time I left India all those years ago.

I guess right now I’m sorta just hoping for good things whenever it is I get to go back again… I mean it’s always good, everytime I go back, but sometimes it just fucking kills you… I mean, it can only kill you when you’ve been away… but it fucking kills you anyway… but I love them all… and I miss them all… and that’s my utopian dream… that they could all be here with me…

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don’t quite know how to say how I feel… I’m still listening to the stupid song and it’s daylight now so that’s freaking great… I guess I will try to just not sleep until later tonight I think cos I gotta go to work early tomorrow morning anyway… But so, I was just flipping through the few hundred photos from the last 10 days and it just has to make you smile doesn’t it… the way people look in them… so happy… maybe they were drunk at the time, and sometimes they weren’t, believe it or not… but we all look so freaking happy… and a lot of the New Years Eve ones, we’re just kinda sticking our hands up in the air with the Christmas tree in the background and lots of crazy light effects happening because the fancy ass camera wasn’t on auto focus and it’s just funny… it’s just a perfect reflection of how people feel/felt/will feel… I hope it’s a good year… for everyone I know and love… something tells me it has the potential to be… the year a lot of things change for a lot of people in a good way… we’re getting old man, and there’s no denying that! I’m no longer early 20’s, I’m mid-20’s, my boyfriend will be “late” 20’s after his birthday this year, poor guy… but it’s ok… I think we’re entering a completely new exciting phase of all our lives… Happy 2007!!!

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel

Go, go, go shawty It's your birthday We gonna party like it's yo birthday We gonna sip Bacardi like it's your birthday

I have never been so de-motivated before in my life. I thought I’d sunk as low as I could go at the last job but this new one is freaking unbelievable (except for the pay). Someone, help me escape please??!! This week has just been beyond awful and I’m soooo glad it’s Friday!!!

I don’t know if I’ve suddenly become super popular or if our little world has widened its borders considerably but it seems like I haven’t had a quiet moment on a weekend in more than four months. I’m not complaining or anything… after all, this is why I whinge and whinge about missing Madras so much. But I’m just finding it a bit unusual here. I had to ditch my parents also on two nights when they were here because of social engagements… haha… social engagements… of course, they don’t mind. In Madras, they’re used to just catching brief glimpses of my sister and me as we rush between numerous social engagements… haha… social engagements.

So, my parents… what a trip that was. I am not conventionally close to my parents… I think I stopped talking to them for a few years between 13 and 18 – there was some serious bottled up teenage angst. And I think about it now, and I’m still not sure if I really had anything to be angsty about or if it was just pure drama because I felt that was how a teenager should be – moody, rebellious and monosyllabic. But this was only at home right… I was the total cheerleader prom queen singing club president at school… I got involved in anything and everything… a lot of the times because I really enjoyed it, you know, like singing and acting and all… and other times just to alleviate the boredom of school by being involved in everything. Oh man, I’d love to tell you about my holier-than-thou Convent school one day… but not today.

So anyway, the relationship improved drastically since I moved away from home and last year when I went home I was shocked at how mellow and complacent they’d gotten with mini me (my friends would call her that because she’s often a spitting image)! And she like totally rules the roost at home… I mean, come on… I might’ve paved the way and everything but she is like in a totally different league of getting her way.

But so apparently I totally bossed them around on their visit and I’m like, well, did they not boss me around for the first 20 years of my life? The tables will always turn. My children will surely boss over me… or not… I’m not as easy as my mom. But then again, there was Holly and Chocolate and Rusty… one puppy dog look and I’m wrapped around their paw. Children quite possibly have the same power of the puppy dog look. But anyway, they fully exaggerate – I did not boss them around. And did I mention that in general, my parents are quite nuts. They’re not into formality of any kind and sometimes when my father speaks, I want the earth to open up and swallow me whole. And my mother is SMS trigger happy and it just totally killed her she hardly had anyone to SMS.

I was certainly pampered to a certain extent. My mom cooked a few meals and my dad took us all out for dinner all the other meals and I’m still happily living off leftovers – I never want to cook again… sigh :-S

They also bought me two more items of furniture and patience dear reader, all will be delivered and set up within the next two weeks and then all photos will go up for public viewing.

Anyway, they’ve only hopped across to New Zealand and they’ll be back in all their glory in a couple of weeks.

So my birthday week was lots of fun… with my dad around there’s drinking every night but of course I can’t really get drunk, not that they’d notice really… went out for dinner on my birthday eve to the Mexican place and downed a whole pitcher of Margaritas and then we stayed up as usual until midnight and my parents insisted on staying up too and then I got all my presents and cards. Had the day off on my birthday after two years and spent it very lazily and then had to get everything ready for the party.

The party was quite mad. I measure its success by the number of people who were beyond the limits of wastedness… someone kept forcing these strange shots called Jager bombs into my hand at the pub we went to after my house. Now there’s this Jagermeister stuff and what I think was happening is that you get a mug of beer and a shot of Jagermeister and you have to drop the Jagermeister in the beer mug (it makes the most delightful sounding plop) and drink it together as the potent Jager bomb. It was great fun even though it tasted like shit. I couldn’t do more than three.

Here’s a sneak preview of the house… haha… the dining table all set up

My huge ass cake…

The next night went to someone else’s house party and met two adorable Labs. One of them just chased people with a plate all night and since the other one was a guest, he very reluctantly had to stop following the other one around every time his owner called him. Oh my god, I miss dogs!! I don’t know that any dog of mine could ever be so well-behaved though – they would just be my ruination with their puppy dog looks.

Spent this week recovering and another action packed weekend ahead with left over painting, another birthday party and general planning for a bachelorette party the weekend after. So if there is plan anytime between now and January, please book me in now only (I don’t know who I’m talking to since only three people I know in Melbourne visit this blog)!!

Me and you and a dog named Boo…

People actually read this blog it seems :-) Got a few messages of sympathy and surprisingly from a few non-bloggers as well. So I’m still sad and now I’ve been remembering more and more little things about her. I remember that time when we were renovating and she had to stay on at home in the midst of all the workers and rubble and dust for six months… she didn’t really mind… she had company… but she’d go nuts when we visited her… one time, we were still in the car with the windows down and she just leaped into the car from three feet away through the window… and after the first three months of living with aunt and grandparents, we moved into this apartment just down the road from my house… it was about 10 houses away but it was still down the road and you had to take a left… and I don’t know how, but somehow she found her way there and she’d run up the backstairs and whine at the back door until we let her in… she did this a number of times while we were living there and she always found her way there and back… cos, I’m sure she tried even when we weren’t home… she was one smart cookie and she was the most relieved when we all moved back in with her and everything got back to normal.

And this other time when I had friends over, she ran out and Holly ran out too but Holly came back and warned me and so my boyfriend (who shall hereafter be known as Mr. Moonlight (also a song by the Beatles)) and Kat went down the street in the car to get her and Kat gets out of the car and politely says to Chocolate... "Chocolate, get in the car please. Chocolate, get in the car.." and Chocolate just looks at him as if to say "Are you for real, dude..." And then Mr. Moonlight had to get out and forcibly pick her up and put her in the car. This story is not so much about Chocolate as it is about Kat but it always cracks me up.

And now I’d like to share some thoughts from my aunt and uncle on Chocolate’s passing that really made me smile.

So sorry that our friend Chocolate has left but we imagine she is having a great party with a host of her friends—Uncle Ralph, Appachen, Teddy, Dinky, John Lennon and so many more that were dear to us. Gizmo says he doesn’t like all this talk about our friends leaving as he is very hesitant to go to the other side! But he sends you a sloppy, smelly kiss and an equally smelly fart as that is how he consoles himself in times of sadness (ask Mama, she will tell you all about him).

And from Uncle Phil…

As Rita says, Gizmo is hesitant to cross over to the other side—but he definitely has one paw in the grave. Teddy keeps coming to him in his dreams, bringing messages from the other world. Sometimes they are cryptic—like the one where Teddy was wearing a astronaut suit and carrying a case of beer—but others are more direct, like when he told Gizmo that Dinky recently persuaded Uncle Lon’s big red dog to join him in chasing celestial butterflies. So Uncle Lon — almost always accompanied by his trusty dog—went looking for his furry pal. He was supposed to usher our Uncle Ralph to the Uncle’s Banquet (Teddy said they serve every uncle’s favorite dish—every time—and the food is heavenly at that), but the two uncles went looking for that big red dog together instead. By the time they caught up with the red dog, they had to settle for some chaat and hot dogs on the roadside (but even roadside fare is divine where they are.)

Anyway, Gizmo suspected something was up with Chocolate, as Holly told Teddy to hold all of her calls as a new guest had arrived.

That’s all Gizmo told me. Then he fell asleep and is dreaming now as I type this.

They’re mad… they’re coming to visit me in December… I can’t wait. Oh, and Uncle Ralph was Phil’s uncle who passed away recently and Uncle Lon is a family friend uncle they met when they were visiting India and apparently he had a big red Irish Setter he was very attached to but I have absolutely no recollection of this dog. Anyway, both Uncle Lon and the big red dog also passed away some years ago. Dinky was Rita’s dog and Gizmo’s best friend and Teddy was my first dog who died a few years ago. Gizmo is the only one still soldiering on… he must be at least 13 years old and he can’t be left alone and he goes to doggy daycare when they’re at work. He was even in therapy for a while… he has a lot of issues… he’s taken the skin off my nose whenever I visited him and annoyed him… and he hated my sister… haha…

This is Gizmo. He looks dead, but he’s not.



P.S. I was going to title the post something else and then this song played on Party Shuffle... Celestial forces at play courtesy Teddy??… I’d like to think so.

I like to party... Everybody does...

I can't believe Christmas has come and gone... with everything else that was going on, I had absolutely no time to do Christmassy things like sing carols and since I finished all my bloody shopping in Australia, there was no real urgency except of course to wrap all my presents at the last bloody minute as usual. Anyway, I got to sing carols in church and went home and had cake and wine and then went off party hopping at some 3 in the morning to go wish all my friends who were partying the night away!! There was also annual drinks and dinner bash at my house on Christmas night and much wine was drunk by all and much fun was had by all...



I can't believe Madras... It's like I never left. Last year when I visited, I knew no one whenever I went out except for the people I was with... This year, I'm amazed at all the old faces I'm seeing again... the same old faces who used to be at every party and every disco on every Friday and Saturday night when I lived and partied in Madras. Friday night was a very random getting wasted night where I met like some 100 people I hadn't met in years in the one crowded pub and the next day I was still remembering more and more people I'd met or seen... Madras is quite uncanny!

I can't believe I've been functioning on less than 10 hours of sleep every night in spite of being out until all hours every night. Tonight has been the first night I forced myself to stay home so I could recuperate slightly before leaving to Goa tomorrow. Last night was a very wild bachelorette party for a friend and it was a full on 70s theme and her sister and Rat's sister just did a very brilliant job with the decorations... Just like the brilliant job Rat's sister did for Sista T's baby shower... Good job good job ;) And please don't miss my cool pink 70s sunnies on the bar table...





I can't believe how much fun I'm having... I really don't want it to end...

Hey, who's this handsome motherfucker... I just love him to death!



And here's my dear little Chocolate... so old and tired and slow... I really fear she's going to drop dead any second...



So hope you all had a Merry Christmas and I'll see you all in 2006... I could reflect on the year that's been and what not, but fuck that... Happy New Year!!

I'm so love in love with you...whatever you want to do is alright with me...Coz you make me feel so brand new...And I want to spend my life with you

So after all that anticipation, I’m finally here and haven’t had even a single moment to really take it all in with everything going in. It’s been brilliant so far. We started partying as soon as we got off the plane and I think I must’ve slept for about 15 hours in total from the night before I left until Sunday night. Of course now I am making up for many months of insufficient slumber and it’s incredibly peaceful.

What have I done in five days and six nights apart from drink and smoke… I’ve hung out with all my favourite girls and boys and I’ve just laughed and laughed. Some things will never change… (and thank god for those people). I’ve bonded with parents and sister and dog Chocolate met the new dog in my family Rusty… he is sooooo handsome… and such a sweetie… when we first met, he went a bit psycho, but now he’s used to me and is such a darling…



Madras is the same and so different at the same time. So many new places and buildings but instinctively I still know my way around and if I were to close my eyes on a drive and open them five minutes later, I’d still know where I was… She has taken me back so willingly in spite of me ditching her all these years…

Driving here again has been a real trip as always… the way even the slowest autorickshaw will refuse to move out of the right lane and you have no choice but to overtake rather recklessly from the left… Love it… And the noise and the traffic and the potholes and the smells… it’s just all so very real… so very home…

The rain of course has been crazy. I love it and all but it was promising to be a real dampener on the trip. Now I understand all those depressive Bay of Bengal statements… she’s been good today though so there’s hope yet.

And the absolute best part is that S is here with me and its been three years since we’ve been back together… back to where we started and where we had the absolute best time of our lives… Since we've been together, loving you forever is what I need... let me, be the one you come running to... I'll never be untrue

Anyhoo, don’t know when and where I’ll have the time to blog again. But the thing is I want to write as much as I can so I can read it three months from now and remember how awesome it was. So we’ll see…

Cheers to Rat, Sista T, Lavi, Snoop and all my other non-blogger buddies like N, S and all the boys… please continue to entertain me in the same fashion for the next four weeks… Woohoo!

Life I love you… all is groovy…

How much is that doggie in the window? I do hope that doggie’s for sale…

Yay… I have been tagged at just the right time when I wasn’t sure what I felt like writing about. So here goes…

Seven Things I Plan To Do:

1. Skydive
2. Learn how to play guitar
3. Get fit
4. Tour Europe
5. Get a dog
6. Buy a convertible
7. Design my own house

Seven Things I Can Do:

1. Sing sing sing
2. Survive quite happily on a diet of rice and curds and fried fish/chicken/mince/prawns/potato
3. Sleep for 12 hours at a stretch
4. Drink like a fish
5. Shine academically
6. Smoke like a hippie
7. Make people laugh

Seven Things I Can't Do:

1. Eat anything that has long slices of onion in it (or even any other kind of vegetable)
2. Get out of bed without snoozing
3. Drink gin
4. Play particularly well at any sport
5. Spend another Christmas without my family
6. Spend my life without a furry four-legged companion of the canine variety
7. Stop eating chocolate

Seven Things I Say Most Often:

1. Fuckin’ hell
2. Chooth (Hindi)
3. Ey Watha (Tamil! I have no idea how the second word is spelt)
4. As if
5. Whatever
6. Yeah right
7. That only

I’m not tagging anyone but everyone is free to do it if they want… it’s a lot harder than it seems!

So then I analysed my things I plan to do list to see if I was close to any of them and I believe I am to some of them.

Skydive – just waiting for the right time or a trip to New Zealand

Learn how to play guitar – I can play notes E and F now. A friend gave me his old guitar which was very kind of him and he would’ve taught me more if everyone else present didn’t prefer him playing the guitar to me learning it. But I shall persevere…

Get fit – Been at the gym for almost two months now. Rather scared to check my weight and measure my waist because what if there hasn’t been any improvement?! Still I do feel slightly better so here’s hoping…

Tour Europe – Ideally, this will happen next year or the year after. But its just so expensive and I can see my entire life savings being blown away on the one trip to Europe. But I think it will be worth it… and its time I stopped spending every holiday of mine in India.

Get a dog – This one kills me the most. Right now I don’t have the house and backyard but more than that I keep wondering what the poor thing will do when I’m out of the house 50 hours a week! The dogs in Madras always had someone for company and when we returned from a holiday they’d let us know exactly how lonely they’d been by barking up a frenzy. Hey… that’s what my next post is going to be about… the story of all my darling dogs (and there were a few)

Buy a convertible – I really want to do this next year but there are many obstacles along the way like getting an Australian drivers licence (I’m quite certain I will fail the test – everyone does at least once) and of course, the big one – money! I could just buy any old car for less money but I think that since I don’t really need a car, it’d be fun to buy a cool car now at the age when I can do cool stuff and not want these things later in life when I am bogged down by shopping bags and car seats!

Design my own house – This seems the furthest away. In fact, I don’t think it’ll happen in this country in this lifetime (I’ll be lucky to even afford an average house off the block) unless I win the lottery… but since I don’t even play… I guess I can hope that I get a super high-paying job in India that will allow me to fulfil this plan…

So there you have it! Let's hope I make them all happen...

Last night I had the strangest dream. I sailed away to China, on a little rowboat to find ya…

Very lazy to blog about anything original so I will give you some random recycled rambling excerpts from the rubbish I wrote three years ago and that I recently rediscovered thanks to recovered hard disk. Wow… that must be a personal best record of number of words beginning with R in the same sentence! I must warn you… a lot of it is really random and makes me wonder what the hell I was thinking back then!

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Sometimes you think about life back home and you wonder what you miss the most, apart from the people and dogs of course. It would be easy to say it was the food and the car and the entertainment, but I think it goes beyond that. It’s the smells… I step out on my balcony here (when it’s warm enough) and I only smell the city – dust, fumes, noise (yes, I can smell noise)! At home I’d often wake up to smells of people cooking… rich, spicy aromas. Sometimes I’d wake up to the wonderful smell of rain. And when I enter my house, it’s the smell of food and dogs… And my room, just the right amount of perfume in the air… it was perfectly balanced. If I smoked, the balance was destroyed and I worked painstakingly to restore it. It never failed to bring a smile to my face whenever I entered my room and caught a whiff of that familiarity…. like an old friend. And my parents’ room, so comforting… And my Dad’s aftershave… every single day I’d smell it in the living room, on the phone and in the car. And strangely enough the smells change as the seasons change. Summer has such a distinctive smell… it reminds me of something musty and old. Christmas leaves the smell of wine and cake in the air. When I first got here I imagined singing “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams”. But now I will be home for Christmas and I can hardly wait.

Last night I had a strange dream… it was me arriving for the first time in a foreign country. However the trams were strangely elevated and you had to take an escalator to get to the tracks. Something or someone informed me it was San Francisco… There were strange people in the dream… people I once knew but didn’t seem to know anymore. There were strange happenings in the dream… things I can’t remember in the harsh daylight of reality, but I do know that everything happened on that strange elevated tram. I wonder if I even bought a ticket!

Saturday, 7 December 2002

Editorial Note: I remember now that I was very very drunk when I wrote this!

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My goodness, I can’t wait to see Holly’s adorable face and Chocolate’s adoring face!! I try so hard to be cosmopolitan and everything but it never really works… when you think about it! Let us be lovers – we’ll marry our fortunes together. It’s so strange sometimes, actually living with people! I am homeward bound and I can’t hardly believe it… everyone looks at being homeward bound as a bad thing. Sometimes it might as well have been the 70’s or 60’s in San Francisco… people are still the same. People are strange but they’re still a part of the 60’s and the 70’s and you don’t get much stranger than that!!

I mean, tonight I was watching Dawson’s Creek and I certainly didn’t have any part to play in any freaking creek – why is high school such an issue? It’s supposed to be the best years of your life but somehow or the other reality gets a grip and you have no choice but to follow the signs… Man, the days I live in are completely awesome.

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My life is flashing before my eyes… I didn’t have the high school years of Dawson’s Creek or the Wonder Year’s for that matter, but I still feel a part of something… strangely enough!!! I love you life… honestly!!

Tuesday, 8 April 2003

Sometimes I wonder about the things I write… Is it really normal for a 21 year old to have such a pessimistic outlook on life? And the constant reminiscing… isn’t that more in keeping with a 65 year old? Or have I already passed through the best years of my life? Life was a lazy race in the sun… How on earth did I get so jaded? There is one thing that’s improved over the years, and that’s my newly straightened hair… Well, not so new anymore but it still gives me such pleasure to look at it in the mirror that I’m convinced it’s going to be taken away from me.

My dreams haunt me terribly… Lately they’re very real and based on people in my life and sometimes I don’t like to wake up. And sometimes I wake up with a smile only to realise it was just a dream. Isn’t life cruel enough without giving us the option of fantasising other versions of it? Some days the lines between fantasy and reality are so blurred, I worry about myself!

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Its understandable why half the population in the world has experimented with drugs at some point in their lives… it’s the easiest form of escapism. Even now, just remembering it all has done enough for me. I am fine… I will be fine!

Friday, 25 April 2003

I think this is the first time I’ve woken up with the urge to write. It’s the dreams I tell you… I can’t escape them no matter how hard I try. I used to think myself lucky that I could actually remember my dreams every time I woke up, but now I wonder about that… The other urge I had this morning was to listen to ‘Wish You Were Here’… We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl… Have we found the same old fears? Wish you were here… Wish they were here. Maybe I should stop dwelling on all that is gone and focus more on what is to come! But, it just seems so bleak. Hmmmm, I wonder if I was so melancholy before I met Pink Floyd… I think I was… I think I was born this way. Maybe she’s born with it, maybe its Maybelline.

Editorial Note: That last line was an ad for Maybelline. I can’t remember if India had the same ad.

Seven years has gone so fast, wake me up when September ends

One final entry and then the birthday chapter can be closed for a year. September is really quite a crazy month with all the birthdays of people I know and it seems everywhere I go in blogworld, I am greeted with more birthday tales. And another friend from school is also turning 24 on the 30th so still one more September birthday party left for me!

So, the party was mad. I wish I could give you some highlights but I really don’t remember anything. Not in the ‘I was so wasted and can’t remember a thing’ way but it was all just a blur and there were so many people and conversations happening at the same time that by the end of the night I had no clue what had happened. I was just very drunk as was everyone else and I can chalk it up as another wild night to my ever-so-long list of wild nights. I did some quick mental math also (ok I lied, I had to use my fingers and also some pen and paper) and there were 26 people in total including my household and only 2 people didn’t drink (one was driving and the other is a teetotaller) and everyone brought shitloads of alcohol… and I mean, shitloads… and this was hard alcohol… whisky, bourbon, vodka, rum… no baby stuff for us… it was about 15 bottles in total… the next morning I looked and there was 1 bottle of Smirnoff left, half a bottle of Bacardi, half a bottle of Malibu and some dreadful UDL (disgusting vodka pre-mixes) cans, some of which have been there since last New Years. So basically 24 people polished off about 12 bottles of alcohol… that is so wrong and so right at the same time.

And speaking of alcohol, a couple of friends from work bought a whopping 1125ml bottle of Bacardi to bring to my party (because they are all aware of my rum obsession) and they hid it in the office and forgot to bring it along that night and now it is sitting here on my desk taunting me in its full alcoholic glory. I think I am going to put it back into hiding because it is frightening me a little.

One of my friends also did a quick drug run in between and brought us some stuff to smoke from his house. And we smoked it in the cutest little pipe… it was so small and shiny and cute.

All of the pictures are of drunk faces… I was too busy getting drunk to worry about blog-worthy photos. Anyway, I have blurred a couple for your viewing pleasure.

Here are some people taking vodka shots… I did not participate for the sake of my health and well-being



Here are the beautiful helium balloons that my friends from work got me. They are so bright and colourful and happy and I got immense pleasure from looking at them



Say Hello to Scooby Dooby Doo… the most popular guest at the party. One of my friends from work brought him along and I was rather concerned Scooby was going to poop all over the carpet and add to the general alcohol and food stains. But Scooby was very well-behaved and everyone lavished much attention on him and didn’t want him to leave. Poor little Scooby was originally a farm dog (he belonged to my friend’s husband, the farmer who gave me those shot glasses and liquor bottles) but he was never cut out to be a farm dog and I think the cows terrified him no end and he was basically very traumatised and they gave him to this guy G at work and he’s like this single, middle-aged guy and they basically love each other to death now and it was the start of a very beautiful relationship. So that’s the story of Scooby.



I received some nice presents from friends who came to the party also. Firstly my four work friends who sit around me at work wrote the most random, rambling convoluted tale about me and my dog Holly based on all the nonsense I’ve ever said to them over 1.5 years. I would share it with you, only you’d think they or me (or both) were on crack! It was very sweet, all the same. They also got me Lazy Shit from the Turd family. We got another friend Dumb Shit a while back and slowly we must build the whole family.

I also received:



a Beatles Abbey Road LP

a Beatles ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ DVD

a beautiful chain

a beautiful bracelet

a funky MNG top

a really cool lantern type thing with candle

some yummy Ferrero Rochers (which have been attacked already)

some flowers and a bottle of wine

Birthdays I tell you… how I love them!

And what a lovely surprise I received in the mail yesterday… this year, I only received ONE greeting card by post from my grandparents and am very surprised I didn’t get a few from my parents and sister. So anyway, yesterday, I received this beautiful handwritten letter from my favourite girls in the whole world, Rat and Sista T.



It is as beautiful as some of the stuff we made when we were 11 and discovered glitter pens and things for the first time – even the handwriting is the same. Isn’t it funny how their handwriting hasn’t changed all that much since we were 11 and yet here we are at 24 (and 23 for baby Sista T) and one is a successful blogger operating out of Madras and another is an expectant mother waiting for baby in Delhi and the third is a smoker looking to escape corporate life in Melbourne. How the world turns and pulls us along.

Ok, that was my philosophy for my 24th year. I will leave you now. Wake me up when November ends because that’s when the next love-attention-party-drugs-alcohol-presents fest of Christmas begins!!

Welcome To My Life

Sit back and relax folks… we have a hell of a lot to cover. I was tagged by The Lil’ Le Poutski and then Rat went and exposed her whole work area so I’ve decided to combine everything and expose it all.

Let’s begin with my bag… that storage device that I cant seem to get away from. I am a creature of habit and can’t be bothered moving all my stuff from bag to bag so I pretty much use the same bag for the working work and it’s an enormous pain in the ass to move stuff to my smaller bags on the weekends. Such trials, I tell you…



Anyway, the bag itself was one of the items one of my aunts bought me in May when I was in the US (as an aside, its great meeting up with aunts/grandparents who try to make up for years of no birthday and Christmas presents in two weeks). I really like the bag and the design reminds me of decorative icing on a cake.

In my bag, I carry (sounds like one of those memory games)…

A cell phone carry case that my Mom brought me from India. I keep my cell phone in it while its in the bag so it doesn’t get scratched. I don’t care that much about my cell phone, but have to use the cell phone carry case no?

My camera in its carry case. Damn, why does everything have a freaking case? I bought a really cool 7.2 mega pixel Sony Cybershot in May and I carry it with me everyday for no real reason. Digital cameras are not that bad, I guess. I stuck on to my 10 year old film camera for so long because nothing beats holding photos in your hand. So now I’ll just spend shitloads of money on printing my digital ones.

One Nine West wallet

The book I am currently reading because otherwise I would go mad with boredom on my 10 minutes to and from work on the tram. Its Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Its really quite funny and magical and I am enjoying it immensely – not as dark and intense as his other ones.

One pack of Wrigley’s Wild Berry Extra drops. Did you know that after eating, the pH level in your mouth drops considerably and allows cavity causing bacteria to attack? Wrigley’s Extra drops helps to restore the pH balance in your mouth so you can have strong teeth and healthy gums (fyi – straight from the pack). They are really yum and I am quite addicted!

My way cool CK sunnies (and their case;)) which S bought me last December. Before that I had a pair of Ray Bans for about 3 years and they were horribly disfigured towards the end.

Free sample of some vague perfume that I keep for fun

Lipstick and eye pencil for touch ups that I never touch up

Parker pen

One work security pass

One apartment building security pass (what a secure nation I live in)

House keys (2 nos., I told you they were dead serious about this security stuff) and a spare work key if the security pass doesn’t work for whatever absurd reason

Pack of tissues and some vague medicine

Some earrings that I’ve forgotten to take out of the bag at some point

A picture of Jesus Christ with a prayer on the back. I have one of these in every single bag I own because they’re always distributing them in front of Church or the railway station and I feel very bad to throw them away.

One electronic key that has my gym program on it, but more on new gym and peripherals later.

One compact little umbrella (in matching case) that came with the bag and for that I am very grateful because my other umbrella is this big-ass-cover-5-people kind of BMW Williams umbrella that S bought me at Formula 1 time last year when I loooved BMW Williams for Montoya and Ralf. This year I am not supporting any team, its been more of an anti-Ferrari thing and its working also. But more on Formula 1 at the end of the season.

And that concludes the tour of my beautiful earth-toned cavernous bag. Moving on to my wallet…



I have a grand total of $37 and 70 cents. Normally I only have 70 cents but for some reason I’m carrying quite a bit of liquid cash this week. Did you know that Australian notes are plastic and can’t really be torn unless you are fully determined to tear them? And yes, that is England’s Queen Elizabeth on the $5 note… Australia might as well still be a colony of England… we have a public holiday for Her Highness’s birthday and all (not that I’m complaining).

3 ANZ ATM cards… I’m only meant to have 2 and another is in the mail… the bank has been totally screwing with my life for the past month or so.

Artfully covering the ATM cards is my Sub Club Appreciation card. Two more stickers and I get a FREE 12 inch sub from Subway – the Fresh Food People. How fucking cool am I?

My National Bank credit card (which I never use) and my Virgin credit card (which I use too much).

Artfully covering the credit cards is my bloody expensive monthly Metcard.

Some other miscellaneous cards are my Indian driver’s licence which is actually my only form of ID since I don’t carry my passport around the place. I really need to get an Australian one.

We also have my 2003 student card which I am unable to let go of, my government sponsored Medicare health insurance card, a Rent Card if I wanted to pay my rent at the post office, a brand spanking new Port Phillip library card (what was I thinking spending hundreds of dollars on books every couple of months), and an Essential Beauty Club card which makes me an exclusive member of the place I get my eyebrows done at and quite frankly I had forgotten I even had such a card till I looked at it yesterday.

A Bar Secrets card of a bar called Cherry. Bar Secrets is those pack of card type things with a different bar on each card and the bloody things cannot be used as playing cards which I find slightly ridiculous. Anyway, this was in my wallet for a long time because one drunken night I think we meant to go here but eventually didn’t.

Some miscellaneous business cards and notes on my bank a/c details, tax file no., etc.

One bill (I don’t keep receipts unless there is a chance I might need to return something) and one company Cab charge. Again I had forgotten I had this cab charge, so one company sponsored ride home coming up.

One American dollar bill which I keep for sentimental reasons. I only started using this wallet a few months ago and before that I was using a wallet sent by my grandmother a few years ago and she sent the $1 bill in it and I’m still holding on to it.

And finally, a couple of photographs… my family portrait taken six years ago… this is the first thing I see when I open it and if I change wallets, my new one will also need a space for me to keep this photo. Behind the family one, I have two passport photos of S and one of Rat (yes, she’s the red one). When I left India, I asked people to give me their passport pix so I could keep in my wallet and I think she was the only one who had one.

So that’s that. Now a quick view of what I see as soon as I open my eyes every morning…



My bookcase is a total mess and slightly overflowing and I’ve resorted to piling them up beside my bed. I really need a new one.

My slightly large perfume collection – I was obsessed with perfume some years ago and collected them like mad.

My beautiful ancient TV that keeps me entertained when I’m too lazy to sit outside. Please do not miss the measures we’ve resorted to with the equally ancient and broken antenna. Neighbours is currently playing on TV if anyone cares.

My trusty heater that is never far from my side and my trusty alarm clock that never gives me (or anyone else who lives with me) a moment of peace in the mornings.

The Ferrari flag hanging on the wall is NOT mine. I don’t know why I tolerate it.

I like to surround myself with photographs of the people (and dogs) I love and there are quite a few more in other parts of the room/house.

And finally, my space at work… the place I spend most of my waking hours at… hours that would be infinitely more pleasurable spent sleeping, reading or smoking up…



My LCD monitor with my beloved dogs as the wallpaper. Well, dear Holly is no more of course but dear Chocolate is still alive and kicking. I have a post-it note with my name stuck to my monitor because my dear friend M gets kicks out of writing our names beautifully on post-it notes.

Precariously sitting on the top of my monitor is a family of Russian dolls. These are those cool dolls that fit inside the other – so you open the father and pop the mother in and you should’ve already popped all the kids inside the mother. I get immense amounts of amusement from these Russian dolls that I stole from my friend Sh who sits across from me. Also sitting there is a taxi. Everyone in the company got a different type of Matchbox car at some ‘Where are we going as a company’ type meeting. I can’t really remember what the car signified so you can tell I am a highly inspired employee.

You can also see my (well ok, the company’s) IBM T-41 laptop in its my docking station and my (these are really mine) TDK headphones that I listen to my beloved iTunes with, and my (the company’s again) cool Cisco Voice over IP phone.

My cell phone (Nokia 6610i) sits on an ugly dolphin cell phone stand that my friend Sh stole from some Christmas hamper and gave to me.

Many folders and papers and files to make it seem I work very hard and various mugs and stationery items and tissue paper.

Finally, just behind the Cisco phone, you can see a cheery Christmas stuffed dog that Sh gave me as a Christmas present last year. On that same day, we had our department Christmas party and went on this boat cruise and had the traditional Kris Kringle exchange and my Kris Kringle also gave me an identical cheery Christmas stuffed dog and so this second dog got a bit high on the boat cruise and accompanied us to a pub after the cruise and was pictured taking sips of people’s beer. So basically we decided they were twins and while Sober works hard all day in the office, Shitfaced leads a party life in my house (they were named after a set of shot glasses I have… the four stages of drinking… Sober, Drunk, Pissed and Shitfaced)!

With those pearls of wisdom I will leave you. This was really fun by the way and I’m sorry it was so long… there’s just so much to tell!