This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

This is why we can't have nice things

Let me just clarify.

By 'We' I mean me. And by 'nice things' I mean nutella.

Yes, like a recovering alcoholic I have been forced to make an executive decision about this spread made from angel diarrhoea. Because I cannot stop at just a little bit, I am not allowed to have ANY. EVER AGAIN.

EVER

EVER

EVER

EVER

It's the latest in a relatively new list I have made for myself. A list aptly titled:

 'Things I need to stop doing if I want to live'

The list includes:

- Stop shoving the Q tips so far into my ear.

You all do it too! I know you do! But did you know that you're not meant to put them anywhere NEAR your ear canal? My soon-to-be doctor friend Laura, informed me once that, as an inept, I should never attempt to put anything smaller than my elbow in my ear. The problem here is that it is so damn... satisfying. Sticking the little white stick in, swivelling it around gently inside. Feeling the slight resistance. “THAT'S YOU EAR WAX! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! I CAN HEAR YOU”. And then you take it out and admire your efforts. It's a strange mix of disgust and pride. I mean, it looks gross. But you (or at least I) always have the little thought of like...I made this. This is mine.

Almost like a baby.

- Stop anticipating the pedestrian walk light at busy city intersections

Ah traffic lights. The great equaliser.

I practised at the small ones first, until I thought I'd honed my skills. Soon I was skipping merrily across busy intersections in the city, thinking to the other pedestrians, Oh you silly fools! Don't you know it takes 3 seconds after the lights turn red for the little green man to awaken and glint as us? That's 3 seconds of your LIVES you will never get back.

And then the little green man would flash and I'd feel like the mother trucking pied piper as they all trooped after me, wishing they had my superior road crossing intuition.

I should probably stop doing this. Just in case one day I get it wrong

- Stop driving aroud without my P-plates.

When I first got my P's I was ecstatic. I grabbed a handful of them at the RTA and displayed them proudly. Nearly 2 years on and I am almost at the end of my provisional license years. Whether it be weather, smartass vandals, breakage or simply lost in the vortext which is the open road, somehow I have lost all my p-plates. And I'll be damned if I have to go pick some more up just before I get my full license.

I probably should though. I'll be pulled for an RBT at some point, be fined so hard that I'll be kicked out of home and forced to live on the strets. And die. Probably

The list is extensive. It also includes:

• Just buy a bus ticket at the 7/11 in Sydney like I'm supposed to, rather than consistently walking up to the bus drivers and asking for a ride. One day one of them will snap. And I mean in a serial killer way, not in a chariatable way.

• I must get over the idea that now I have brown knee high boots. Wearing them does not mean I have now automatically become a cowboy, and I may not take justice into my own hands wherever I see fit. Someone is going to seriously kick my ass one day

• Stop rolling my eyes whenever I heard my lecturer talk about 'tinkling glockenspiels'. I'm am paying for this course so it MUST be important dammit!
  
  
• Stop making eye contact with homeless people and not following through with giving them money
  
  
• stop thinking that I can take the stairs at uni. If I had actually trained for Tough Mudder as often as I've thought about training for it, I'd be fit enough to do this. But I haven't. SO I cannot.

I am telling you all this readers, you can can help keep me accountable. Many of the things on this list go against my most basic and primitive instinct and I'll need all the support I can get.

Songs to close your eyes to

Some times all you need is a dark room and a good, slow playlist.

Here you go.

WTF August

The beginning of this post:

Words I can never spell the first time correctly.

Diarrhoea.


There are others of course, but I realised this one when I was beginning my post below...

The REAL beginning of this post:

WTF August. Just be over already.

I don't know what it's been with this month. But seriously. Everyone seems to be having a breakdown, and I'm sure it's got nothing to do with private and personal life issues, but has something to do with the fact that this month. August 2012, is cursed.

Long term relationships breaking down left, right and centre, people dying, cats fighting, trains breaking down, depression, parents leaving to go to Russia, weight gain, diarrhoea (ey! Ey!) I'm convinced that my room is the exit to a worm hole which, on the other end, some hephalump is throwing clothes and books and general shit down, so no matter how much I clean, there is always not an ounce of floor space in my room for my feet to enjoy.

Seriously August. What are you trying to do to me?

A poetic interlude:

Here I have some advice

though I know you'll think twice

stick your tongue out and probably snigger.

But the moment you stop acting like such a dick

you'll find it will probably grow bigger

Back to the blog:

I've found myself having to be not only my own, but about 4 other people's therapist this month and so as a tribute to that time and energy, I'd like to immortalise some of the advice I have given myself and my patients. So that next time an August decides to descend on me and my friends, we can just head to this post and save ourselves a lot of time.

1. You are going to be okay. There will be more times in your life that you are happy and fulfilled than you've been sad right now.

2. Have you had any nutella yet?

3. Why do you still have coldplay on your itunes? Delete that shit. Also, Ed Sheeran and Adele. They're banished y'hear me? Banished.

4. Have you been bush dancing yet? If not. Why not.

5. Drink lots of tea. It is warm and soothing, and make you happy. But not too much dandelion tea. because that shit is a laxative.

So there you go. Elyse's top 5 tips for surviving a black month. Tried and tested remedies. You're all welcome. Just keep telling all the people you love that you love them (in a non creepy, stalker-ish way) and things will end up okay in the end.

Dear Cat

Dear Cat.

It's cold in this house and I have body heat you'd like to steal. But in the process of being a selfish, warmth grubbing thief, you actually turn into a hot waterbottle. Cat. You are a wizard.

Dear Cat.

When you're hungry you meow incessantly. In my ear. At 4am and 8am.
What you don't know is that I rely on you to wake me for both my witching hour bathroom dash, and my mid morning uni scramble.

Dear Cat.

You think you're pressuring me into getting up by walking up and down my back with your claws out, but really, its acupuncture. And I enjoy it. Kinda.

Dear Cat.

You were right. I did need comforting. But by sitting right on my bladder you have created a more desperate need, and for that I resent you.

Dear Cat.

My feet are wide and cold, but you are fat. In fact, tonight, you're just about the most perfect size you've ever been.

Walk it off

Sometimes people leave your life.
It makes it harder when there is no real good reason for it. Or reason you can understand.
It hurts when someone dies. But more so when they're dead because you being alive wasn't enough for them to keep going. When someone deliberately chooses to leave your life, it hurts more then when they didn't have a choice in it.
At least. Thats what I think anyway.
And I'm not really sure that there's a solution to the sadness. You just have to try to make space in your life for MORE good and beautiful things. And acknowledge them, and celebrate them... and just keep reminding yourself that, it's not your fault. Sometimes people are just the way they are. And nothing you could have ever done, ever could have changed that.

Sometimes people make decisions, both consciously, and subconsciously, to leave you. And I guess you sometimes have to just take it on the shoulders and add it to the book, the story you're going to share with your grandchildren some day. All this is just another chapter to your story.

Because in the end, you can't control other people. Not matter how much you try or might want to. You can only control yourself and your future, and your actions. You're only your own author.

My rapidly approaching death.

Some people fear death. Most actively avoid it.

I on the other hand, have paid $100 to die. In a horrible, public way.

Tough Mudder.

A 20km obstacle course/death run designed by the British SAS. Pretty much to kill you. If running though mud, ice cold water and jumping walls doesn't sound bad enough for you, rest assured. There is fire and electricity involved as well.

So... when I signed up in February I was like. YUP. PLEEEEEEENTY of time to get fit! What I forgot to take into account was that I was going to be visiting Serbia where the culture is like

And so... I find myself less than 2 months out, and looking more like this

than the sculpted Elyse I had in mind...

So... the only reasonable expectation for me? 

Death