back up blog

I've got the worst PMS in this history of the universe. Seriously- I've not allowed myself to leave the apartment all day because if the guy serving me my coffee or the girl asking for directions were to look me directly in the eye I would have ripped off their heads, shit down their necks, and then asked them if they wanted to come back for seconds. Don't get me wrong- I hate it when girls use their period as an excuse for anything. There was always that one girl in high school gym class sat at the edge of the netball court because her mum was silly enough to write her a note for excused absence because Tamika's iron levels are currently running low and thus she is particularly fatigued at this time. Any strenuous activity might lead to injury so it is in her best interests to act as an observer in today's class. And to Tamika's mama I say, SHE WASN'T FATIGUED ENOUGH TO RESIST MAKING OUT WITH EDWARD BEECHAM BEHIND THE CURTAINS IN MRS FULLER'S ENGLISH LA...

I am one of those irritating people with a special gap year story. It is an offense punishable by social leprosy, I know, but let's face it. I bummed about for long enough. I deserve to have at least a few dinner party anecdotes even if I do risk becoming the girl who interrupts you every other sentence to say, " Really? Gosh, that reminds me of this time that I was in the orphanage in southern India... "  At the end of the day I need something to use whenever I end up chatting to some boring physiotherapist from Bangor for the first course. When she acts like a day-trip to Glasgow makes her freaking Leo DiCaprio in The Beach I can get all LISTEN LADY. YOU HAVEN'T HAD AN ADVENTURE UNTIL YOU HAVE ACCIDENTALLY HAD A GOAT POOP IN YOUR MOUTH. OKAY? I pretty much tell it the same way, too, probably every time I utter the words, " Gosh, that reminds me so much of the time I was in Sri Lanka... " And I'm not going to lie. It has gotten me to second base on at...

Look. I didn't want to say anything, but there was a Thing. A Thing which for lack of a better term will be henceforth known as The Thing That Wasn't Really A Thing. It is The Thing That Wasn't Really A Thing because we might have hung out for the exact duration that I had out a copy of Bukowski's The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills at the library . Seriously. He seduced me with somebody else's poetry and by the time the due date was up it had fizzled into an overdue fine. The bastard cost me five bucks. I mentioned it to Mama over the webcam. "I kicked him to the curb, Mama," I said. "It wasn't meant to be." "I hope you have six others lined up then," she replied, to which I say INTERNET. DO YOU SEE WHERE I GET IT FROM? Papa yelled through to the family study to say, "I hope you were gracious about it!" I knew he had been listening in. Two days ago my British friend happened to be over whilst Mama had given ...

"Look," I said. "I'm all for romance and marriage and coupledom but I just don't think it is right that women have to claim their marital status to the world when men don't. It doesn't make sense to me." My three friends stopped shovelling salad into their mouths and looked at me. "But it is romantic," said one. "It's a beautiful gesture," said another. "You'll change your mind by the time you're ready to get married," said the third. Nu-uh, you deluded fools , I thought to myself. No way .  Look. I get mad when my mail is addressed to  Miss  Laura Williams instead of  Ms  because I believe that defining my marital status in a way that men don't have to is outdated and imbalanced .   Mrs actually means 'wife of' , as in ' not her own person, has to ask a man's permission to go out with the girls, just waiting to have babies so that this sham of a faux career can be put to an end '. Ro...

"David? David Jones?" the woman asked loudly as she read from her list of names. "That's me," the guy at the back replied. The woman looks up. "Hi!" she said. "Do you prefer David or Dave?" The guy looked at her. "Chris, please," he said, totally pan-faced. The next time somebody asks me which name I prefer to go by I am so going to reply Princess Tiamii of Graceland the Third.

Mama came on the webcam, looking all kinds of solemn. "Look, Laura. We got our copy of TALLULAH! today..." she said. "Ooooh! That was fast!" I enthused, all smiley and happy and positive. Mama had been so excited to see what I had been working on, and she had enjoyed the bits I had read out to her over the webcam last week. I dropped my smile, though, when I realised Mama was neither smiley nor happy nor positive back. "Laura," she said, and I thought to myself STOP SAYING MY NAME LIKE THAT. "It's very rude." "Rude?" I said, shocked. Well. Okay. Maybe not shocked. But I did warn her. "Yes Laura. Rude. I don't think I should show your father this... It's a bit of blue for the dads, but maybe not for this dad." "Oh," I said. I had mentioned that perhaps Papa should let sleeping lions lie. Lay. Whatever the saying is. I do say the words frigging off at one point, that much is true. "Well, you ordered a...

Pickle, the family rabbit, has died. I found out because Mama emailed me about it. We're going to bury him in the garden tonight, next to Eric, she said. ERIC DIED TOO? I replied. Eric is my auntie's rabbit. She lives across the road from Mama and they used to have rabbit play-dates. Eric died last month, I was told. And then the gravity of Mama's words hit me. They were going to bury my beautiful little lion-haired baby in the ground with Verbose Auntie's overweight, smelly, and not to mention AMOROUS beast of a pet. They were going to be together for all eternity. Mama , I implored back, those rabbits cannot spend the rest of forever together.... Eric was a rapist.  And it's true. We'd all been in the garden when, as Verbose Auntie put it, Eric's lipstick came out of the tube. Poor Pickle didn't stand a chance. There was rabbit-on-rabbit penetration, and we all sat by and watched it happen on that sunny afternoon. Hell. We might even have enjoyed it. G...

Great, I thought. A whole keg of beer. Next Monday! The invitation said. Co me to the apartment block meeting, get program credit plus... FREE ROOT BEER! ROOT BEER? Piss off. That isn't the kind of apartment block I want to live in.

I flopped down dramatically into the plastic chair by her table. "And how can we help look after you today?" a nurse in a Disney uniform asked me, all sparkles and sunshine. I had just spent ten minutes in a doctor's waiting room staring at titles of leaflets like, BACTERIAL VAGINOSIS: A GUIDE, BARTHOLIN'S CYST AND YOU, and GET GONORRHEA GONE. I felt screaming at her, make it stop burning when I pee! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!  because those leaflets can make a bitch PARANOID AS HELL. On entering the surgery for a mere facial irritation I was convinced that even by breathing the air of the place I was going to die from something horribly sore and a bit itchy on my DOWN THERES, and it would possibly be passed on from sharing this very seat with somebody sick. I told myself over and over again, one cannot catch herpes from a chair, one cannot catch herpes from a chair... I was desperate to get away from the bad words with awful (inflamed) connotations and nervous that despit...

So yeah- this is my bum. It is also my profile picture on my Facebook account. It irritates my mother and my Nanna, who both think that my face is more pleasing to the eye than my leopard-print ensconced bottom is, but quite frankly I beg to differ.  When you can see the label that says 'U.K. size REALLY FUCKING BIG, YOU FAT COW! LAY OFF THE CHOCOLATE FROSTING!' what isn't to love? Am I right? It was brought to my attention this week that a very distant cousin of mine had a friend who had thought to comment on my picture. (SIDENOTE: I love when a very distant something adds you as a friend on Facebook. There is that initial ' Hi! I bet you don't remember me but... ' introduction and then one has to acknowledge said reason for not remembering the person and then you accept the friendship request and then never correspond again. Ever. The end.) So anyway, somebody had written on my cousin's wall, " Hi! We've not seen each other in twenty years but as ...