What to do when the Cray at the Christmas table is you.

Dear Lacksadaisy,

This Christmas is the first time I've ever been responsible for hosting the family lunch. I've always thought my mum was prone to hysterics around this time of year, but as the day approaches I find myself staying awake at night thinking about fairy lights and menus and I'm beginning to know how she feels. How do you stay sane at Christmas?

Lilly.

Dear Lil,

I understand Christmas hysteria far more than I understand Circulatory Precursory Physics. Probably because there is no such thing, which is surprising, because it sounds like it should be a thing and I think I just solved the issue of what came before 'nothing', welcome all of Physics!

As I write this I am simultaneously downloading and watching “Yogi Bears All Star Comedy Christmas Caper”, “Love Actually”, “Sleepless in Seattle”, “While you were sleeping”, “Sleeping in Love”, “Christmas Stalkers” and “I love you in a Stalky Way”. Only two of those were made up, but my point is that you are not alone, there's always someone stalking you on Facebook and also Christmas has a solid tradition of bringing out the craze.

My work life has been pretty festy of late, we even had a “decorate your door” competition. Well I say “competition” lightly. What I should have said was: “A gladiatorial style “craft to the death”. CRAFT TO THE FUCKING CHRISTMAS DEEEEEATH!!” We are performers, and thus tend to harbour an unsubtle competitive streak. It was as if our entire workplace became a Christmas South Korea and I was Christmas North Korea. I took extra biscuits from the communal area to stock pile and hoard because I thought if I could starve my co-workers of calories they'll be too weak to create christmas magic and foster any joy or hope. I purposely didn't craft my Christmas door until the very last minute for copyright protection and I wanted my entire dressing room to take a blood oath not to reveal the door plan. They wouldn't, which I think reveals peoples true colours. My neighbor door-crafter crafted a door of festive reindeer pictures, featuring characters from the show. 

This person is obviously a craft over-achiever and needed to be taken down. 

 I thought: Great! Now I've got to kill a reindeer and pin it to my door. The vegetarians will be upset, I'll be upset and the deer will be upset. But I did it and let me tell you reindeer blood becomes surprisingly appetising when you only get one drink token at the christmas party. It's also highly nutritious and iron dense, so, you're welcome everybody who partook. Anyways, the reindeer was deemed “offensive”, so I stayed up all night crafting paper stars instead. Pre- Christmas day I thought this was completely rational behaviour, but now, post Christmas, I'm not sure of anything anymore. However I am sure that early Christians would have preferred the venison. They would be all: “We can't eat paper stars, bring back the venison!! These are lean times and we were just preparing for a reindeer feast!! We haven't eaten in ages!! Selfish!”

Here's a picture of inedible paper stars. I think they look quite pretty and would congratulate myself if they weren't indicative of a deeper mental problem. 

Another interesting happening was this. In a fit of christmas hysteria at a company meeting I actually said these words: “I'd like to recite a Christmas poem I wrote”.

Um. The fuck?!

Who said that?! It certainly wasn't me. I'm pretty sure in a former life I must have threatened a Christmas elf and then he died of natural causes and then on his elven death bed he cursed me to a life of Christmas hysteria. One day I'll apply for a loan at a bank and they'll look at my records and say: “I'm sorry madam, but in 2013 you actually recited a Christmas poem to your co-workers..that you wrote and I see here that it was unprompted, to people you work with, to your co-workers....you're obviously unstable”.

I can't take back that moment in time, but I can drug my co-workers and send them to a Chinese neuro reprogramming facility that I found on the internet. 

I've decided that the only way to normalise reading a poem to your co-workers at Christmas is simply to recite a poem at every momentous occasion. New Years: I'd like to read a poem I wrote. It's my birthday: I'd like to read a poem. Someone gets sick: I've written a poem. So you see, eventually it becomes normal and they'll begin to wonder why they're not constantly reciting poems.

There's also the tricky issue of the presents. At Christmas I tend to adopt a surprisingly Biblical attitude to buying Christmas presents and I'm not talking about the charitable do-goodery parts, I'm talking Eye for an Eye Lilly, eye for an eye.

As Gandhi once said on my google image search:

“An eye for an eye will make the whole world Pirates” and that it does.

If someone buys me a present I like to rush out like a pirate-spy and buy them a present of equal monetary value. If I can't immediately find a present of equal monetary value then I'll panic and buy them several small gifts to make up the sum. For example, someone bought me a nice, fancy candle, like the ones that you get at day spas (which are different to normal spas because they have the “day” in  the title.) so I bought them 42 litres of milk.

Someone printed out a photo of us together and put it in a nice frame. I couldn't find a photo of us to print, so I gave them a lock of my hair. It's fine.

Anyway, my point is, Lil, perhaps you should lie back and embrace the shit out of Crazy-as-shit- Christmas. It seems everyone else has, including people as wise as a three wise man/men...me.

Seriously though, Merry Christmas and peace on earth to everyone regardless of their beliefs (or if you're like me “disbeliefs”), whether I like you, love you or whether you have the ability to appreciate reindeers and even those who think Global warming is a conspiracy. Peace and prosperity especially to the reindeers, who I didn't actually slaughter since only a little bit of this blog is ever true...the bit about Physics is true and the Christmas poem, unfortunately, is true; but if “Love Actually” has taught me anything it's that making an arse out of yourself will mean you get to pash someone you fancy at Christmas, so get to it, Love Actually Christmas movie and they wouldn't make that shit up. 

x

Train Spotting and the Self Obsessed Furby.

I think Blogs are a platform for the self indulgent to stand on the table during a monkey fight and yell: “Listen to meeeeeee”, while the smart people sit in the corner, in the shade, drinking intelligent drinks, reading the financial review and chatting about evolution and the descent of man into chaos. My blog is no different from the monkey yellers. It is a platform for me to pretend to be funny and wise, without having to listen to your response. Here I am pretending to understand it all. Well I don't understand it all, but that doesn't stop me dishing out trough loads of advice for sometimes fictional quandaries/ conundrums. (It keeps me entertained!) My happy “Danny Katz wannabe”, yet tiny advice blog might give you the impression I am not stymied by fear, plagued by neurosis and interested in shiny, superficial obsessions. Wrongopongodrongo.

Currently rating high on my fairly extensive worry list (not in order of importance):

I have given a vast amount of thought to buying a swimsuit that doesn't make me look too much like a seal (aka shark dinner), so I buy bathers that make me look like a tropical fish, or a pasty and confusing extra in an 80's cigarette commercial so that I can avoid getting chomped by a shark. I spend a lot of time worrying about myself, my success, my happiness, my wrinkles, my cellulite and then finally my loved ones and have vivid visions of getting hit by a bus and sometimes wonder how it would feel, I also have an unnatural fear of worms in strawberries and the descent of man into madness, oh and I worry about being painfully lonely. I like to read magazines a fair bit (for the pictures, not the articles) and wish I had loads, loads more money. So what is my god damn point?!!! Well recently a friend of mine showed me a little perspective, so I'd like to use this monkey-yelling-table-platform to share what I have learnt.

LIFE: If you're lucky enough to survive the birth canal you'll come into this world firstly asking why placenta tastes so yummy, but looks so gross, and then you'll reach your arms up to the great and almighty God of halogen hospital lamps and question “Why-why? Cry-cry!”. (It's an annoying rhyme.)

Here is a picture of a Furby cupcake to represent new life. Look at his pleading little hands, he's so vulnerable and confused. 

The question of your existential purpose, life, the cosmos and it's meaning may cross your mind a few more times during your menial existence, mostly you'll be more concerned with:

• Food
• Hugs and hand holding
• Toys and bed jumping

Then someone might introduce you to a god, but you're still young enough and wise enough to realise that this god concept is less important than your toy collection and food.

Then a bit later on, if you're lucky, you'll be concerned with sex/boys/girls and bed jumping (the toys will still feature)

Then you'll ask yourself why people take so many selfies and put them on facebook

(insert picture of a terribly awful facebook selfie)

Other things that may concern you:

• sun burn
• buy a cat and wish it was a puppy
• step on a slug
• jealousy
• war
• pedophiles
• see a doctor about a weird mole/rash/ itch
• loose a lot of money
• make more money than you dreamed of as a kid and yet you don't use your riches to buy truck loads of lollies (this was the wrong choice by the way).

You might listen to Simon and Garfunkel and wish you were in New York at their concert in Central Park in the 80's, mostly because it was free and you'd get to tell people “I was there” and that would definitely help give your life meaning, especially if facebook was invented then and you could post “Jst hang w Paul & Art in the Park, wat the fck w the q for the toilet?”.

Then you might get really lucky and find somebody to love (cue “Queen” medley), then you have babies who also pray to the god of halogen lamps and it gives your life meaning. If your life was a movie it would be called “YOU: GREAT CREATOR OF LIFE. BAM!” You have things sorted, sigh.

When you finally forget about how you felt in that magic moment when you created life once again you return to your toys and maybe to the question of “Why?” Ah, the endless cycle of questioning “Why, why, why!”

Then, if you're lucky enough to get old enough and to that point where you're very busy with your search you wake up one day and realise your eyes have gone, the balls are still there, but they function at 50% and you ignored it for a long time. Shit. It will make you super grumpy and cantankerous.

Furby has taken a turn for the worse. In this picture he still has his eyes, but he looks so sad so I thought I'd use it. 

And then, if you're lucky enough to get old and to that point you realise you can't taste the same as you used to. You'll add salt to everything, but not pepper, until everything taste like a saline rinse on your gammy gums and you'll rinse you futuristic contacts in your porridge by accident and then you'll get fucking grumpy.

And then, if you're lucky enough to get old and to that point, you might not be able to do a pooh without someone lending you a giant nappy and you'll feel like you're insides no longer belong to you. Crap (literally).

Furby is up shit creek. 

And then, if you're lucky enough to get old enough and to get to that point, you'll need someone else to help you breath and some young doctor whipper snapper will be nice, they'll be friendly, but they'll never truly understand what it feels like to be half alive....and then, maybe then you'll realise that life is meaningful. Life is precious and it's a gift not to be taken for granted and worry is a tragic waste of time. Then you might crack the shits because you lost old people scrabble.

However if you find out the meaning of life earlier than the rest of us you might try and spread the word. You might post a status on facebook saying: “If you can eat, swallow, walk and breath for yourself be grateful please”. People might listen, they might not, but you'd really want them to because you know. You've learnt what it all means. You've been to the place where you no longer ask, you no longer whinge about the weather, or not having enough of everything, or a fancy this, or facebook, or arse-monkeys, but you're simply grateful to be alive and you're going to do all you can to enjoy the fuck out of life while its still given to you. You might go to a grave yard and leap off all of the tomb stones, because you can.

I haven't figured out the meaning of life, but I would like to take a tip from a friend, who generously tried to teach it to me. We were going to meet in Egypt for some Egyptian fish and chips, but ran out of time.  I reckon he found the greater meaning in life, If he were here I think he might say we should be happy- we get to breath, we get to sing, we get to eat cake. He may also swear a bit and talk about being fucking melodramatic.  Whatever he'd really say I'm pretty sure he figured it all out and I promise not to take his lesson for granted.

Thanks Nick, you Bell-end. I wish you didn't have to be so smart.

A step by step guide to achieving celebrity-like popularity.

Dear Lacksadaisy,

Last night I went to a work party and felt invisible. There were some amazingly beautiful women there and I just stood in the corner alone, feeling like a walrus. How do I become more popular? I know you'll help me.

Nancy.

Dear Nancy, 

Don't panic. Relax and allow me to talk you through the easy and achievable steps to achieving IT girl status and immense popularity. Don't let primary school teachers fool you, there is nothing more important in life than being the most popular, or a celebrity. If possible we would all become celebrities, but then the celebrities would be the people that aren't celebrities and we'd live in an inverted world where the Bold and the Beautiful would be made up of Mathematicians chatting about Algorithms and Axioms and Maple Syrup. Oh sweet Jesus, maple syrup. (Maths is in everything Nancy).

The work party is a ruthless beast and it can leave you feeling like a lonely fisherman made of carrot in a sea of watermelon garnishes...

Simply follow these steps on becoming popular like a celebrity human and then "friend" me on facebook because I could use your numbers and friend list. 

1. Celebrities often marry funny looking people to make themselves look more attractive. Find a toothless guy and take him as your date to the next work function, stand next to him and laugh raucously at his jokes about gum disease and the government. Maybe even pash him a little, or perhaps lightly squeeze Toothless Barry's left buttock cheek all evening. People will then know you are a sexual animal and find you intriguing and magnetic.

2. Charity work. Kim Kardashian does charity work. She did a ride along with a police car to a drug bust. I bet she also went so far as to test the drugs. She has a strong sense of civic duty and this is an important thing to portray to your public. Make sure party guests know about your charity work. Maybe you could spring a drug bust on them at the party. They will find it hard not to be impressed.

3. Get shiny hair. Miranda Kerr has shiny hair. Two words: fish oil. I like to keep a bag of tiny gold fish on hand. Just before you reach the gala function, take out one of your little goldies and rub vigorously through your hair. I like to keep the used fish as a fetching hair clip for the function.

4. Always make an entrance. When the Asian celebrity who I didn't know arrived at Adelaide airport, she arrived with a cavalcade. There were 26 motorbikes, 2 hummers and a team of guys wearing a uniform of massive pectoral muscles AND she has sun glasses with spikes on them so that all she could see were spikes. This taught me a valuable lesson: vision impairment is cool. Get your own team of minders. I take my Nan because of her canny street smarts and vision impairment, my bag of goldfish and maybe some bit of stuff from the hotel lobby that gave me a wink-wink because my hair is so shiny and I obviously smell of the ocean, he can come too.

5. Learn how to smile so that your teeth look good, your face doesn't wrinkle and your eyes are dead inside. This is probably the most important. If you smile with a genuine happy smile you'll look like an idiot and probably wrinkly. No one smiles like this anymore, well maybe just people that are photographed without their knowing and the poor people from the third world who don't understand the serious importance of the selfie.

5. Image is everything so hire a publicist. When they ask you what they are meant to publicise you yell “I am a celebrity!” at them and then they'll publicise the way you achieved your shiny hair, your dating profile and your charity work and, obviously, millions will be enthralled and you'll get to go on Ellen. 

Ta da!!!! You're welcome...again. 

How to be a Nancy- Girl.

Dear Lacksy,

In response to your previous letter: 

I think you are being a bit sensitive. Sensy. A bit of a flower. Wo-man up woman! Put on your marmalade overalls and sharpie on some chest hair. It's time you learnt the harsh realities of life and gave birth to a six pack of beer. It's time you learnt some lessons from my new friend Nancy. 

Last night I put on my hardcore- hatty- hat and went to the local pub in Nerandurra. It was called “Top Pub” and to be fair, it was rather tops.

 Top Pub has all the elements necessary to make it tops. Locals, neon signs, 90's trance music, unsubtle use of faux wood veneer, male strippers and toothless guys who slur their words and rig the meat raffle. The end of the bar was propped up by an 86 year old named “Nancy”. Nancy is a bit of a legend. She nursed her stubby of VB for longer than the Three Hundred and Thirty Five years war, and when she stands up straight she comes up to the mighty boobs of the hefty, yet friendly bar lady who fetched me my urban organic cold pressed ladies cider. Nancy is a fire cracker. Nancy doesn't care about things. Nancy couldn't give a bats balls about cirrhosis of the liver, eating organic sausages and wants her cup-of-cino with extra fucking foam and a manly spoon to eat it with as it precariously wabbles it from cup to mouth as she gives the waitress a death stare. Nancy is defiant and firm in her beliefs that the 90's trance music is a pile of “doof doof” shit and has no qualms in letting the hefty pub owner know exactly what she thinks of the pile of the musical dog pooh.

Although I'm only making assumptions Nancy has most likely endured the death of a spouse, possibly a child, one vital organ failing and beaten back into submission, crippling, agonising arthritis, she has lived through a depression, the boom and bust of a country town and the close of a bank. As the Nancy's of this country are ushered into an ambulance with their 3rd broken hip and the ambulance attendant asks if they've taken any pain medication they politely say “fuckoff with your namby drugs for shilly shally girls please”. Nancy no longer cares if people think she's fool, because she knows she rocks.

So what I'm trying to say in response to your panic Lacksy is: my commiserations. Everyone knows that there are few things worse than feeling like a a bit of an mindless fool...well maybe just the Ebola virus, AIDS, world hunger, climate change and forgetting your mums birthday even though she gave you written notice and a follow up phone call reminding you it was yesterday, dying young, being drowned by a clown, being scratched by a bat, genocide, politicians and being bitten by a bull ant. Soooo....really? No biggie. Get over it you Willy.

If only I had a time machine..

Dear Self,

Could you please suggest some survival techniques to my past, less enlightened self, for those moments when you wish your grandmothers lovely broach (which is carefully pinned to your favourite- “awesome cardi”) is a MI6 style grenade, and you could just explode yourself into a parallel universe. A lovely, happier universe where you are more successful and you were bought up to think before you speak, rather than endure the uncomfortable silence which ensues after you commit a terrible, terrible faux pas and there appear to be more awkward turtles than at the “Convention for turtles with Social Disorders”.

Recently a “friend” of mine (obvi, it's me) overstepped that delightful threshold of human decorum, left polite converse in the lavvy and made a titting tit of herself...or himself...since it wasn't me (it was). There was silence and then a glorious symphony of unsympathetic crickets. Then came the fall out of judgemental “wows”, accompanied by a chorus of horrified stares.

An already awkward situation went from bad to worse when one of my superiors proceeded to make a rather emotional speech farewelling a colleague, there were tears involved. Fortunately this temporarily distracted my peers, which would have been the perfect opportunity to flee leaving people wondering whether or not they'd imagined the whole thing, but unfortunately I was basically locked in the centre of the group.  It was such a heightened, emotional speech in such contrast to my afore mentioned faux pas, which only served to make me look even more insensitive, so people put back on their judgement pants and started doing a little judgement barn dance around me, while I stared blankly into space with the thousand mile stare of a serial killer who listens to Bon Jovi. 

If only I had an overactive sympathetic nervous system! One that was capable of blushing like a hot cartoon rabbit, or someone with a mild to intermediate level of rosacea. At least then people would think I had a conscience!! Oh the luck of those bloody blushers! The moment their rosy cheeks light up people instantly feel sorry for them. It just makes me want to punch them.

“Ooooh look at that poor blusher, how rosy and beautiful their cheeks are! They could be in an ad for the kilts and other Scottish things. They obviously feel remorseful for their embarrassing behaviour...OBVIOUSLY!.”

Instead I was struck dumb, standing there in stony silence, people gawking, mouths agape, as if I'd just shouted at a funeral “I've committed carnal sins with a monkey and that monkey was your mother!”

Anyway....present self, please advise past self what I should have done in such a situation.  I feel like an island, alone with my shame. I have resorted to a steady diet of croissants and wont stop until this veil of embarrassment is lifted. That and croissants are especially delicious. Especially every variety.

Sincerely,

Lacksadaisy.

P.S

Could you also tell past self not to drink the cheap champagne. X

Dear Self,

I'll think about it and get back to you.

L x