Let's Spend Time, Not Money

Port Macquarie, New South Wales and my travelling companions, lily-livered with hangovers, are bedridden and moany. It's raining. My hostel bunk and tired book hold limited appeal so I decide to indulge in some retail therapy. It's been raining for days now and my optimism re the Australian winter is beginning to wane - I thought it would be just like an Irish summer. And it is. I leave the hostel determined to buy a sensible jacket and instead spend the afternoon shopping for sweaters with a little old lady who asked me to choose one for her son, then took a shine to me. She's about 147 years old, so I imagine her son as a pot-bellied and balding bachelor and choose the duds accordingly. Lovely! she exclaims. If only he could meet a nice girl like you... she says wistfully, as we finger some more argyle.

Fast forward two years and a wet Tuesday evening finds me in A-Wear on Grafton St. shopping in vain for Christmas Clothes. Everything seems to be covered in sequins. I am trailing around with a Peter O' Brien dress over my arm, imagining how like Gráinne Seoige I will look in it (ignoring the fact that I have neither her handsome face nor her hugglesome boobies). As I make my way to the changing rooms in order to effect this miraculous transformation, a wheedling American accent tugs at my sleeve.

"Hey miss!" Dum dee dum dee dum mumbles my face as I determinedly ignore her trills for attention. Shoo. I am not in the mood. "Miss!" she shouts, tapping me on the arm and smiling up at me through her orange lipstick and massive teeth in that sweetly formidable way that all ladies over seventy seem to master. Most people are suckers for puppies and small children. Me, I cannot help but indulge the elderly. Which is why I am always the one who ends up sitting uncomfortably on the oul lad's knee at parties, or trying on clothes for ancient American ladies who are shopping for their granddaughters and who surmise that we might be of a size.

I am too polite to refuse, so I reach out, horrified, and take the proffered items.

Mumble pants*. Sparkly mumble pants and, to strike Balance squarely in the knackers, a jumper the far side of dowdy. I pull the leggings on and the jumper over my head, hoping that it is just about long enough to cover all unsightly bulges. The changing room curtain is heavy with my humiliation but I step out, frumpy dumpy, to face ridicule. Instead I am faced with a little old lady, so enchanted by my appearance that she claps her hands in glee. I do a little flounce, a mortified taa daa! before I am allowed to struggle out of them again.

Relieved, I hand them back to her and slip the Gráinne gúna over my head. Seoige svelte and sexy in 3... 2... 1... Oh fuck. Dog's dinner does not cover it. I throw a strop, take a hump and cart my lovely lady lumps home.

*Leggings so tight that you can see the lips move... Blame Felix.

Australia Will Be Full Of Disappointed Hunks

Confidence waned this morning and I wrote a Dear John of my own to the nice folk who wanted to send me off to Australia. I was due in there at 9.20am to do a screen test - a 10 minute pitch to camera about how wonderful I am and why I would make an excellent candidate for their televised adventure (they really liked the answers I submitted on their ridiculous questionnaire). I thought about it, talked about it and went to bed undecided. I woke up at 7.30am and thought "are you fucking mental?" I hate having my photograph taken and am boringly and unattractively self-conscious about my appearance so I honestly don't know why I thought that 5 weeks in front of TV cameras would be a breeze. So I sent them an apologetic email this morning, thanking them for the brief ego-boost and explaining to them that I'm really more of a face for radio. I'm disappointed and relieved all at once. Again.

Animal Lovers

As my previous request has yielded nothing particularly helpful, I turned to my googlemachine for answers. Yahoo Answers came up with the goods, yes indeedy.

The Burning Question:
If you were an animal, what would you be and why?

Answer from the neurotic but danerous (sic) #1:
I would be a mouse because people would leave you alone and I'd be able to scurry. I'd also lead a danerous life with people always trying to trap you and stuff.

Answer from the lonely reject that is #2:
I would like to be a single cell organism which breaks into two cells as a process of reproduction and practically either lives multiple lives later on or dies the time it reproduces. Again no hassles of searching the right mate as I break myself up to create something new.

Answer from the "joker" of the pack, #3:
i wanna be a dog for real because i wanna see what it's like to really do it d o g g y style. i wanna know if doggy vaj is funner than people vaj. i bet it's tighter.
just kiffing.

How mad are those fuckers? Imagine getting stuck on a bus with them for oh, 5 weeks, crossing the Australian outback. And having a gun, but only two bullets.

I'm rethinking my application.

Answers On A Postcard, Please

The folk who want to send me on holidays to Australia to pick up "hunks" have asked me to submit some digital photos of myself and to fill out this retarded application form before they whisk me away to make all of my dreams come true.

A little like LC did, now that I think of it.

Anyway, I'm having a little bother. The questionnaire is very deliberately "zany" (with capital air-quotes) and I'm not sure if its silly nature is designed to encourage dullards to get a little krayzee in the name of good television or if it is in fact designed to weed out people like me who are maybe a little too genuinely krayzee to take with you across the outback on a bus. I think my best bet would be to err on the safe and "quirky" side of mental, so with that in mind, your help with the following would be very much appreciated. If you don't think you know me well enough to hazard a guess at the answers, make shit up. They're not going to know, are they?

1. What's your idea of fun? (keep it clean.)
   
2. What's the craziest thing you've ever done? (keep it clean...)
   
3. Describe yourself in three words. (articulate? cynical? romantic?)
   
4. If you were an animal, what would you be, and why? (keep it clean!)
   
5. What's the most romantic thing you've ever done? (keep it... *sigh*)
   

In case you think I'm being a lazy bitch and getting you to fill out my application for me, I assure you that I have managed to answer some of the questions myself. Do you have a full driver's licence? Indeed and I do. What is your date of birth? 27 years ago from next Thursday. Describe your ideal man? Adrien Brody.

Things got curious towards the end, with question no #18: Tell us all you know about BMXs. My answer:

Not a massive amount, if I'm honest. My sister's ex was into them but he was also into vegetarianism, so that doesn't help.

I had one as a kid though, as did my brother. I'm not sure where we got them, but we weren't cool enough to realise that they were cool. My parents brought us to the BMX track in Marlay Park once in an effort to train us into some tricks, but I started crying after I saw the height of the bumps and hillocks and refused to play. My brother gave it a go and promptly busted his face. Game over.

Other than that, try Wikipedia.

PS. Why do you want to know?

Tomorrow: we choose a photo.