n.y.e.

 

Sad face.

Did you know it’s perfectly acceptable to invite someone to a party for New Year’s Eve  and then cancel said party on 30 December, thus rendering invitee (uninvitee?) without any plans for the biggest party night of the year?

Neither did I, but apparently it is because it happened earlier today. And now I’ve got nothing. All my other friends are either away or doing things with other couples or their own families because that’s what usually happens when one reaches this age – they’re either part of a Smug Married with plenty of other Smug Marrieds to have happy fun times with, or they have children and do grown-up family things like go on family holidays with other families.

So being neither a Smug Married or a Smug Married With Children (and therefore a leper/loser), I have nothing to do on New Year’s Eve. I contemplated going out and celebrating my loser status by buying fifteen or so cats – to hell with it all, may as well just succumb to the cliché – but I’ll probably just sit on the couch and watch a DVD. I  hear there’s a really funny movie out called Bridesmaids, maybe you’ve heard of it?

Or perhaps I’ll just sulk all night about being nearly 32 and still single.

Regardless of whatever hardcore partying I get up to, I wish you the happiest of happy new years. Talk to you next year. x

merry christmas

Jackie Rueda's flickr via Crush Cul de Sac

While you Northern Hemispherians are sleeping through the winter solstice, here in the Southern Hemisphere, skies are blue and the sun is warm.

The temperature for Christmas Day is predicted to be 27 degrees Celcius (80.6F). A warm day, the smell of pork roasting (which I loathe, but oddly, is what reminds me of Christmas. That and pine trees. Obviously) and a house full of people, ages ranging from four months to 85 years. I can’t wait.

Thank you to you (and you) for being exceptionally goodlooking and have such admirable taste and choosing to read box of crayons throughout the year, even though sometimes I only posted once a month. Even though most of the time, I posted complete nonsense. Thank you for the comments you left which have made me smile and made me laugh (you’re also hilarious, but you knew that already, didn’t you? You are also incredibly intelligent). Thank you for your own blogs that make me laugh and think and ponder and envy your writing/photography talents (because not only are you hawt with good taste, funny and smart, you’ve also got mad skillz). Keep up the good work.

Enjoy the holidays. If you can’t spend it with the people you wish you could, then I hope the people you do spend it with are aesthetically pleasing and make you laugh. Be safe. Be happy. Laugh and love.

xx

annelise is a slob

What a pig. That’s my desk, in all its mess-induced-by-end-of-semester-stress glory. Except university finished up last month. And the mess stayed. With the knowledge that there’ll be twenty-one people in the house on Christmas Day, I decided to tackle the brothel that is my corner of the room.

If you look carefully, you’ll see chewed up tissue under the chair, courtesy of Woody. In the basket on the floor to the right of the photo was a disgusting white-tail spider, who was promptly covered in insect spray, including the majority of the inside of the basket. It – and the spider – was all white. Quite festive, actually, considering.

Check out the candles that have gone all droopy from the heat! Ha. The scarf that’s been there since winter! The wrapping paper since Father’s Day in September!

Christ, I hate cleaning shit up. It’s so boring. But ultimately, it’s worth it.

SO much better! Clean surfaces! Those drawers are going to get a lick of paint early next year, ugly little fuckers. (I’m tempted to paint the curtains too but suspect I’d get a lashing for it) The chair is a little bit ripped and the height can’t be adjusted anymore but it’s wide enough for me to sit cross-legged so it’s going to stay. The map of Vietnam on the wall for inspiration and anticipation. The bowl of fruit and the notebook in which lays the first draft of my novel (positive thinking right there).

Clean is good.

P.S. In my dreams, my desk would look like this but within five minutes, there’d be snotty tissues littered all over the floor, a dirty plate and crumbs sprinkled everywhere, spilt coffee, a swear words written on the wood. Annelise is a slob.

travelling journal: the eagle takes flight

Calling all box of crayons travelling journal homeboys:

Update! The journal departs from vacationing with Robin in Pittsburgh!

fifty-two books

thisisrabbitt via pinterest

Sweet baby cheeses, I love reading. I was always that kid who was getting into trouble for not answering the grown-ups when they spoke to me because I was so engrossed in what I was reading. (Hello? Why was I getting into trouble? Why were they talking to me when they could clearly see I was otherwise engaged?) I read anything I could get my hands on and some favourites included The Babysitters Club series (naturally), the Anne of Green Gables series (of course), The Saddle Club series (horses horses horses!) (sung just like Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle), among so many others. When I was a bit older, I got into books like Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird (I have a really ugly, second-hand, bright orange Penguin edition that I don’t think I’ll ever part with. It was the first ‘serious’ book I read that really blew me away), Bonjour Tristesse, and every other similar book.

This year, I decided to set myself a challenge: read fifty-two books in fifty-two weeks. I thought it would be a total breeze: one book a week? Pah! No worries. Turns out I was wrong. Some weeks, it felt like I didn’t read at all. I always had a book on the go but when it came to reading for uni, reading for pleasure was sometimes put on the backburner. But I did it, I read fifty-two of ‘em. Goodreads had a fantastic thingymajiggy set up, 2011 Reading Challenge, and it told me if I was on track. When it told me things like You are 1 book behind, I’ll admit to choosing a smaller book to read next because I knew it wouldn’t take me long to knock it over. I felt a bit guilty, but it’s not like I was cheating, I still read the book. Fifty-two of them.

Favourites

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: Holy crap, why did it take me so long to read this book?! Loved it. Loved loved loved it.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld: for want of a better term, a really lovely coming-of-age story set at a boarding school.

Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey: my favourite of the year. One of the best books I’ve ever read. I started reading it last year (you can see it in the photo of this post) and I got about fifty or so pages in before I put it down. It starts with a really difficult scene, really sad and kind of confronting. It made me feel weird so I decided not to carry on with it. But I picked it up again in January and I’m so glad I did: it made me cry and it made me laugh (Jeffrey Lu is one of literature’s best characters). Please read it.

Twentysomething by Iain Hollingshead. British. Diary-style. Hilarious. Also won the Bad Sex award.

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Thought I would hate them. Loved them. Who knew kids being forced to kill each other in a fight-to-the-death situation would be so entertaining? If you haven’t read them yet, get on it. You’ll want to before the movie comes out in March. The casting is so spot on, it’s almost spooky – Jennifer Lawrence, the Hemsworth brother (Chris or Liam? Effed if I can tell them apart), Woody Harrelson, all perfect but I think I’m most excited about Lenny Kravitz as Cinna. Anyway. One of the very few instances I’m excited about a film adaptation. Usually they’re shit but I think this movie will be just as good as the book.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Obviously.

The Observations by Jane Harris. A potty-mouthed housemaid in 1863 Scotland. And there’s a mystery. It’s great.

Disappointments

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. From what I’ve heard, this book polarised people: you either loved it or hated it. I hated it. I didn’t even finish it so it technically shouldn’t be on my list. Maybe I’ll give it another go further on down the track. Maybe I won’t. Whatever.

Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger. Whoever keeps publishing her books, please cease and desist immediately. Ugh, it’s tripe like this that gives chick-lit its bad name. Personally, I believe The Devil Wears Prada only got published because it was a thinly-veiled account of Vogue’s Anna Wintour (and just why are people obsessed with that woman who has the Lego-woman haircut?) and Weisberger’s got nothing else up her sleeve so bashes out a few stereotypes throughout 100 000 words or so and for some reason God only knows, people keep buying them. Stop it. Now.

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht. For most of the time, I was all like WTF? Parts of it were awesome, parts of it were WTF. Maybe it just went over my head. Whatever.

Smokin' Seventeen by Janet Evanovich. I loved this series – up until about book eight. I persisted with them, hoping that maybe something different would happen. But no, some psycho is still out to kill Stephanie, Lula’s still chowing down the fried chicken, Ranger and Morelli are still inexplicably chasing Stephanie, and shit gets blown up. Blah blah blah.

There are a few other crap ones in there, a few meh ones, you can check them out here if you’re bored. It’s kind of surprising to see what kind of books I’ve chosen over the past twelve months. I chose a lot of stuff I don’t normally read, 2011 was definitely the year of the YA novel. And because of that, I’m craving some really good, gutsy reads. They can be funny (I like funny) or serious (Yars. I can be totally serious as well), literary or commercial, anything as long as it’s good.

What did you read this year that you loved or hated? Any suggestions for me? Come on, share.

mr john

When my brother and I were kids, our mother didn’t subscribe to the idea that the house must be silent once we were in bed, trying to fall asleep. She wasn’t all like “Don’t make a sound, the kids are trying to sleep.” Nah-uh. Once we were in bed, she did her housework – vacuuming, washing, all the noisy stuff – all the while, the stereo cranked up. Because of this, I have a deep affection for Bob Seger, T. Rex, Elton John, Rod Stewart, et al. (And I can also fall asleep no matter the noise level.) One of my favourite memories is being tucked up in my single bed as a child, listening to a pair of jeans in the dryer (you know that noise of the metal button on jeans as it hits the inside of the dryer) and Elton John’s Philadelphia Freedom playing.

I saw Elton John in concert last night at Rod Laver Arena. He was good. He sang all his hits … amazing though how all of his songs sound. the. freaking. same when they’re played all in a row. I mean, I enjoyed it and all, but we committed the cardinal sin of gig-going: leaving before the fat lady has sung (so to speak). We bailed during the encore – but seriously, who plays only one song for an encore before leaving the stage? I’m assuming he was planning to come back out for a second encore but I was buggered if I was going to hang around for another five minutes of piano bashing.

I loved Candle in the Wind and I had to blink really fast for a couple of minutes because it always reminds me of this, and I loved Benny and the Jetssssss, and I loved Crocodile Rock, Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word (which, apropos of nothing, I listened to on repeat on the flights from London to Singapore, Singapore to Melbourne, bawling my eyes out over an affair of the heart), Your Song, Rocketman (though Stewie Griffin's version will always crack me up). I loved them all but I don’t know if seeing him sing them live was necessary. Some things are better left to the imagination.

kleptomania and other nonsense

image on pinterest via Soul Hunting, original source unknown

When I go to work on a Saturday, I have to take a whole day’s worth of food. I can’t leave the office at all. I do get to put up a Back in Five Minutes sign though that announces my lunch/toilet/coffee break! I know, I know, working on a Saturday AND no break? How lucky am I? Anyway. Sometimes the urge to go through other people’s desk drawers nearly overwhelms me though I’ve succumbed not once. NOT ONCE. (I have though, flipped through a notepad on someone’s desk and felt horribly guilty, even though it was all boring management meeting malarkey). Snooping doesn’t entice me but it has transpired that stealing from my fellow workmates is my bag.

Turns out I have a thing for the complimentary chocolates that are supposed to accompany the coffee one makes with the coffee machine in the boss’s office. Except one does not know how to make the coffee with the coffee machine in the boss’s office and instead, one steals the complimentary chocolates for an afternoon hit to help get one’s self through to five o’clock. I always feel terrified I’m going to get caught, like my boss might jump out from behind his huge desk chair and shout “AH-HA! Caughtcha, chocolate stealer!” He hasn’t done that once and I don’t really expect it to happen any time soon, but the fear is there nonetheless (the fear is no match for the desperate desire, need, for chocolate, to be sure).

Last week, while suffering through the late hours of the afternoon, willing the time on the phone display to click over to 4.59pm so I could put the phone on night mode (4.59pm! Rebel!), the office handyman came in and handed over a packet of Oreos.

“Ooh, thanks,” I say, even though I don’t particularly love Oreos. “Where did you get these from?”

“From the depths of Whatsherface’s desk drawers,” he answers, a cheeky smirk on his mug.

A kindred spirit! Another kleptomaniac! Although, actually, his affliction must be a step up from mine because he feels no remorse in going through drawers. The thought makes me want to dob him in. But then I realise there would probably be a lock put on the chocolate cupboard door and I regain my senses.

Also while at work on Saturday, a man ended his phone conversation with me by not saying ‘Goodbye’ or even just ‘Catch,’ but by saying “Over.” Whoa, wait a minute, buddy, these aren’t walkie-talkies we’re conversing with. This here’s a telemaphone, we don’t need to be saying “Over.” Weird, no?

Later, while I was musing the ways of the weird, I nearly jumped out of my seat when some bogan walked passed the window and kicked the metal letterbox slot box thingy out the front of the office. I looked at him through the window and decided he looked like he would pull my hair – or worse – if I went outside and said politely “Please, kind bogan, don’t be kicking the letter box,” so instead called him a choice of four-letter words from the safety of behind the reception desk.

Later, the bogan returned and came up into the little alcove thingymajig next to the office front door to light a cigarette. I considered going out to ask him to move on because when people smoke their cigarettes out the front of work, it fills up reception with stinky secondhand smoke and I’m forced to use Glen 20 to try and get rid of the smoke, only to remember once again that Glen 20 friggen reeks and I’d much prefer the cigarette smoke. Anyway, while this debate was raging in my little brain box, I watched the Bogan stick his fag in his mouth, pull one of the fake flowers out of the window display (sounds pretty tacky but the fake flowers out the front of work are actually pretty nice. Someone from one of the local art shops does it every couple of months), put the flowers under his arm and march off down the street.

The bogan stole our flowers! Kicked our letterbox and stole our flowers! Blow me down, this calls for a stolen chocolate or two. OR FOURTEEN.

In order to rebalance the chakras (I don’t even know what that means), I attended a garden party-style housewarming on Sunday at Girl Cousin’s new house. I was firm yet polite: “No champagne for me, thank you very much,” only to be tempted and seduced by those cold bubbles and consequently quaffed enough champagne to lull me to sleep on the car ride home. Before that though, as we were sitting in the garden, chatting about pleasant, nonsensical things, an unknown someone uttered some words that caused Boy Cousin and I to lock eyes and have one of those moments where you don’t even need to speak because you just know. The words? “Short-sheeting the bed.”

Moments later, after checking the coast was clear of the Girl Cousin, I slipped away inside the house, deceiving everyone with my powers of deception that I was attending the lavatory. Boy Cousin joined me mere seconds later in the bedroom Girl Cousin shares with her boyfriend and we attempted The Great Short-Sheeting Incident of 2011.

But as Boy Cousin recounted to everyone except Girl Cousin and Boyfriend of Girl Cousin, “there was too much laughing to achieve anything of consequence.” However poor our short-sheeting skillz are, surely we caused enough of an inconvenience when they collapsed into bed to relax after the exhausting exercise of hosting a garden party, only to become tangled in a mess of sheets. As I pointed out in Twitter, one simply cannot attend a house party without short-sheeting the hosts’ bed. Is simply bad manners not to.

And here ends my epic post of BS.

How was your weekend?

photo taken with Instagram, I’m annelisekate if you want to follow

I took a walk this morning along the waterfront. I also took my Flip video camera and shot a few minutes of pretty little scenes: the promenade, the pier, the Ferris wheel, the palm trees, the Christmas tree. I spent roughly four hours trying to figure out how to edit it, finally got it into a state I wasn’t overly happy but fuck it, enough is enough, this will bloody well do, went to Vimeo to upload it: Sorry, your file is too small.

You know that feeling when you want to punch the computer screen, throw the whole contraption through the window, and then go and eat everything in the pantry because you hate everything technology-related?

That.

So in a fit of rage, I deleted all of it. And decided to use this picture instead. Now I’m going to sit outside in the sun and read my book while repeatedly counting to ten and scowling at the animals.

Have a fantastic weekend, anyone up to anything interesting, exciting, festive-like?