Christmas

Now I know it's an absolute stereotype to be totally unprepared for Xmas. But there you go. I'm a stereotype. I haven't done a freaking thing. This weekend looked like this:

Friday: Work, Xmas party, Jeff's gig, home at 2.00 am, big chats with Claire, bed at 3.00 am
Saturday: Eight hour improv workshop on 'being in the moment'. It was great. Really really cool but I'm not sure that I was able to give it 100%, what with the dehydration and lack of sleep. Went to Jeff's with Kez for DVD and Thai food. Home at midnight to call SPCA because there was a puppy in a truck outside my house that had been there when I left at 7.30. Sort that, bed by 1.00.
Sunday: Up at 8.00 for 16km run. Whip out to beach to hang out with Godson and his current legal guardians (or 'parents' as they like to refer to themselves). We go to the park, we visit the beach. I apply a nappy to a babies arse for the third time in my life (I'm getting really good - it was the right way round and everything) and it's back into town. Meet Loki, the most beautiful of Siberian Huskies (already a pretty attractive breed I think you'll agree). We go for an unexpectedly long walk. Or a short walk followed for a long search for where we parked the car depending on how you look at it. Home, dinner, bed.

What you will notice is nowhere in the above description is there any housework, shopping for xmas presents of wrangling with my garden to try to make it look anything other than the very worst garden in the street. And it's Xmas next week. Fark.

2010? Really? Are we sure?

I remember being a kid and my grandparents saying, "This year has really flown" And thinking, "Bloody geriatrics, this week has gone on FOREVER" But really and truly, can it seriously nearly be December?

I've been in my current job for 18 months, I've been in my house for over a year, my cats are actaully eight and five not one and four as per the side pane on this blog.

Freaking crazy man.

I haven't finished my renovation stories and it's time to start putting up crimbo decorations. It's a world gone mad I tell you.

No more booze?

This is what happened after the last post:

Monday night: Book launch, two vodka cocktails. It was at the 42 Below bar. Come on.
Tuesday night: Movie night courtesy of The Heritage Hotel Group, three glasses of bubbles. Then on to catch up with Antonia and pals in Cosh, glass of Pinot Noir.
Wednesday: Definitely taking this no booze thing seriously. No booze.
Thursday: Leaving drinks for a colleague. By some gargantuan effort manage to restrict myself to half a glass of Pinot Noir. Victory lap around the building completed. Go on to dinner with D&B. Decline wine. I am a pillar of self discipline and restraint. But then they weren't drinking either.
Today: A radio station is taking me to lunch. There will be an offer of booze. If the client (me) says no, they will feel they should say no. This seems like a churlish thing to do to your hosts on a Friday afternoon.

And then it's Labour weekend. Three whole nights where you don't have to get out of bed and go to work the next day. Gawd.

Can I do it?
Can I?

I'm not sure I want to to be fair.

Ah yes, the catch call of the alchie in denial.

Not that I'm an alchie. In denial.

I survived...just

So it went ok. People laughed, no one died, no one got hurt.

And then I drank 250 litres of wine and smoked 25 cigarettes. Bad. Idea.

I just attempted a two hour run and couldn't even do half of that. I actually had an outer body experience. No more booze until after the half. That's the decision. Done and dusted.

Totally unproductive

I'm rounding out a day of being totally unproductive by updating my blog for the second time.

I can't remember when I last felt this nervous about something. And why should I be nervous? It's a room full of people who are friends and family of the people who will be doing the improv thing. And if people don't laugh, so freakin what! Not a biggie. Just one of those things. No one will die, no one will get hurt, there will be charity laughter and then we can all go and get drunk. A win all round.

So why do I keep throwing up? Why can't I concentrate on anything else? Why are my hands clammy?

Clearly I have dengue fever.

It's the only possible explanation. I am very, very sick indeed. So sick that I should probably go home and hide under the duvet and remove any risk of infecting someone else with this horrible disease. It's the selfless thing to do.

Can't concentrate

I'm going to write this to get it out of my system and get on with my day.

A few months ago I went to an improv comedy show and it reminded me how much I miss being involved with theatre. So I did an improv comedy course. And then I did a second one, which I'm half way through.

tonight we're having a sort of showcase. Where my fellow course mates and I will get up on stage in front of people we know and play improv games that we've previously only done in the safety of a local community centre with only ourselves to amuse.

Every time I think about it for even a second my stomach lurches. I'm throwing up regularly and have been for days. This may very well be one of the scariest things I'll ever do. And it's by choice, my decision, I've opted in.

Gawd.

Off for a vom.

A list of things I am looking forward to

1. Running the half marathon
2. Belinda and Dinny's wedding
3. The briefing before Belinda and Dinny's wedding so I can practice my MC stuff (I'm REALLY looking forward to this one. Ahem. Cough.)
4. Going to Bali for Xmas
5. Going home next year to see my nephew
6. Summer
7. Dinner tonight
8. Owning garden furniture
9. Going diving again
10. Being able to drink properly again after the half marathon
11. Updating this blog more regularly.

Honest.

Closing the Loop

It's been pointed out that I haven't finished off my Tales O Rennovation. Technically that's because I ahven't finished the renovation but I've come to a sort of an impasse.

(A) Because I've run out of money
(B) Because the little bits I've got left are too little to interest my builder.

So I have a deck but no steps down from it and I need to rip up a path to make it council compliant.

I had my first party at the house and depsite managing to dish out six bottles of spirits in cocktails, it remained reasonably intact. Sweet.The only casualty was the floor which is stiletto marked and scuffed, but that was always going to happen.

So in the next little while I will blog on some key points of renovation in retrospect.

Stay tuned.