Allergic

To be fair, I've always had opinions about people who claimed allergies. I was firmly in the 'toughen up' camp. Although this was only ever in my head. Externally I was sympathetic. When I was about 17, after subjecting me to every other test under the sun to try to explain why I 'wasn't well', the doctor decided I might as well have an alergy test.

I did. I was allergy free. Not allergic to cats, dogs, dust, grass, mould, trees, polen etc etc etc. You get the idea.

And then I moved to Auckland. Auckland of the poor housing with damp and mould and no insulation or central heating. And in my second full summer I developed this irritating sneezing habit. My ears were so itchy, I longed to stick needles deep into them as the pain would be preferable, my entire face would feel like it has swollen up and after the first thirty or so sneezes my throat would feel like it had been grated. Streaming eyes and nose, the inability to hold a conversation, swollen tear ducts the whole nine yards.

And when I went to the doctor thinking it was most likely consumption, she diagnosed allergies. Apparantly everyone gets them in Auckland. So now I am allergic to lots but the big ones are cats, dust and silver birch. Cats aren't too bad- you do eventually build up a resistance with exposure so I'm fine with my own. The dust thing makes housework a bit of a pain and very necessary at the same time but it's ok if we keep the place clean.

Silver birch.

When she did the tests I reacted to all of the above with a lump, like a mosquito bite. I reacted to Silver birch with a lump like a golf ball.

So my new flat is carpeted - dust is inerradicable. And the neighbour has a line of silver birches running along his fence and my driveway.

I feel like my entire head has been boiled.

Phew

Finally. For ages I haven't been able to mention certain things on this blog.

For example, the post about sing star where 'Come as you are' was the best song ever...
1. It was 'Smells like teen spirit'
2. It was not quite as good as I remembered

Apparantly I was VERY drunk.

I learnt this when I was around at Kev and Julie's the following week and they showed me the video clip someone took of it on their digital camera

The reason this and inumerable other little things were unmentionable is because Claire K reads this blog. Claire K just had a birthday. We organised various surprises for the day. In the organisation of these surprises I did things behind her back - like going around to Kevin and Julie's while pretending I hadn't you see.

I also had several email conversations with her family and friends and got all confused about what I should and shouldn't know about. So I have generally been playing stoopid.

Keeping secrets makes my face hurt.

But it was a lot of fun.

Blue

I suspected I was missing my friend Clare B when instead of emailing Claire O'T (who lives around the corner) with "Hey how are you. You free for a coffee or something soon?" I emailed Clare B who lives in Paris. She replied that she'd love to but the logistics were an issue.

Then yesterday I meant to send Claire K (who lives with me) the below message:

Going to Supermarket again tonight.

Was thinking we need:

3m Hook to hold mirror in Bathroom
Onions
Anything else?

[My life is pretty sexy don't you think?]

And Clare B replied:

basil plant and chocolate and a couple of sexy men! Maybe firemen and better get condoms too...........!

I REALLY MISS MY FRIEND!!!!

Sing Star

Last night I went around to Kevin and Julie's house for sing star. It. Was. Hilarious. Obviously the 1100 glasses of wine helped but there is something pure dead brilliant about singing your head off with friends.

Claire and I showed up at about 9.00pm and we eventually left about 5.00 am. In between we must have sung about 100 songs. Some of them more than once.

When I was at university we used to have a car racing game with a life sized steering wheel and gear stick. We would play it at the start of the evening and in the middle and again at the end and confirm that drinking did in fact impare your driving abilities. And I could tell how drunk I was by how quickly and dramatically I crashed and burned.

Sing Star is my new car game. When I get to the stage where, in order to read the words, I have to shut one eye and squint with the other one, it's time to stop drinking. Similarly when I find myself half a line behind the song, laughing more than singing and insisting on Dolly Parton's Nine to Five I am effectively crashing and burning.

The pinnacle of the entire evening was when Kevin and Dinny cracked into Nirvana's Come as you are. In every session of Sing Star there is one performance that is gob smackingly, totally unexpectedly, brilliant. This was that performance. It was amazing and, as Jeff pointed out, it's a hard song to sing.

But they nailed it.

Bugger

So if you were reading this blog many, many months ago, you'll know that the carefully ignored, two decade old back injury* had resurfaced and I was seeing a chiropractor often enough to put his troop of perfect postured children through school, university and probably rehab if required.

And then I got ok again so I stopped seeing anyone. Great approach don't you think?

Anyway recently I have been leading a stressful existence. Very stressful. I'm not going to explain why. If you know me well enough to want to know but don't already, you know me well enough to either ask me in person or via skype/email/phone the next time we communicate that way.

Anyway, The stress had meant that my back was getting sore again and I probably needed to do something about it. Like some neck excercises and maybe seeing a chiropractor once a month for a bit.

Then on Wednesday, I was on my way from stress causing scenario one to stress causing scenario two. I was in a bit of a rush as in between I had to pick up my car from the garage and have a chat with the gleeful man who was gleeful because he had identified about $600 of work that needed to be done on my car by him. This conversation had taken longer than expected and I was late.

So I was zooming up Mt Eden Road behind a lady who was driving one of those giant 4X4s that absolves the driver of any need to consider safety at any point in their driving career. She illustrated this luxury by breaking SUDDENLY to take Entrance One into the church she had just about driven past as opposed to Entrance Two which was five metres further up the road. Full of the knowledge that if I rear ended someone, even someone as blatantly FUCKING PIG SHIT STUPID as this Sherman Tank driving gobshite, I would be the one at fault, I broke SUDDENLY. There were screeching tyres, there was an adrenalin flood, there were tensed muscles and gritted teeth, there was copious swearing. But there was no crash.

Until the lady behind me ran into the back of me causing my body to react like the crash test dummies you see on the telly.

Anyway the conclusion is that I am back in physiotherapy. She couldn't really see what I had damaged as all of the soft tissue surrounding it was 'Just all horrible' (her exact, and often repeated, phrase). Comforting.


*I am putting a disclaimer here for Shazzle who I know reads this blog. I won't make a big deal of this but I want to acknowledge that any back injury of mine, subsequent pain and/or inconvenience and whinging, is minor minor minor and insignificant.

Happy Easter

I've just had the best weekend. Michegro and Simon got all hitched up out at the beach and it was choice bro.

I was MC and did a bit of making sure the caterers knew what to do and stuff and it was lovely, lovely, lovely. The speeches were great, the food was amazing and everyone had a great time. And Simon and Michegro promised to be each others' person for the rest of their lives.

That was Saturday and then yesterday was a big BBQ that Claire came out for and then today we went for a walk out to the gannet colony and horse riding and for a swim. It was lovely. Can I say lovely again? And then today it took 30 mins to drive back to my house. I love living in New Zealand.

Healthy

No glandular fever for me. No no no. Stoked so I am. Although still knackered unfortunetely but that should resolve itself when I start reintroducing sleep into my lifestyle and not working 14 hour days.

Can't wait.

I am feeling a bit uninspired blog wise. And it's not that nothing is happening. I think I've got writer's fatigue. It's what I usually do all day and in particular in the last couple of weeks.

So what's actually worth hauling myself online and writing about today?

Hmm.

Well I'm MCing friend's wedding this weekend and should really be writing multiple speeches.

So I'm not. I'm doing this instead. Always the frickin way.

No. I'm going to log off and write them

Once I've done the dishes and cleaned the bathroom.