Wait, you want to know about me?

Hey everyone

I know it's been a while. I promise to have a proper entry for you up here soon, in the meantime though I wanted to tell you about an interview I got to do with the fantastic Ziggy Nixon. 

It's my first ever and probably only ever interview so I'd love for you all the check it out. Ziggy really did his homework for the questions, which means after reading it you may know more about me than my parents, but I tried to make the answers as fun to read as I could ^_^ 

Interview

Did you fall in?

As we may have previously established I just happen to be a bathroom reader - yes that's right, I'm one of a small but very dedicated group known fondly as the bathroom readers institute, they even have books specially made for us. 

For those of you that like to get in, do your business and get out I can understand why this may be a hard thing to understand. "Why sit there in your own stink"? I can hear you saying. Your probably the same person that won't take baths, usually for the same reason "I refuse to sit in my own filth". Well I'm sorry to say I am the complete opposite, I'm not saying I fantasize about siting in stink or filth but there are things I like to take my time with. 

Alright, so that was probably more information than I should have shared so lets move on. The point is I spent time on the toilet, something you need to know to understand the rest of this story. 

It was on a rare night out to our local chinese restaurant that after a large water and more than my fare share of rice ships I felt the urge and excused myself accordingly. Locking myself in I was surprisingly quick to do what I needed and was back at the door within a few minutes. To my horror, the lock wouldn't budge.

I could immediately feel the stall shrink to half its size as I jiggled the lock furiously back and forth. Folding my shirt around my hand I tried again, using all my strength. I started to sweat. "Help" I called feebly trying the lock again. I looked up hoping to see a gap between the sides of the stall and ceiling, enough to climb over. It was a solid wall, I was completely closed in. Fighting back tears I sat on the floor knocking on the door at sporadic intervals hoping someone would hear me. 

Minutes ticked away and no one raised the alarm basing assumptions on my history of lengthy bathroom visits. As my family ate and talked I felt more alone in the stall thoughts of abandonment swirling in my head. 

20 minutes later mum had finally noticed my absence. I remained on the cold floor, my tummy growling as thoughts turned to the dishes that were now being served and what I'd have to eat if I was forced to stay in the stall forever. 

Just as I lost hope I heard a faint knock on the door."Lesley, are you ok in there" relief coursed through my body as I sprung up and called through the door "I'm locked in mum, help me". After what mum assures me was not a snigger I heard her fumble with the lock, swearing under her breath. "Hang on Les, I'll get you out". I waited for what felt like ages as I heard all sorts of strange sounds emanating from outside the door. All of a sudden the lock gave a jerk and gave way as the door was wrenched open. 

There stood mum, a knife in one hand and the lock in the other. I fell into her arms close to tears and she led me back out to the table, pausing once to hand a waitress the lock saying something about the fact it may belong to them. 

We finished our mongolian beef and fried rice then left and never returned. So my advice for this week is simple, when going to a public toilet - always look for your emergency exists and have a knife handy, because you never know when your visit could turn into a stay. 

Dedicated to other bathroom readers ^_^

Stronger than blood

SISTER

Throughout my life you've always been 

My bestest friend and enemy

We've played, done trades and shared it all

You've taught me more than I recall 

We think the same and look it too

When I got sick it passed to you

I know your secrets

and you know mine

All your freckles

Every laugh line 

I know what you'd say 

and what you'd do 

I know you so well  

I can mimic you 

There's things in life

that go unsaid 

so I thought I'd write them down instead

I love you more than you could know

no matter what you do 

or where you go

I'm always here

my little one

Proud of everything 

you've been and done

Down in the Deep

THE SEA

The waters deep 

The sea bed far

bellow the waves

that crash afar

The light filtered

like christmas lights

that twinkle shyly through the night

I feel so free

yet all around 

the waters press

as I've been bound 

I listen hard 

for sounds that might 

allude to signs of other life

Instead the only sound I hear

a distant humming in my ears

Then in the corner of my eye

a flash of colour shoots right by

But now the breath 

that once I took 

is fading fast

no time to look 

I reach above and kick bellow

until I see the surface glow

I break right through 

then dive back down 

There still much more

that must be found

Expect a few more poems over the next few weeks... I recently found my year 9 journal and some of them aren't half bad ^_^

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend and the dads of Australia had a great fathers day! 

Afternoon activities

Didn't quite make it within the week, but I'd say one day late isn't too bad :) 

Don't get me wrong, being raised primarily by a single lawyer mother who spent years fighting for a spot in the industry, gave me a strong understanding of women's rights and the occasional tendency to act on blind feminist rage, but even I know that there are some things girls can not, and should not do. I take you now, to a sunny afternoon after school, and a little too much Milo, to when my sister and I discovered one such activity. 

I blame the school , we had been learning japanese that term and had been recently shown a video on Sumo wrestling, that (coupled with a few videos on male bonding) had made us aware of the chest bump ritual. An action commonly seen amongst pro sports jocks, large territorial animals and people that are completely off their head. It involves two individuals running towards each other, leaping in the air with chests out, and slamming their torso's into one another to then fall back hopefully in a stance position. This can then be followed by a celebratory high five.... or a trip to the emergency ward. 

Well blame it on the fresh air, or too much sugar, Alex and I decided to give it a go. Now before you make assumptions I would just like to point out that we are not completely stupid, we did decide to have a practice run with pillows. We started by both holding a pillow against our chest, learning quickly that it was important to full commitment to the act, otherwise the result was a mess of arms and legs. Then, similar to a game of musical chairs, we threw a pillow away and continued. This was met with mild success, we were fast learners, so bracing ourselves, we moved onto faze three.

Having discarded both pillows and taken a few more steps apart to insure maximum run up potential, we counted down to impact. THREE. TWO. ONE. We were of, running at full tilt, screaming like men on helium, getting closer with every second. counting down to impact, we were close enough to touch, to hug. insert screeching sound here. We chickened out moments before impact. We started laughing, at this point I'm not sure if it was at the fact we bailed or the absurdness of the situation. Which ever it was it did not deter us, and after a good laugh we decided to try again, pinky swearing our allegiance to the cause. 

One, Two, Three, we took steps back, forever keeping eye contact. This time we were ready, visualizing the pillows, we counted down. THREE. TWO.....Two, and a half.. two and three quuuuarters... two and.... we had run out of fractions, there was nothing for it RUN we did... closer, and closer, our feet pounded the lounge room floor, one second till impact, I could see the beads of seat on her face, half a second.. there was nothing for it, I shut my eye's and braced myself. NOW leaping into the air we slammed into each other with enough force to knock down a small elephant. I felt my bones shatter, and my boobs become concave. I fell to the floor dazed and sore, trying to breath. Eye's closed and lying still on the floor I called out to her... "Alex.... you dead"? 

"No", came a small reply... "but I think my boobs are". 

So my female readers, I write this as a cautionary tale. Sure, your all strong, intelligent and independent women who don't need men to complete you. But the next time a guy tells you that women can't do everything men can do, stop, think about Alex and I, and tell him honestly, Your right... we have boobs. 

Until next week... or later this week really ^_^ 

TITANIC

Hey everyone, sorry this comes so late, its been absolutely hec.. ok I'm going to stop myself there, there's really no excuse for how lazy I've been with the blog. But lets move on, shoulda, coulda woulda and I'm gonna right now. 

So I chose this story for a couple of reasons. One, its a bit of a funny one which I thought would be fun to read and two, the most recent drawing I did was based on the sea so I can cheat and use it (just between you and me). 

little side note - my fingers are flying over the keys, its funny, I always seem to dread writing, putting it of till the last minute, only to re-discover how much I like doing it everytime I begin again.  

Now for the story, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before about the summers I would spend in the country in Lemon tree with my mums family. For those new comers though (First of, Welcome) just a little back story, my mum grew up with her family in Lemon tree, a rough but friendly little town that still has a few dirt roads, a quant Marina my granddad actually owned at one stage and was proud to receive their first helicopter pad the year before last. We'd usually stay for a couple of weeks (longer if we were successful in begging mum to go home without us) at our Auntie's house who'd spoil us rotten as the two girls she always wished she'd had. Instead she married a 6 foot 7 Train engineer and had two equally tall boys that would rather lick a toilet seat than do anything remotely girly. 

So for a few weeks out of every year we'd shed our shoes, don a hat and spend the days riding, playing, watching tv (something that was banned at home) eating a ridiculous amount of two minute noodles and being treated like absolute princesses. If your starting to imagine a heaven like place full of no worries, no responsibilities and constant fun, you wouldn't be far off Lemon tree. In fact on arrival, after an attempt to uphold the structured routine we'd lived with through the year or asking if we were allowed a treat, we'd get "Your not in Sydney anymore, remember it's Lemon tree, you can do what ever you want - no worries" Like our own personal "hakuna matata" 

I'll go into more on another entry but to round this up I'll tell you about one of our favourite games. Down on the beach, the one a minutes walk from the house we found an old tinny (little row boat) that was badly beaten. Feeling as though we'd just discovered buried treasure we decided to adopt it as our own. Now before you start to relay a sweet little montage of us fixing the boat up ala the birth of Chitty Chitty bang bang and other such nostalgic uplifting films, we instead flipped it over, grabbed some sticks and beat the boat to death. Once it had a few more holes in it (and some small dents curtesy of my and my sisters attempts) we dragged it out to the middle of the bay, climbed in... and sank it. 

Right now your probably horrified, but before you file me away under delinquent hear the rest. After singing the theme tune to Titanic and letting the boat sink to the bottom (an act that took about 2 minutes) we then spent the next 2 hours pulling it from the depths and dragging it back to shore... We repeated this process roughly 4 times that day until my auntie called us in to tea. The next day, you guessed it, we began again... in fact that boat was rescued more times in the week than all the boats in the marina from the last 20 years put together. We loved that boat more than it had ever been loved, because it wasn't just a little tinny to us, it was adventure and imagination in its purest form... and that was what Lemon Tree was all about. 

Hakuna Matata everyone ^_^

Green Thumb

Green Thumb

Back in year 10 Science all students had to complete what the teachers fondly dubbed a "student research project". As if it was the first time any of us had done the research for a project ourselves. Basically the premise was to hypothesize and devise your own experiment, record the results and present your findings. The mark would go toward your final grade and you were thus one step closer to passing year 10 and moving onto becoming a senior, that or dropping out and starting a trade. 

Well with all the confidence of a professional landscaper I decided I would finally break out the personalised gardening set I had received from my aunty a few christmases ago and put it to good use (an addition to my christmas list after seeing a troll in central park and imaging I had magical powers in my thumb that could somehow grow plants). My experiment was to see whether talking to plants helped them grow.

My idea was to plant the same type of seeds in 5 different pot plants keeping all variables like sun exposure, water and care the same but for 20 minutes each day I would choose a different form of verbal encouragement (or torture depending on your outlook) and see which one worked the best.. that is, which plant grew the fastest. The 5 methods of stimulation were

1. Watching TV 

2. offering all sorts of encouragement 

3. Insulting it 

4. Playing music 

5. and ignoring the last. 

So right about now your wondering why I'm telling you this story.. its basically like this, can you imagine walking into our house at 4 to find the tv turned on and a lone pot plant sitting in front of it? Weirdnes abounds when you walk further in to see another casually listening to Mozart's concerto in E minor. If this hasn't already caused you to quickly turn around and head back out the door you walk to the patio only to discover a young girl lovingly caressing a pot and whispering compliments into its dirt and another further down the garden screaming insults such as "you dirty plant, you'll never grow to anything, why don't you just crawl up and die!!"

Its no wonder the neighbours thought we were crazy!

But it did make for great stress relief as both my mum and sister would also have a go. Unfortunately I failed the project as I had no results to record. None of the plants made it past seed stage which I concluded was not the talking (and screaming) but due in fact to my utter lack of gardening ability. 

More later in the week - hope you all had a fantastic long weekend ^_^