Digitised Navel Gazing

**I think this post is actually turning into one of my greatest ever public pity parties, and I shall mark this post so that I don't ever read it again. Because I hate reading over my angsty shit. You can feel free to skip the whole thing, if you are misfortunate enough to have landed here.**

I thought I was having a good week. At the start, it was all systems go, I had a potential housemate that was not crazy, I had what I thought was a flirtation happening with an attractive man, my sister looked to be moving in and my money problems seemed to be coming to an end.

I spent today sobbing on my own, trying to work out what I could sell to keep my pets. Just typing that set me off again.

As it turns out, my potential housemate found somewhere he liked better. My flirtation has a girlfriend. My sister is moving to Canberra. I am financially fucked.

Only possible solution I can come up with is either stop eating, get 2 housemates or get better homes for my pets.

Ok, I probably should just stop eating, but really, not an option. I can't get ONE housemate, so how the fuck do I plan on getting 2. Who's going to look after my pets better than me?

I should probably explain that better. I am currently renting a 3 bedroom home. It is more than I can afford on my own. I am renting it because my exboyfriend moved out, leaving me with the house. Finding rental accommodation which will let me have 2 pets is nigh on impossible, especially when we introduce the phrase "affordable" into the mix.

I've been waiting for my sister to get her job offers, and I was really hoping that she'd end up staying here in Adelaide and move in with me. But she's not. So, now I need a proper housemate.

It was my birthday this week. And all I feel is older. And also, like a complete loser. I'm 31. The biggest thing I own is my car, worth $4500. I have a shitload of debt. I have no (fuck that autosave is pissing me off) useful qualifications. I've never been overseas. I'm single. It doesn't look like "our" plan for having kids this year is going to happen, seeing as how we broke up and all.

Not that us breaking up is really a bad thing, but it does put a bit of a hole in my plan.

I'm at uni, "studying" for an IT degree, which I don't even know if I really want, I just know I don't want to work in hospitality for the rest of my life and this seems like a better way out of it than many others.

I need a new plan.

I need a new life.

I have a hangover.

Ouch. And I'm supposed to be doing my homework for my class which is in an hour and a half. That's not going so well right now.

We went out for dinner for my birthday last night. We not being me, myself and I in this instance, but my parents, sister and friend.

Thank god we ate dinner because all that alcohol on an empty stomach would have hurt so much more this morning.

We went to Goodlife Pizza in Glenelg and it was really nice. I have leftovers in my fridge. And leftover birthday cake.

Birthday cake, it's what's for breakfast.

I just had this genius idea.

I got home from work, planned to do some homework and mop the floor.

Picked up my dog to give her a cuddle and ... Her fur is matted.... Better yet, dirty and matted.

So I thought, hmm... Can't wash it while it's matted, it will make it worse, so we'll give her a shave. But the clippers wouldn't go through the matts (It's possible that the reason for that is that they are the most CRAPTASTIC clippers on the planet, but the jury is still out on that one), so we had to do it with scissors.

If anyone ever suggests to you, a cat lover, that you should get a small dog because "they're just like a cat", be aware that they lie, and they hate you with the fire of 1000 suns.

Cats are self-cleaning. They brush, wash and condition THEMSELVES. And if you observe closely, you can see that they don't even fight themselves a little bit when doing so. Dogs are not. Dogs seem to think that anyone trying to do these tiresome dhores for them is the devil and must be destroyed.

Did I mention my dog is a maltese-shitsu? Yeah, not too much fur there....

She's now sporting a jaunty 1cm all over do. Which may or may not be uneven. I say drink more beer and it will look great.

I wanted to call this blog "With a chainsaw", as in, "fuck me gently with a", but someone had already taken that name. Ditto for "Gently with a chainsaw". Neither have been written in since 2006.

I thought about "Mistress of the Obvious". No, last written in in 2002.

And so we ended up here. At Letters to My Navel.

If I have spelt that wrong, and I've named this blog as though I'm writing letters to my own private Navy, I may be upset with myself.

I never know how to start out. From that sentence, you can safely assume that I'm not a first time blogger. I may be rusty, I may not have done it for a while, but I think it's like riding a bicycle. Or what I think riding a bicycle is like. I haven't ridden a bicycle for years. Mostly because I am not keen on the skinned knee/elbow/face look. You never know though, it might be the new look for spring. If the world is taken over by zombies in the next week or so.

Ok. Me in a nutshell. I'd draw a picture of that, but it's just too hard on a laptop.

And I can't draw. So I needed an excuse.

While I'm thinking of it, things I don't understand about the USA.

1. Garbage disposal units. In your sink.
See, in Australia, we put garbage in the rubbish bin. Not in the sink. I do not understand the concept. So far as I can tell, it's like some sort of mincer thingie in your sink. You seem to push garbage into it, and it minces it up.

That's as far as I've gotten with it. Except you shouldn't put your hand in there.
I guess you have some sort of receptacle under the sink which collects all the minced garbage, which you empty into a rubbish bin?

Which is good, I guess, if you like double handling your garbage. Where does the water go? I would not want my sink water to go into the garbage disposal unit if it was storing garbage under my sink and I had to empty it out. I can just see that ending badly.

I don't understand why you want minced garbage in the first place.

In other news, I've just finished work. And really, all that's done for me is strengthen my resolve to get a new job. My laptop just made a sound kind of like a car horn. I don't know why.

But, new job. Night shift and my life are not friends.

Also, I remembered this morning why I hate driving on Sunday mornings in Adelaide.

One word: Cyclists.

The Tour de France was held recently, you may have noticed? Well, apparently, every wannabe cyclist in Adelaide was inspired to donn some lycra and cycle somewhere for coffee.

That's pretty much all I've seen them do, cycle arrogantly and stop for coffee.

And lycra. I think that we should build a time machine and send it back to the eighties for good.

I cannot think of any single person on the planet, including Ms Jolie or Mr Depp that looks good in lycra. It makes everyone look bad.

Wouldn't that be odd, reading the blog of Ms Jolie, writing about life as mother to... uh, 6 children? Life with Mr Pitt and travelling the globe...

Guess someone would be copping more flack than Dooce. Not that I can understand why exactly she's copping so much flack. Maybe it's the Australian/American divide thing again.

Personally, if i could stay home, with my family (at this point consisting of two very furry pets but that's beside the point), and make my living, I'd think life was pretty damn sweet.

What would I like to get paid to stay home and do? Hmm. Read books. But only books I like. And garden (badly). And do some beading. And maybe some cooking. And I could do some sort of study on sleeping. I'd love that.

I spent $60 on pillows this week. Which feels crazily decadent. For me. Well, it did, until I looked around the store properly and realised you could buy pillows for $92 ON SALE.

I want some of those pillows. It must be like sleeping on clouds from heaven. They must be like... fairy floss? Ephemeral and wispy, yet .... Not sticky for a start.

Or like the feeling you get when you're curled in behind your partner in bed with your face in their neck and it's all warm and soft and kind of fuzzy feeling.

It would want to make you sleep like a small child and wake up feeling as though you spent the night before having earth shattering orgasmns is what it would want to do. And also get you a coffee in the morning and put the dog out for a wee.

Speaking of the dog, it's been suggested that I spoil her. To which I say... Actually, I'm not sure what I say. Objectively, I know I lavish way too much cash and presents on her. It has been suggested that I favour her over the cat. No, no I don't. You can't bribe the cat.