don't worry, I'll skip most of the sulky bits

[bliumchik]

Where have I been this week, o worthy citizens of Livejournal? making lolcats. Also: Sulking, procrastinating, horse-riding, play-watching, more procrastinating and sulking, watching movies and reading fanfiction, with small breaks for rolling around in pain on Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday. For three entirely unrelated reasons. Ladies and gentlemen: my week!

I believe my last recount involved the Friday-night shenanigans of Dodgy Uncle Mark, successful Drag... well, I wouldn't go so far as king, Drag Prince? Drag Marquis? Drag Viscount, yes! In any case, successful Drag Viscounting considering Bling Dude said he didn't realise I was a girl till I started talking to him, schoolgirl catch-up, some drunk-Melissa angst-shepherding, fun tiems for all. Onwards to Saturday!

The good thing about spontaneous Liza-organised outings is that she drives. So ten am on Saturday morning, Alex and I got picked up by Liza and Gleb in Maroubra. That may not sound early, but remember I'd gotten home and hung up my suspenders at about one am the day before, and then obviously went to tell livejournal about it. So fully-functional my brain was not, as evidenced by my complete failure to, when early for meeting Liza at Alex's house, actually go into Alex's house to wait. Oh well, it was a nice day out. We pulled into a McDonalds parking lot to coordinate with the other cars and swap some passengers around, and I conveniently got some pancakes for breakfast, and then congratulated myself on managing to eat them in a moving vehicle without getting syrup on Liza's upholstery. We swung by some tree-surrounded suburb whose name escapes me temporarily to pick up Maria on the way to the horse-riding place. I was amused by Liza's temper steadily climbing as traffic ground to a halt around us, to the tune of old pop songs on the radio and Alex's soothing purring noises.

Upon arrival I once more demonstrated that it was entirely too early in the morning by my standards with my skillful misreading of "your birthday" on the forms as "today's date." Luckily I wasn't alone in this, Mick and I were both called miracles of science by the eye-rolling desk lady and had to hastily amend our forms. Then we were assigned horses. I was not the only one to have checked "some experience (10-20 times horseriding)" and at least one person had checked <10, but possibly none of those other people were short and female, or maybe I just looked nervous, because they gave me what must have been the tiniest horse in the universe. Seriously it was like a pony. Toly was sitting next to me on this massive bruiser and his knees were at around my head height. I would not complain, except that small horse means small saddle. Know why that was a problem? Because my saddle had lumps caused by subterranean metal buckles, exactly where my knees were meant to be pressing against the saddle. The only way to escape the lumps was to move backwards so far that I was basically sitting on the far edge of the saddle and at risk of falling off the back of the horse, or to shorten the stirrups until I looked like the unlucky teenager sitting on a tiny chair at the kiddy table. The guide seemed confused when I complained about this, so I can only assume this horse is normally given to people with much shorter legs than me. I'm not kidding. PONY.

Anyway, aside from the inevitable bruised thighs, and the bruised backside from when I forgot and tried to move back in my saddle just before we went into a trot, the ride was pretty enjoyable. And it was probably the first time it actually clicked for me how to trot, too, although admittedly the last time I tried it I was about thirteen. So I probably saved myself a bit of bruising there. Nevertheless, I was sitting a bit gingerly when I got home, but I had no time to lie on my stomach and gripe, because I had to shower and go meet Cassie to see Waiter Painter.

Some bonus fail: I forgot to check the location. Yes. Of the play. Which I decided to see. I forgot. Well, no, I just sort of assumed it was in the region of my uni. Because... it was done by my uni's drama group. Yup, that was very clever. Anyway, I got to the uni and realised my mistake, so I rang Beth and got the ACTUAL location of the theatre, and then rang Cassie to divert her course. After some running around and flailing at bus timetables we met up at Taylor Square and hustled on down... the wrong street entirely. Crap. Anyway, we finally found the place after going round in circles for a bit and asking for directions on every corner and shivering rather a lot. Waiter Painter's clever gimmick was that the audience were seated around tables, a la at a restaurant, and fed. We were so late they'd sold extra tickets to people who'd just shown up, so there wasn't room at the tables and they had to set up some stools for us at the side of the room (which my sore ass was not happy with), and we missed the first scene. It still made sense, though, and was a really good play all round (the pizza helped). The guy playing Alistair was awesome, you could practically feel the neuroses radiating from his skull, and I identified a little too much with Lucinda for comfort, but all the dialogue felt very organic and the comedy hit the spot. The non-comedy maybe could have had better pacing in some places, but all round a very enjoyable experience. And, of course, spending time with Cassie, although I felt like a total spaz for entirely too much of the night, which I can mostly blame on the lateness and hurry because that sort of thing always throws me off a bit. Hilariously some random guy on Oxford street felt the need to grin and call out "Hallo girls" simply because we were cuddling at a bus stop.

Sunday morning the word "saddle-sore" hit me in full force, marching out of the dictionary and doing a little dance on my nerve endings. My thighs and knees complained about the lumps, my arse had a whinge about the goddamn trotting and my back muscles chimed in on the unfamiliar work they had to do. So yes, ow. That's my hitching rides on the backs of large mammals quota for approximately the rest of this century. Then I started pulling crap off my desk in an attempt to meet my dad's deadline for my room being clean so he'd go halves on a new PC with me, but alas. I underestimated the might of my mess. I did recycle a shitload of paper, some of which dated two or three years back, so that's good, I guess. Except then I sort of stopped midway, discouraged, and haven't touched it since, and now my room looks worse than when I started.

On Monday Avi had a movie night. A bunch of us saw Night Watch and the sequel, Day Watch. Now Avi and I saw Night Watch back in high school, but I have to say it was confusing the first time round and time had further distorted my memory until I had the vaguest idea of what the hell actually happened there (and I'm ashamed to say I totally mixed up all the blonde women). It was totally awesome to rewatch it, especially with Stan along so I had someone to discuss the Russian elements with. Avi only really got as far as "I love how nobody drinks water in this movie, just vodka or blood." Me and Stan had a debate about subtitle translation! (It was a word that got translated as funnel, which I suppose was reasonable but for a while I thought they were actually saying "gate" which is one letter transposed from the actual word they used, which is sort of obscure and shares roots with "crow" and "whirlwind" which I thought was pretty cool considering the thing manifested as, essentially, a whirlwind of crows.)

All the non-Russian people who had never seen the movies before were totally confused, of course, which is what happens when you have to read the subs and watch the action at the same time. It didn't help that at one point the characters were speaking Mongolian and the subtitles helpfully switched to Russian! But I think everybody had a good time nontheless. I certainly loved it this time round, although it is still bugging me that I have no idea what happened to the kid's mother. I should read the books now, they probably cut it from the movies for time reasons and because the plot was convoluted enough without all the yelling that I presume would have to realistically occur if she and Anton met again. I am really glad I had seen it before because I had a giant toothache from those wisdom teeth I'd spent a few weeks forgetting to do anything about, so there's no way I would have had the concentration to decipher a first-time viewing. Afterwards me and Justin got a ride to our bus stop from Avi's mustachio'd friend (I actually know his name, but the hilarious mustache kind of overrides, like, everything) and worked off our residual energy with an impromptu singalong. This was my fault for cuing up I Get Knocked Down on Hilarious Mustache Dude's ipod, because that song is the biggest earworm in the history of the universe.

On Tuesday I dropped off my concurrent study forms (which I today learned have only just been filed, ffs) and finally dropped in to see the dentist about my wisdom teeth. But first I obviously had some extra navigation fail in which I forgot that my dentist had relocated and accidentally went to the old place. Then I had to ring Stan so he could google the new location. I was appropriately sheepish. One x-ray and some prodding later, it appears that my wisdom teeth are not actually making much of a fuss about coming out, and I'm to come back in June if they don't start hurting unbearably before then. I guess he was right as the initial toothache has pretty much subsided by now, so no horrible mouth operations for me!

Then on Thursday me and Stan were going to watch Clerks 2. Except it had disappeared into the void of Stan's room (I sympathize, I've really got to find my Moshcard before the Mountain Goats show on Friday!) so instead we watched Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle. It was hilarious. The random shit just kept piling on and on, we were like, who? What? why did- RACCOON!? we are totally too sober to be watching this movie. Alas, neither of us keep weed around, although that would have been most appropriate, so we had some cognac and grilled cheese sandwiches. It just wasn't the same. As per usual we ended up staying up until like five am, and then I woke up at eleven because Stan's blinds don't block shit, so I threw my sleep schedule totally out of whack. I've been trying in vain to return to normal the last few days, or at least to midnight-ish. It's now 3:23 am so as you can see it's been very effective.

This weekend was pretty much the antithesis of last weekend, I did absolutely nothing except suffer debilitating cramps and devour the internet. Colbert Report fanfiction, you guys, seriously. SERIOUSLY. *hums* I read a Daily Show/Doctor Who crossover and I liked it... ALSO, masses of youtube clips, and was delighted to learn that Stephen Colbert is a D'n'D nerd who speaks Elvish. I actually seriously heart these guys for all that I never expected to read fanfic about them (I should have. THIS IS THE INTERNEEEETS). Despite the awesome deadpan I especially love the irony-breakdown moments when their own hilarity gets the better of them and they just crack up giggling, because it's rare to see people just having so much fun on TV. Also, they sing! (I absolutely adore Colbert's willingness to make a complete fool of himself on camera. It's adorable.)

Aaaand since then I've pretty much just been messing about with lolcats and failing to write my resume. What's new with you, internets?