i) If one finds shoes on sale, one must buy them.
2) If one finds shoes on sale and buys any number of shoes, the total price being less than or equal to the original price of any one pair of the shoes purchased, one can be said to have only bought one pair of shoes.
c) If one's sale-related shoe purchasing goes above and beyond the original price of a single pair of shoes, one's purchases only equal two pairs of shoes. Really.
d) When the shoe rack gets full, see i).

I will create equations and pie charts to prove this, as my research progresses.

In the meantime, I would like to remind everyone to sponsor me in Febfast, whereby I, guided only by the power of my shoes and my associate addiction to Green & Black's Maya Gold chocolate, AM NOT DRINKING ANY ALCOHOL FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH OF FEBRUARY. Please sponsor me in this, because for once it's not all about me - it's about the youth with alcohol and substance abuse issues who we're raising the money for. Thanks.

I will leave you with this: For, something about the video here made me find it to be hysterically funny. Maybe because life is too precious, my friend. Maybe because of the hair. Maybe because of the tools...

I was most astonished that they weren't getting sore backs from wriggling around on the stone stairs, but then again I'm not as young as I once was. I tend to think about whether it'll hurt or make me cold before I jump in these days.

Eventually somebody in the building decided to burst their valentines day bubble, about an hour into the exhibition, by calling security - four guards surrounded them and asked them to leave the premises. They wandered away red-faced. Ah, young love...

*Plastic rose lying discarded on the footpath beside them.

After I got off the tram, as I was working up the street in my cute little skirt and cute little top on my way to work, I was thinking to myself:

"I thought this cute little top had pockets."

"Lucky I remembered to wear undies today! This certainly is quite a short cute little skirt!"

"I could have sworn that this cute little top had pockets!"

"Undies really are good. Freedom of expression aside, they do keep my butt warm on a chilly morning."

"Didn't this cute little top have pockets...?"

...

...

"Oh my god I put my cute little top on backwards!"

Hanging my head in shame, I walked faster. As soon as I got to my building I dashed into the bathrooms and rectified the situation. Oh. My. Gods. I knew I was getting old (only 19 sleeps until 26 years!) but really didn't think I'd be feeling the effects so soon.

Ooooh, it's a bit chilly this morning!

Oooh, it's a bit chilly! I don't remember putting a g-string on today!

Hmm, I don't remember putting a g-string on this morning! Silly decision, my butt is most definitely chilly.

Damn, I should have put warmer undies on!

I really don't remember putting a g-string on...

...

...

OH MY GOD I FORGOT TO PUT UNDIES ON!!!!

Luckily there are plenty of places during my walk to work between the point of realisation and my office where I could purchase some undies that would both retain my modesty, and keep my butt warm.

That will be all.

Does anybody know what spirulina is?

I hope they stay blue after I cook them.

I work in a women's community organisation. I'm not a hairyhippyfemihairyweirdarse, I am in fact a nice person who happens to have a lovely bottom. Nonetheless, this particular organisation seems to attract what we in the welfare industry like to term "whackos".

Including but not exclusive to:

Man walks into office, "My son was born here 21 years ago. What do you think I should buy him for his birthday next week?"

Phone rings, "Hi, I'm from Adelaide but I want to have a shower in Melbourne. Do you have a place for me to take a shower?"

Admittedly fielding such requests is better than doing actual work, which is hard to do in January because it is right after the holidays. It is also better than popping out babies (which would hurt), or living on the streets as a crazy cat-lady. I will come back tomorrow.

If you are too, and even if you aren't, support me as I stop drinking for ALL OF FEBRUARY to raise money for young people dealing with substance abuse. All donations are distributed to the youth drug and alcohol service sector in order to help angry teenagers with their issues.

Take a look here for more info, and to support me (and my liver) please come and donate here.

Hooray! Thanks for your support!

I got drunk (lots), and ate (lots).

This was all to culminate in an anti-celebration of the new year, but apparently my hedonist rampage decided to affect me* and I broke my back and couldn't get out of bed on Monday morning. It was either the hedonist rampage, or the other-worldly revenge of the 17,000 chickens and turkeys that I ate (respectively).

So I spent all of new year's eve day lying on my back in a valium-fog, while Yehia gave me worried looks. I ate curry, started ranting more than usual after one beer, and then my husband sent me to bed. I am so getting old.

*I am, after all, getting on - almost 26!**
**My gift list will be posted shortly.

I have been practicing Giving Looks lately, because I am officially becoming a grinch, as I feel that festivity is overrated. For the last few days we have had Salvation Army fundraisers in the square outside our office, playing Christmas Carols on their trumpets and their trombones for several hours at a time, and my ears are bleeding. There are also lots of tourists blocking the streets, whose ankles I am very close to stamping down upon.

Although I don't have any neices or nephews (inclusive), I have decided that the only way to get through the festive season (it's also Eid at the moment, people, and well-wishes must be made!) is to act the part of "crazy mad old auntie" by drinking copious amounts of Pimms, waving my umberella at people and wearing inappropriate purple.

I'm off to buy a blue rinse.

*What's with cats and hissing? What exactly is it meant to do? It's not particularly scary or intimidating unless they have arse breath, which our cat now doesn't have since having its teeth removed.

Yehia told me a few days ago that there were "tree rats" in the monsteria in our couryard. I, of course, did not believe him. Why would I?

Until The Cat ran through our very civilised and grownup Sunday family lunch with a giant mouse in its mouth. Thank goodness these particular family members aren't too freaked out by a toothless cat holding a mouse. Albeit large (the mouse). Thank goodness said family members can assist the two of us to remove said mouse.

Just now I looked out the window and saw with my very eyes a rodent strolling up the monsteria. I think it's another large mouse.

How does one get rid of large mice living in a giant monsteria in the garden? Should one make friends and live in peace and harmony with rodents?

- Eeeek! -

Whilst I can swear like a trooper, narrate food and describe camels, donkeys and monkeys very well Yehia is enthusiastic for me to widen my Arabic vocabulary, and likes to help. On Tuesday evening I just couldn't figure this one letter out. Yehia couldn't figure out how I couldn't figure this letter out. As I leaned forward to pick up my dictionary, Yehia flung out his arm out wide to write the word in the air and I was knocked off the couch.

My darling, normally non-clumsy husband got me an icepack for the emerging bump on my head. I didn't make it to my Arabic lesson.

I'm baking carrot muffins right now, and I need to go to the stupormarket to get more icing sugar because I have run out, and I refuse to eat them without cream cheese icing. It's a dilemma - I can't be arsed leaving the house, but I want muffins. What to do, what to do?

OMG I found out the other day why I'm scared of axolotls. Even ones called Andrew:

Here is something that was said a few days ago. I'm not going to say who it was said by, or who it was said to:

"I have never been more embarrassed than when you did that enormous fart at Footscray station. And you leaned forward. You. Leaned. Forward. It echoed along the platform. That man walked past us five minutes later, and he was still trying not to laugh. You could have blamed me, if it hadn't been for the fact that you leaned forward to do it."

In a random segue, I also stand by not killing bugs unless they are earwigs. I will defend a spider to the squish and transport it out of the building into a nice garden and I will move snails from the footpath onto the grass after the rain, but an earwig I will pulverise in one foul swoop. They scare me a lot - partly because they scuttle, partly because of those freaky pincers they have attached to their arses. I think that reading George's Marvellous Medicine too many times as a child made me scared that one would bite me on the tongue and never let go. Read the book and you'll understand.

Other things that I did too many times as a child are:

- Force my mother to cut my toast into 16 pieces;
- Not catch the ball and get hit on the nose;
- Not blow my nose, as obviously my brains would come out with the snot and then I would have no brains and catching the ball would be even harder;
- Bake chocolate chip cookies;
- Lick my sister;
- Rub mulberry juice all over my sister's black and white cat, making it black and purple;
- Hold my breath until I passed out;
- Sing "Man of Colours";
- Etc.

Another thing that I believe is that crabs can grow their claws back if they break off. Unfortunately I often have difficulties convincing other people of this. After doing some extensive research* I have discovered the an article in the well-renowned and reputable crabstreetjournal which thoroughly authenticates my hypothesis, and Proves Me Right. Thankyou crabstreetjournal.

I wonder if crab and egg sandwiches would be good?

I will not be ripping the claws off crabs to make crab sandwiches** because I don't think that's kind, and also because I think that then the crabs couldn't eat and then they'd die of starvation instead of growing back another claw. Poor little crabs.

Today is a day off work for me, so I am now determined to do something productive like sew a bizarre outfit, and then cook a feast for my lovely husband. And google things about crabs. And eggs. And sandwiches.

*typing into google the gramatically suspect "can crabs grow their claws back when they lose them?"

**Or to make crab and egg sandwiches, which I'm not really sure about unless the egg is in the form of mayonnaise. Speaking of which, an egg sandwich is really a double egg sandwich, because there's two forms of egg: in mayonnaise, and boiled. Weird, huh?