Last night, whilst playing on my iPad (did I mention that I now have an iPad?) me and Man discovered the joy and sheer amazingness of a game called Angry Birds. It involves a fleet of birds which you slingshot with deft precision at a group of green pig faces among meticulously arranged slabs of ice, wood and stone. The aim is to squish the pig to death, either by a direct hit from one of the birds or from a subsequent toppling of their crudely fashioned war forts. There's an assortment of hilarious sound effects, including smug pig snorts when the birds have failed in their mission, giggles when the birds succeed, and excited 'wheeeeee's when the corpulent feathered warriors are flung through the air. It's awesome in it's simplicity, and we played for a good 3 hours, taking turns (at which Man was amazed, as I do not share well. My true colours shone screaming through eventually though when I insisted on 7 or 8 turns in a row to his 1).
Anyone with an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad (did I mention I have an iPad? No? I have an iPad!) should understand the importance of this purchase if they wish to lead a happy life. Those without Apple products are surely destined to live out the rest of their days in grey boredom due to the lack of Angry Birds.
Exhausted after our perilous and gallant ordeal against the smug green oinkers, of course it was the time to indulge in some deep conversation about our life aims. Man posited his which were all very mature, well thought out and admirable. He said he would also love me to be happy with my lot, and was hoping that before long I would have more colourful ambitions in life than winning all the cups on Mario Kart.
I was understandably outraged that he though this little of me! That he thought these were my only dreams! Obviously Mario Kart is great and accounts for perhaps 30% of all the meaning in my life, but my only aspiration? I was hurt and, after I'd hit him, told him thus. He then gently reminded me that during a recent similar conversation, when he'd asked me what I'd like to have achieved in a year's time, my response had been 'I like to think I'd have won gold cups in all the Mario Kart Grand Prixes'.
Oh. My. God. He was right! My biggest goals in life were linked to success at a video game on the Wii in which only I partake. I need new goals, and I need them fast!
So readers, here is my new list of goals of what I want to have achieved in a year's time:
- 1,000 subscribers to my blog
- finished recording my album with my band
- be King of Blogworld
- have a decent income from a job I actually care about
- win all the cups in Mario Kart
- win Angry Birds
- have a pet Griffin
- gone up a cup size
- eaten a lot of steak
- have something named after me; perhaps a pub, Polar Bear or missile silo
- been a guest starring patient on an episode of House
- have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry/Awesomeness
- gone to the moon
There you go, Man. Put that in your pipe and smoke it - Hattie now dreams BIG!
I have to go and play Mario Karts now.
Disclaimer: if I only achieve one of the first 4 goals that'd be ok too.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Monday 31 May 2010
Sunday 30 May 2010
I have an iPad
Hi everyone - I have an iPad and I am currently blogging from my blogging app for iPad. I have an iPad because my awesome boyfriend knew I thought iPads were awesome so he bought me an iPad. It's so awesome having an iPad I can't even tell you. I love my iPad. I also love my boyfriend, but mostly I love my iPad.
Will post properly later from my iPad!
Will post properly later from my iPad!
Location:My iPad
Wednesday 26 May 2010
Danger: the antidote to misery!
EDIT: 7/09/2010 You can now listen as you read along with my partner in crime and collaboration, Peeteer Smith, narrating in his special way!
Picture the scene. You've had a pretty crap few days, during which time you've questioned your very purpose on this earth, where your life is going, and panicked about the future to such an extent that never leaving the house again and spending an eternity on the sofa watching Come Dine With Me marathons seems like the only viable option. You look like this:
Then you decide 'Enough of this self-pity! Self-pity, be gone! I have cool things to do like be awesome and play Wii!'
But then, the sneaky good-feelings-killing elves come along and think 'Haha, she's such a dick for feeling better so soon, lets REALLY ruin her day!'
All of a sudden, there are traffic jams where its impossible for traffic jams to form - and you are blocked at the worst of it. People shamelessly pilfer your parking space. Other drivers are fucking crap at driving and stop you from going anywhere in a timely fashion. Everyone everywhere seems to have a vendetta against you, everything becomes personal and suddenly everyone in the world is hell bent on making sure you have the worst driving experience ever in the history of driving.
And that's just in the car! Shop keepers are slow and rude, someone will block you in the street who is the SLOWEST WALKER EVER, so slow indeed that they seem to be going backwards, its impossible to navigate around them and then a bird will most likely shit in your eye. Babies cry at you - not near you, AT you - and you can't find anything you need in your handbag as they seem to have all simultaneously been vapourised, you trip and fall, blood begins to ooze from shop windows and you might as well just give up the fight and take a nap on the pavement.
Before you know it, you are MISERABLE, and nothing can ever drag you out of the pit of despair you find yourself wallowing in.
Self-imposed danger! For when life is so miserable, cheating death is the only thing that will make you feel better! And the best thing is, danger is is always nearby!
Here are a few handy ways to put yourself in danger:
-reckless driving
-walking across the road without looking
-dining at MacDonalds
-shouting 'Pussies!' at the gang of tough looking youths on the street corner and not running away
-not washing your hands after a pooh
-meeting someone off myspace who lists their interests as human taxidermy and cannibalism
Suddenly, the misery is lifted because you are back in control and can dictate the lousy things than happen to you, and you can be all 'Fuck you world, I'm the king of life!'
Danger: the antidote to misery!
Picture the scene. You've had a pretty crap few days, during which time you've questioned your very purpose on this earth, where your life is going, and panicked about the future to such an extent that never leaving the house again and spending an eternity on the sofa watching Come Dine With Me marathons seems like the only viable option. You look like this:
Then you decide 'Enough of this self-pity! Self-pity, be gone! I have cool things to do like be awesome and play Wii!'
But then, the sneaky good-feelings-killing elves come along and think 'Haha, she's such a dick for feeling better so soon, lets REALLY ruin her day!'
All of a sudden, there are traffic jams where its impossible for traffic jams to form - and you are blocked at the worst of it. People shamelessly pilfer your parking space. Other drivers are fucking crap at driving and stop you from going anywhere in a timely fashion. Everyone everywhere seems to have a vendetta against you, everything becomes personal and suddenly everyone in the world is hell bent on making sure you have the worst driving experience ever in the history of driving.
And that's just in the car! Shop keepers are slow and rude, someone will block you in the street who is the SLOWEST WALKER EVER, so slow indeed that they seem to be going backwards, its impossible to navigate around them and then a bird will most likely shit in your eye. Babies cry at you - not near you, AT you - and you can't find anything you need in your handbag as they seem to have all simultaneously been vapourised, you trip and fall, blood begins to ooze from shop windows and you might as well just give up the fight and take a nap on the pavement.
Before you know it, you are MISERABLE, and nothing can ever drag you out of the pit of despair you find yourself wallowing in.
Self-imposed danger! For when life is so miserable, cheating death is the only thing that will make you feel better! And the best thing is, danger is is always nearby!
Here are a few handy ways to put yourself in danger:
-reckless driving
-walking across the road without looking
-dining at MacDonalds
-shouting 'Pussies!' at the gang of tough looking youths on the street corner and not running away
-not washing your hands after a pooh
-meeting someone off myspace who lists their interests as human taxidermy and cannibalism
Suddenly, the misery is lifted because you are back in control and can dictate the lousy things than happen to you, and you can be all 'Fuck you world, I'm the king of life!'
Danger: the antidote to misery!
Thursday 20 May 2010
I am a malco - Part 1
EDIT: 6/09/2010 You can now listen along as you read with my partner in crime and collaboration, Peeteer Smith, narrating in his special way!
People sometimes say 'oh, so and so fell from the ugly tree when they were born' which is mean and I don't approve. Some REALLY mean people also say '... and hit every branch on the way down'. What a ridiculous thing to say! People do not fall from trees when they are born. They are squished out of their mum's area, sometimes accompanied by a pooh! Much more dignified!
People sometimes say 'oh, so and so fell from the ugly tree when they were born' which is mean and I don't approve. Some REALLY mean people also say '... and hit every branch on the way down'. What a ridiculous thing to say! People do not fall from trees when they are born. They are squished out of their mum's area, sometimes accompanied by a pooh! Much more dignified!
Anyway, continuing this awfully high-brow topic, I think if such trees existed, I would have fallen from the Malco Tree. For those of you who don't share my awesome vocabulary, 'malco' is short for 'malcoordinated'. Which I have just looked up and apparently ISN'T IN THE DICTIONARY, but never the less was a well known term when I was growing up, used to describe someone who is not very good at coordination. Basically, if you were a malco, you were just crap at movement and holding things.
But it doesn't stop there. There is seemingly no end to the list of things at which I am crap!
Here's a short one:
- eating
- walking
- sitting still
- drinking
- putting (ie putting things on other things, not like crazy golf. I am amazing at crazy golf).
- moving
I am crap at eating. I'd say a third of the time I miss my mouth. Our cream sofa is no longer cream, its a mottled collection of Thai Sweet Red Chilli Sauce Red, HP Sauce Brown, Pizza Grease Yellow and Chocolate Smidgeon Pooh Smear; a tribute to Jackson Pollock, if you will. Although its not a tribute at all, but a sad reminder to my ever suffering man that the woman with whom he is in a relationship is in fact some retarded lady-child, which I'm sure prompts him on a daily basis to seriously question his life choices and decisions.
But actually I looked like this:
It was epic! I'd seemed to have amassed more crumbs on my jumper than constituted the piece of toast in the first place. It was quite a skill! But sadly one I have yet to leave behind in favour of the more adult skill of getting food into my mouth and it staying there *quickly adds 'power to make mass of food increase exponentially through process of botched mastication' to CV*.
The same goes for drinking - I often look like babies do when they teeth, however its not greeted with 'aw's or 'poor thing' or 'give her a thimble of brandy! That'll shut her up!'. Its met with wide eyed sneers of disbelief and sometimes pity, as perhaps I have an unidentified syndrome which means I am incapable of displaying motor skills more advanced than your average foetus.
But it doesn't stop there. There is seemingly no end to the list of things at which I am crap!
Here's a short one:
- eating
- walking
- sitting still
- drinking
- putting (ie putting things on other things, not like crazy golf. I am amazing at crazy golf).
- moving
In short, I'm a walking disaster and you can't really take me anywhere without being hideously embarrassed at the special friend who's accompanying you in public.
I am crap at eating. I'd say a third of the time I miss my mouth. Our cream sofa is no longer cream, its a mottled collection of Thai Sweet Red Chilli Sauce Red, HP Sauce Brown, Pizza Grease Yellow and Chocolate Smidgeon Pooh Smear; a tribute to Jackson Pollock, if you will. Although its not a tribute at all, but a sad reminder to my ever suffering man that the woman with whom he is in a relationship is in fact some retarded lady-child, which I'm sure prompts him on a daily basis to seriously question his life choices and decisions.
I remember being at school and eating some toast at break time. My awesome friend Grace pointed out 'Dude, you've got a crumb there', pointing at my jumper. I looked down expecting to see this:
But actually I looked like this:
It was epic! I'd seemed to have amassed more crumbs on my jumper than constituted the piece of toast in the first place. It was quite a skill! But sadly one I have yet to leave behind in favour of the more adult skill of getting food into my mouth and it staying there *quickly adds 'power to make mass of food increase exponentially through process of botched mastication' to CV*.
The same goes for drinking - I often look like babies do when they teeth, however its not greeted with 'aw's or 'poor thing' or 'give her a thimble of brandy! That'll shut her up!'. Its met with wide eyed sneers of disbelief and sometimes pity, as perhaps I have an unidentified syndrome which means I am incapable of displaying motor skills more advanced than your average foetus.
The sad thing is that there are so many stories of my unrestrained malconess that I fear regaling them all here would be too much of a malco influx to anyone reading it. There was a tale of malco in my blog post 'Hattie's Diagnostic Prowess' if you have yet to read it and want to know more of what I'm prattling on about. I'll save the rest and drip feed you with tales of malco from my malco pez dispenser in due course.
Happy weekend everyone :D
Monday 17 May 2010
I can ruin someone's life with a single look!
EDIT: 03/092010 You can now listen as you read along with my partner in crime and collaboration, Peeteer Smith, narrating in his special way!
Don't you hate it when you settle in to do your situps in the gym and the situp space is free so you are able to contort your body into embarrassing positions without feeling like a dick, but just as you start your moves and you look not unlike a jungle animal presenting and ready to be mounted, a large sweaty man comes and plonks himself next to you? Its not right and its not ok!
This happened to me yesterday (among an ever growing amount of other days) but yesterday was spectacularly and disturbingly different. Rotund man in tiny shorts and sweaty t-shirt lumbered over and splodged onto the mat next to me. I tried in vain to pick up the pace so that I could escape from the what had now become very smelly mat area. He had begun his routine which included yoga, which I'm sorry but is just UNACCEPTABLE in a communal gym area. Yoga requires the removal of shoes and socks, and in gyms this means, more often than not, sweaty pongy foots.
Foots are disgusting at the best of times, but this is pretty criminal. I don't want random people's fetid foot juice on mats where I may well be prostrate doing my floor routine before they've been sterilised. Not to mention the kind of foot boogers that could come into contact with my skin at any moment. Its vom inducing.
Anyway so this beast begins honking and snorting as the situps begin and I'm doing double time and nearly giving myself an aneurysm (one of the rare times when its not a tumour) in order to get out of there as quickly as possible. For some unknown reason that shall no doubt haunt me for years to come, I stole a sideways glance and noticed his silky smooth hair free legs. GROSS. I like my men to have hair where they are meant to have hair. Not saying that I would have liked this dude if he had hairy legs, but men are supposed to have hairy legs and men who don't have hairy legs are weird.
But it was then that, completely horrified, I realised this great hulking brick shithouse of a man was a woman.
You know when you're walking down the street minding your own business glancing here and there and all of a sudden your glance falls on someone with a really unfortunate and obvious growth on their face, and you really were just glancing randomly but then it looks like you're staring at their growth and you think 'FUUUUUCK they think I'm staring at their growth and that I think their growth is disgusting and therefore I'm a disgusting human being for not being more open-minded about growths' so you smile over-enthusiastically to make up for your faux-pas, only your over-enthusiasm makes your smile really creepy and then they're looking at you as if you're some kind of growth-fetishist and they just want to get the hell away from you because you're clearly mentally unhinged and weird? That's kind of how I felt when I saw that gross foot yoga man was actually a woman.
Only it was worse because at least growths are undoubtedly unusual. This lady was just broader, musclier and stockier than your average lady, and I'd been so narrow-minded as to assume that such a hulky constitution equalled man parts. So on this occasion I thought 'FUUUUUCK she can see the shock on my face and she knows that I thought she was a man and now my facial expression of obvious surprise has given the game away and prompted her to live the rest of her life as a bag of neuroses and low self-esteem, all because some bitch in the gym looked at her in a way that obviously meant that she was a disgusting gross foot yoga man but actually a woman and she'll need years of therapy for the incident when someone looked at her with an indeterminable yet undeniable look of surprise and she'll probably never leave the house again because of ME and I've DESTROYED HER LIFE and she knows all this!'
I'm pretty sure that's what she was thinking. And that's how I'm pretty sure I've managed to ruin someone's life with an innocent, yet unwittingly dangerous, look.
20/05/10 UPDATE: I just saw gross foot yoga woman who I thought was man - she's back! I haven't ruined her life! Yet...
Don't you hate it when you settle in to do your situps in the gym and the situp space is free so you are able to contort your body into embarrassing positions without feeling like a dick, but just as you start your moves and you look not unlike a jungle animal presenting and ready to be mounted, a large sweaty man comes and plonks himself next to you? Its not right and its not ok!
This happened to me yesterday (among an ever growing amount of other days) but yesterday was spectacularly and disturbingly different. Rotund man in tiny shorts and sweaty t-shirt lumbered over and splodged onto the mat next to me. I tried in vain to pick up the pace so that I could escape from the what had now become very smelly mat area. He had begun his routine which included yoga, which I'm sorry but is just UNACCEPTABLE in a communal gym area. Yoga requires the removal of shoes and socks, and in gyms this means, more often than not, sweaty pongy foots.
Foots are disgusting at the best of times, but this is pretty criminal. I don't want random people's fetid foot juice on mats where I may well be prostrate doing my floor routine before they've been sterilised. Not to mention the kind of foot boogers that could come into contact with my skin at any moment. Its vom inducing.
Anyway so this beast begins honking and snorting as the situps begin and I'm doing double time and nearly giving myself an aneurysm (one of the rare times when its not a tumour) in order to get out of there as quickly as possible. For some unknown reason that shall no doubt haunt me for years to come, I stole a sideways glance and noticed his silky smooth hair free legs. GROSS. I like my men to have hair where they are meant to have hair. Not saying that I would have liked this dude if he had hairy legs, but men are supposed to have hairy legs and men who don't have hairy legs are weird.
But it was then that, completely horrified, I realised this great hulking brick shithouse of a man was a woman.
You know when you're walking down the street minding your own business glancing here and there and all of a sudden your glance falls on someone with a really unfortunate and obvious growth on their face, and you really were just glancing randomly but then it looks like you're staring at their growth and you think 'FUUUUUCK they think I'm staring at their growth and that I think their growth is disgusting and therefore I'm a disgusting human being for not being more open-minded about growths' so you smile over-enthusiastically to make up for your faux-pas, only your over-enthusiasm makes your smile really creepy and then they're looking at you as if you're some kind of growth-fetishist and they just want to get the hell away from you because you're clearly mentally unhinged and weird? That's kind of how I felt when I saw that gross foot yoga man was actually a woman.
Only it was worse because at least growths are undoubtedly unusual. This lady was just broader, musclier and stockier than your average lady, and I'd been so narrow-minded as to assume that such a hulky constitution equalled man parts. So on this occasion I thought 'FUUUUUCK she can see the shock on my face and she knows that I thought she was a man and now my facial expression of obvious surprise has given the game away and prompted her to live the rest of her life as a bag of neuroses and low self-esteem, all because some bitch in the gym looked at her in a way that obviously meant that she was a disgusting gross foot yoga man but actually a woman and she'll need years of therapy for the incident when someone looked at her with an indeterminable yet undeniable look of surprise and she'll probably never leave the house again because of ME and I've DESTROYED HER LIFE and she knows all this!'
I'm pretty sure that's what she was thinking. And that's how I'm pretty sure I've managed to ruin someone's life with an innocent, yet unwittingly dangerous, look.
20/05/10 UPDATE: I just saw gross foot yoga woman who I thought was man - she's back! I haven't ruined her life! Yet...
Friday 14 May 2010
Hattie's diagnostic prowess
EDIT: 03/092010 You can now listen as you read along with my partner in crime and collaboration, Peeteer Smith, narrating in his special way!
I woke up with a little pain in my rib cage. Its probably a tumour.
I should really point out that Diagnosis: Tumour is my default setting for when I am afflicted with even the slightest ailment. Headache? Its probably a tumour. Sprained ankle? Tumour. Itchy arm? Its a tumour. Woke up earlier than normal? You get the idea.
I have now said the word tumour too many times in rapid succession and it has lost all meaning. Hold on while I go google.
define: tumour - an abnormal mass of new tissue that serves no purpose
Well, that doesn't sound nearly as life-threatening as the plight with which I am faced with on a daily basis, sometimes 3 or 4 times in one day! Let me clarify, when I say tumour, I mean violent cancerous growth that will most likely make me dead in a matter of hours.
Luckily, this morning I avoided certain death by remembering that the pain in my ribcage was the consequence of me colliding with the door frame at great speed with an obtuse downward trajectory. Its tricky to stab oneself in the ribs (in fact I'm pretty sure it was a section of intercostal muscle that was damaged) but I assure you its possible with the grace and concentrated aplomb I demonstrate by being a complete malco. I would be embarrassed that this happened while I was attempting to navigate my way through a doorway (as normal people do every day) but similar events take place on such a regular basis that all capacity for humiliation has been exhausted.
I've had many close shaves when it comes to tumours. There was that time that I did 7 poohs in one day (yes! 7!) and I was of unshakeable certainty that I had developed Tumour Of The Intestine. Turns out I'd just eaten a lot of vegetables and one bowl of All Bran too many. God bless that branny goodness for saving me from my intestine tumour!
There was also the time when I had a drunken fall and twatted my hip so badly that I had a welt the size of a small melon protruding from my left leg. It took a long time to heal, which of course meant that the knock had prompted the rapid growth of a humongous super tumour that was bleeding technicolour into my skin (that was one hell of a bruise). But yay! Bruises take time to go away! The tumour is no more!
Diagnosis: Tumour means I escape death at least once a day! Which also means I am AMAZING and I win at life. And also if I have an actual tumour one day I will win because I'll get to the doctors far quicker than people who don't have a pathological obsession with tumours and they'll come in and shake their heads gravely and I'll whimper 'Diagnosis: tumour?' and they'll nod their heads in awe at my skills as an amateur diagnostician and respect for my bravery and then I'll jump up and yell 'I've had a million of these and its always been fine!' and they'll slap their legs in unison with cacophonous laughter and assure me that it will be fine and then they will give me an ice lolly as a prize for guessing the diagnosis. Also the doctors will be House and Wilson. And then they'll zap the tumour away with their special tumour destroying guns and I will be all better, all because of my life long ability to simultaneously diagnose and vanquish tumours.
In short - I am awesome.
NB: for home treatment of tumours - ointment usually works.
I woke up with a little pain in my rib cage. Its probably a tumour.
I should really point out that Diagnosis: Tumour is my default setting for when I am afflicted with even the slightest ailment. Headache? Its probably a tumour. Sprained ankle? Tumour. Itchy arm? Its a tumour. Woke up earlier than normal? You get the idea.
I have now said the word tumour too many times in rapid succession and it has lost all meaning. Hold on while I go google.
define: tumour - an abnormal mass of new tissue that serves no purpose
Well, that doesn't sound nearly as life-threatening as the plight with which I am faced with on a daily basis, sometimes 3 or 4 times in one day! Let me clarify, when I say tumour, I mean violent cancerous growth that will most likely make me dead in a matter of hours.
Luckily, this morning I avoided certain death by remembering that the pain in my ribcage was the consequence of me colliding with the door frame at great speed with an obtuse downward trajectory. Its tricky to stab oneself in the ribs (in fact I'm pretty sure it was a section of intercostal muscle that was damaged) but I assure you its possible with the grace and concentrated aplomb I demonstrate by being a complete malco. I would be embarrassed that this happened while I was attempting to navigate my way through a doorway (as normal people do every day) but similar events take place on such a regular basis that all capacity for humiliation has been exhausted.
I've had many close shaves when it comes to tumours. There was that time that I did 7 poohs in one day (yes! 7!) and I was of unshakeable certainty that I had developed Tumour Of The Intestine. Turns out I'd just eaten a lot of vegetables and one bowl of All Bran too many. God bless that branny goodness for saving me from my intestine tumour!
There was also the time when I had a drunken fall and twatted my hip so badly that I had a welt the size of a small melon protruding from my left leg. It took a long time to heal, which of course meant that the knock had prompted the rapid growth of a humongous super tumour that was bleeding technicolour into my skin (that was one hell of a bruise). But yay! Bruises take time to go away! The tumour is no more!
Diagnosis: Tumour means I escape death at least once a day! Which also means I am AMAZING and I win at life. And also if I have an actual tumour one day I will win because I'll get to the doctors far quicker than people who don't have a pathological obsession with tumours and they'll come in and shake their heads gravely and I'll whimper 'Diagnosis: tumour?' and they'll nod their heads in awe at my skills as an amateur diagnostician and respect for my bravery and then I'll jump up and yell 'I've had a million of these and its always been fine!' and they'll slap their legs in unison with cacophonous laughter and assure me that it will be fine and then they will give me an ice lolly as a prize for guessing the diagnosis. Also the doctors will be House and Wilson. And then they'll zap the tumour away with their special tumour destroying guns and I will be all better, all because of my life long ability to simultaneously diagnose and vanquish tumours.
In short - I am awesome.
NB: for home treatment of tumours - ointment usually works.
Wednesday 12 May 2010
Why its not a good idea to eat a vat of yoghurt before bed
EDIT: 18/08/2010 You can now listen along as you read with my partner in crime and collaboration, Peeteer Smith, narrating in his special way!
I love yoghurt. Its awesome.
I love yoghurt. Its awesome.
And apparently, its good for you! So on the days when I'm feeling marginally good about myself and think 'well, my body is my temple, man, it deserves healthy nourishings' I will eat yoghurt instead of stuffing my face with chocolate in front of the TV.
My favourite is Activia Plain yoghurt. 
Here is a picture so you can recognise it at Sainsbury's. Its delicious and nutritious and won't turn you into a whale if you eat a lot of it, which is nice as most of my favourite foods come with a severe health/obesity warning.
Here is a picture so you can recognise it at Sainsbury's. Its delicious and nutritious and won't turn you into a whale if you eat a lot of it, which is nice as most of my favourite foods come with a severe health/obesity warning. So one of my latest favourite things is to eat my dinner, nom nom nom, wait an hour or so and then eat my yoggy in bed watching Frasier with my man and my cat. I used to drink decaf coffee or tea at this time, but this led to regular nocturnal loo journies that interrupted my slumber and made me super grumpy in the morning.
There was a time when I was filled with dread that I would have to start wearing adult nappies before I hit 30. Why was my bladder going all geriatric on me in the middle of the night? Thankfully, because I'm not a complete moron, I accepted reluctantly that my pots of tea and coffee would have to go (or at least be finished before 9pm in order to get the regimed 2 and a half wees out before bed).
I was antsy, frustrated, orally fixated (yay! rhyme) and became shifty around this time when I knew I couldn't shovel anything more into my gob (I've also given up smoking - more on that special time later). Unless... is that yoghurt I spy? Not liquid but enough to stop me screaming inside for some sort of sustenance that isn't a second dinner? And hurrah - with that, a new night time treat is born.
But alas, my joy was short lived, as my problems returned. Recently I've been waking up in the middle of the night dying for a fucking piss again, my little belly distended with the ghost urine that had invaded my bladder through no means of my own.
I'd return to bed baffled - I had been vigilant with my imbibing! Is my bladder getting worse? Is my future to be punctuated with dashes to the store for a box of Tena Lady? I have tossed and turned many a night, weeping with self-pity into my pillow about the days ahead when I'm sure to never have an uninterrupted night's sleep again, seeing as my kidneys and bladder are convinced I'm some octogenarian with a catheter. But this morning - inspiration struck.
Its the fucking yoghurt.
With a renewed hope for a life without absorbant pants, I sprang from the bed and flung myself at the computer. After a good 3 or 4 minutes research, I had discovered what I needed to know - yoghurt is milk with added bacteria. Milk is 87 % water. So while I'd been smugly inhaling my nightly vat of yoghurt with an 'Oh I'm so healthy and I also won't need the loo in the night!' smirk on my face, I've actually been ingesting almost a 3rd of how much water I'm meant to drink during a 24 hour period.
Half an hour before I go to sleep.
And that is why its not a good idea to eat a vat of yoghurt before bed.
21/05/10 UPDATE: I have discovered 'Perle de Lait' - they come in handy little tubs so I don't overdo the yog. I haven't woken up in the night for 4 days now! Also its got more fat in which equals tastier and better.
21/05/10 UPDATE: I have discovered 'Perle de Lait' - they come in handy little tubs so I don't overdo the yog. I haven't woken up in the night for 4 days now! Also its got more fat in which equals tastier and better.
Monday 10 May 2010
Hattie's first steak (in 9 years)
EDIT: 17/08/2010 You can now listen as you read along with my partner in crime and collaboration, Peeteer Smith, narrating in his special way!
I was vegetarian for 9 years. 'What a fucking moron!' I can hear you all chime. Well, I had a boyfriend when I was 16 who fancied himself as a real punk ass motherfucker. Part of his whole image was being vegetarian, which was weird as being a punk he was also violently opinionated and he and his punk friends were amongst the angriest people I've ever met in my life. I'm talking spitting bile and green piss and vinegar - quite the opposite demeanour you would expect from someone who cared so much about animals.
They were the kind of people who'd rather be right than happy, projectile vomiting their views on to anyone and everyone. They'd have a boner for any sort of disagreement so they could do battle with their trusty sword of self-righteousness and be fed by nurtured hatred for anyone who's opinions differed slightly from their own. Don't get me wrong, they were lovely and very caring good people, but the anger was strong in these ones, as was the insatiable need for attention in any form. I fitted right in!
Of course being 16, insecure and a total outsider, this was exciting and I soon became a punk too, telling all the cool kids to fuck off and being so damn different that I didn't give a shit that no one liked me because I was all cool with my misery and anger and self harm. I totally rocked the vegetarian thing and felt a swell of pride at being better than everyone else who still ate meat, secretly denying my body's cries for bacon and vitamins.
A few years on, the punk and his minions took it to the next level (veganism) and pledged for ever more that they'd never have a bank account and that all they'd ever need would be kept in a box under their bed. By then I'd manage to surgically remove my head from my ass to the extent that I had an actual bank account, but I still kind of liked being special and different. The punk thing had gotten old and I decided that I missed washing and didn't really like looking like a lesbian (not that there's anything wrong with that, but its hard to chat to boys when you look like a lesbian). So, resolutely, I stayed veggie.
I was vegetarian for 9 years. 'What a fucking moron!' I can hear you all chime. Well, I had a boyfriend when I was 16 who fancied himself as a real punk ass motherfucker. Part of his whole image was being vegetarian, which was weird as being a punk he was also violently opinionated and he and his punk friends were amongst the angriest people I've ever met in my life. I'm talking spitting bile and green piss and vinegar - quite the opposite demeanour you would expect from someone who cared so much about animals.
They were the kind of people who'd rather be right than happy, projectile vomiting their views on to anyone and everyone. They'd have a boner for any sort of disagreement so they could do battle with their trusty sword of self-righteousness and be fed by nurtured hatred for anyone who's opinions differed slightly from their own. Don't get me wrong, they were lovely and very caring good people, but the anger was strong in these ones, as was the insatiable need for attention in any form. I fitted right in!
Of course being 16, insecure and a total outsider, this was exciting and I soon became a punk too, telling all the cool kids to fuck off and being so damn different that I didn't give a shit that no one liked me because I was all cool with my misery and anger and self harm. I totally rocked the vegetarian thing and felt a swell of pride at being better than everyone else who still ate meat, secretly denying my body's cries for bacon and vitamins.
A few years on, the punk and his minions took it to the next level (veganism) and pledged for ever more that they'd never have a bank account and that all they'd ever need would be kept in a box under their bed. By then I'd manage to surgically remove my head from my ass to the extent that I had an actual bank account, but I still kind of liked being special and different. The punk thing had gotten old and I decided that I missed washing and didn't really like looking like a lesbian (not that there's anything wrong with that, but its hard to chat to boys when you look like a lesbian). So, resolutely, I stayed veggie.
FOR NINE YEARS.
Looking back I think I really did enjoy the feeling of pseudo-superiority it gave me. It gave me an edge, and made me better than everyone else. I love being paid attention! For those of you who wonder - ALL vegetarians think they're better than you on some level.
Anyway, blah blah blah I finally decided the time had come to return to the dark side. My man had been tantalising me for months by cooking more bacon than is humanly possible to want to eat and wafting it salaciously in my direction. Bacon is the vegetarian's arch nemesis - you do NOT want to be veggie, drunk, and within a square mile of bacon cookin g, as you will most likely lose your resolve.
I had decided the sacred moment had arrived, and we went for dinner at the most rocking amazing restaurant ever - Pizza Express. I was still a little nervous, and ordered a veggie pizza. He offered me one of his pieces of peperoni. Good god, could I really go through wit h this? I stared excited yet nervously at this tiny disc of cured porky delight. It looked incredible.
I gingerly took the meaty talisman which was to kick start my foray into carnivorousness, and cut it carefully into four pieces (those of you who know Pizza Express will vouch for me on just how pathetically small their peperonis are) and daintily snaffled each piece with delight. This is amazing! How could I have been so stupid as to not eat meat for nine fucking years?! Who the fuck knows - all that mattered was that my eyes had been opened and I had returned to the source of all righteousness. And tomorrow, we w ere to dine on steak of amazing!
Man had booked a table at one of London's best steak houses - a fourth storey penthouse restaurant overlooking the Smithfield meat market. Basically, fresh dead cow was sold at 5am in the morning but metres away, taken up to the restaurant, most likely not even refrigerated, and then cooked to perfection that same day. This was not your average steak.
We ordered a 32oz medium rare monster to share and, blood lust in my eyes and mandibles, I demolished a good 24 ounces of it. I shit you n ot, I later entered an acute state of steak induced delirium at the hands of the meat bomb that had exploded into my very being and, sweating profusely, ordered my man to run me a bath at 2am and to 'get me some steak, I must eat STEAK in the BATH!'.
Best night ever.
Hattie's first love
EDIT: 13/08/2010 You can now listen as you read along with my partner in crime and collaboration, Peeteer Smith, narrating in his special way!
Have you ever experienced that unique, special moment when you first lay eyes on the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with? That intoxicating, overwhelming, important moment of utter convincedness when you realise 'this is it. This is the person I'm going to marry'?
Have you ever experienced that unique, special moment when you first lay eyes on the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with? That intoxicating, overwhelming, important moment of utter convincedness when you realise 'this is it. This is the person I'm going to marry'?
I was 6. And he was Harrison Ford. Needless to say I didn't grow up to marry him (although there's still time, I guess, however he is married to that McNeal character), but more about that later. I knew, in my very heart of hearts I knew, that this was the love of my life and that I would love him forever and ever and marry him and have his Ford babies etc etc (don't tell my man, he'll be mortally wounded if he finds out that I am in fact lying when I tell him he's the love of my life - Harrison Ford pipped him to the post by 20 years). I was head over heels in love, and I proclaimed my love to my parents in the way only a six year old girl can - I asked them if they'd write to his parents and invite him round for tea. When they told me it may not be possible, I strategically announced that I would in that case become an actress, and then I could invite him round for tea myself. He was my future husband, of course. It had to happen.
The following week poor old Harrison had been tossed aside in favour of Patrick Swayze (or 'Swayzer' as I thought it was until my friend Phil told me otherwise) - and so it went on ad infinitum until the age of about 17 when my hormones stopped raging and I wasn't flitting like an insatiable love gnat from movie star to rock star to movie star in the blink of an eye.
Patrick actually graduated from love interest to imaginary friend. I remember very distinctly coming home after school to Pat, reclined on my bed waiting for me in that Burgundy shirt and black trouser get up he sported throughout the movie Ghost (why the fuck I was allowed to watch Ghost at that age is beyond me - I'd also seen Child's Play by the age of 7. And a life time of therapy and behavioural problems is explained in a tiny, corrupt nutshell). Anyway, he'd be on my bed and I'd tell him about my day (what he got up to when I was gone is anybody's guess, I'm fairly sure he wasn't a paedo as he never showed up at my school gates, or indeed in the changing rooms, and he seemed genuinely interested in just being friends. Although my feelings were more than that). My mum would come in and tell me to do chores and I'd roll my eyes at him, embarrassed that my mum had made me look so uncool in front of my famous friend!
My ludicrously fantastical imagination was but a burgeoning bud of delusion at this point. There was then the time I was so convinced that Michael J Fox was about to burst through my 2nd storey window after having skillfully scaled the side of our block of flats, that I asked my mum to teach me how to 'write in American' (she's Canadian - close enough. More on my imagined language barrier later). After 15 or 16 attempts, I succeeded in proudly scrawling 'hello Michael J Fox' IN JOINED UP WRITING on a piece of paper in smudgey orange felt tip, fingers poised, ready to hold it up smugly when his arm flung itself over the window sill and he hauled his face and upper body towards me. I clearly didn't have the foresight to think that, being a mere three feet away from said window, I could have easily said 'hello Michael J Fox' using my mouth, but kids, hey? They're fucking stupid. Here's a list of my other loves:
- The Prince of Balance (a tightrope walker at the circus - I wrote him a letter asking him for tea (of course) and the post script was a gripping footnote about how I owned a small china rabbit with a leaf in its mouth).
- Rick Moranis (don't judge - he seemed romantic in Little Shop of Horrors)
- Pee Wee Herman (what the fuck?)
- All of the Ghostbusters
- Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Rowan Atkinson and Tim McInnerny from Blackadder - incidentally I remember singing along to the Abba song 'One man One woman' and replacing the first phrase with 'Four Men' - I was a right slut when I was 9! But I also had superior taste in comedy, evidently. Its kind of ok to be a slut if you have a good sense of humour.
- The Tramp from Lady and the Tramp
- My cousin Thobey (this was really more of a 'he's so cool crush' but incest is not cool in any form, people)
I'd like to say my love list gets less embarrassing, but alas I am one metric fuck ton of walking humiliation, so maybe it'd be a good idea to stop here. That's enough crazy for one day.
Or is it?...
Probably, yeah. I couldn't be bothered to draw pictures so here's a photo of a bear.
Have a nice evening one and all!
Hattie's second blog
I thought that maybe it'd be nice if introduced myself.
I am Hattie. I am 26 and a half. I live in London with my Man and my cat, Dexter. They are my best boys. I like to play Wii. I like singing. My favourite flavour of yoghurt is plain and I sometimes don't wash my hair for 3 days (extra gross considering I'm blonde and its long so more prone to greasy crack addict adhesion to scalp).
Those are the most important things you need to know I guess.
Why did I decide to write a blog? I don't know. I'm not particularly interesting I don't think - at least not in the conventional way. I do however seem to have a somewhat unique view of the world, delighting and marvelling at things others find totally mundane. If you think its interesting spending time wondering how and why the person who discovered how to make white sauce got that idea, then this is probably the blog for you.
Also, people seem to find me funny. Not in the 'I have such a staggering intellect and my funny comments are shot through with such wit that I am fucking intimidating and should probably write for Frasier' funny, but a 'let's all point and laugh at her' funny. I seem to be funny without the slightest bit of effort - I am going about minding my own business and commenting on the world the way I see it and people are laughing. Out of nervousness, out of pity, who knows? Is it the inflection in my voice or my seeming inability to define my dipthongs where appropriate and adding them in where not? Or the mere subject matter I discuss with wanton abandon? (yes, I said wanton. I also love wontons). But it seems that being a certifiable lunatic is enough to garner a titter or guffaw nearly everywhere I go.
My man often laughs at me because I am so lame, yet I seem to bring a certain degree of joy to his life. That's an understatement; I am so inherently awesome that his life was but a mere husk of deprivation and misery until I came along. Anyway, I'll address my self-loathing narcissistic complex later. My point is that if he can find me so entertaining, perhaps there are other weirdos out there who will enjoy my worldview just as much, if not more!
So, without further ado, (actually rather a lot of to do as I am as yet unsure as to what my first story will be) please indulge your childish innernesses and enjoy my sometimes banal, sometimes crass but always utterly pointless tales of Hattie's Weird and Wonderful World.
Bye.
I am Hattie. I am 26 and a half. I live in London with my Man and my cat, Dexter. They are my best boys. I like to play Wii. I like singing. My favourite flavour of yoghurt is plain and I sometimes don't wash my hair for 3 days (extra gross considering I'm blonde and its long so more prone to greasy crack addict adhesion to scalp).
Those are the most important things you need to know I guess.
Why did I decide to write a blog? I don't know. I'm not particularly interesting I don't think - at least not in the conventional way. I do however seem to have a somewhat unique view of the world, delighting and marvelling at things others find totally mundane. If you think its interesting spending time wondering how and why the person who discovered how to make white sauce got that idea, then this is probably the blog for you.
Also, people seem to find me funny. Not in the 'I have such a staggering intellect and my funny comments are shot through with such wit that I am fucking intimidating and should probably write for Frasier' funny, but a 'let's all point and laugh at her' funny. I seem to be funny without the slightest bit of effort - I am going about minding my own business and commenting on the world the way I see it and people are laughing. Out of nervousness, out of pity, who knows? Is it the inflection in my voice or my seeming inability to define my dipthongs where appropriate and adding them in where not? Or the mere subject matter I discuss with wanton abandon? (yes, I said wanton. I also love wontons). But it seems that being a certifiable lunatic is enough to garner a titter or guffaw nearly everywhere I go.
My man often laughs at me because I am so lame, yet I seem to bring a certain degree of joy to his life. That's an understatement; I am so inherently awesome that his life was but a mere husk of deprivation and misery until I came along. Anyway, I'll address my self-loathing narcissistic complex later. My point is that if he can find me so entertaining, perhaps there are other weirdos out there who will enjoy my worldview just as much, if not more!
So, without further ado, (actually rather a lot of to do as I am as yet unsure as to what my first story will be) please indulge your childish innernesses and enjoy my sometimes banal, sometimes crass but always utterly pointless tales of Hattie's Weird and Wonderful World.
Bye.
Hattie's first blog
Hello!I am new to this world of blog, and I can't think of something funny/informative/amazing to say to grab your attention, so instead I have decided to draw a picture of a griffin.
I think we can all agree that griffins are pretty fucking awesome, so hopefully this will have been enough to start ingratiating myself with the rest of blog world.
I will be back with weird and wonderful tales of the world according to Hattie, including gems such as my most recent caper 'The dishwasher won't thoroughly rinse our glasses... but why?'
See you soon!
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