She's getting older. And more mature.

By the way. It's my birthday tomorrow. So if you feel the need to post birthday wishes and other niceties, please go right ahead.

Hand me the guitar please

I think I might be at risk of running myself into the ground at the moment. Last night I noticed with great concern that I was thinking about how wonderful it would be if I could just drop out of uni today, quit my job and spend the rest of the year sitting in the park painting and blowing soap bubbles. In the afternoons, I would sit on the porch and play the guitar (yeah, I know, I don't have a porch and I don't have a guitar, but that's not really the point here.) In the evenings, I would have friends over for dinner and in the morning I would sleep in and then get up, make coffee and spend an hour reading the paper. I would spend a lot of time doing nothing. The thought of it gave me this great feeling of peace.

Do you think that sounds nothing like me? Exactely! That's why I'm worried. I generally love being busy and tend to expect from myself that I can handle anything. But it's just been getting too much lately and it looks like there's no end in sight. I've been doing 6-day-weeks of around 45 hours for the last few weeks at work and have been loosing touch with uni. Just thinking about all the work I should be doing and should have been doing for uni makes me feel sick.

When I talk to my mum on the phone I try to not make it sound too bad, but of course she knows what's going on. She knows I'm a perfectionist who's uncomfortable with doing just ok. I wish I could change that and be happy with just getting by, but how the hell do you change the way you are? Paula (who sometimes takes over the role of my mum, seeing that my mum is not here) also tells me that I need to stop taking way more responsibility at work than I need to. When I reply that there is just nobody else at work who can cover the shifts or keep the reception team together, she tells me that's not my problem. Which, I guess, is a very good point, but still no real solution somehow. Plus, I need to make enough money to pay the rent, the bills, my life and uni fees.

Please feel free to tell me that I'm crazy and need to slow the hell down. I promise I will take it on board, but I can't promise that I will be able to change in a hurry. Oh yeah, and if anybody has a spare porch (ideally with a big old wooden house attached to it) or a spare guitar, please let me know. I might drop a shift at work and book myself in for one afternoon per week of porch-sitting and playing the guitar. And I want to wear a white flowing top with it and cowboy boots.

Turn it up, baby

Speaking of funny things. We had this group of fifty people in one of the private rooms at the restaurant for a wine lunch yesterday and there sure was a lot more wine than lunch. During the afternoon, most of them were rather intoxicated and became very funny. I've got this theory that when people get drunk, a certain part of their personality comes out: some get aggressive or violent, others get paranoid and insecure, others very extroverted or funny. Some people just get boring. Those people were mainly the funny kind. They started wandering back and forwards between the bar and the private room, stopping at reception on the way to tell me I had beautiful teeth, take photos of me or explain what wine they were drinking ("tsa blend of dis bloody what's its name and a cap sap... I tink"). One guy started working the grand piano so furiously that I couldn't hear the people on the phone anymore. It was all very funny. The absolute height of it though was when another guy went up to the owner of the restaurant and asked if we could "please turn up the volume on the piano". We just all looked at each other and started rolling on the ground with laughter. I was beyond myself.
Now please don't tell me that's not funny. Or I'm really gonna get worried about my mental state.

I know how hard it is to put food on your family

My good friend Marc from Paris sent me this e-mail in which he told me how he laughed so much about something he read on my blog that his work colleagues became a bit concerned about his mental state. Thanks Marc, God bless you.

His story made me realise that lately I have been having these unusual laughing attacks quite often- the ones where you quite legitimately start laughing about something genuinely funny, but then you can't stop giggling and sniggering to yourself for another couple of hours. Although you realise it's kind of inapropriate and you've got some important clients standing in your office. It reminds me of school- the more you try to stop it, the less you can. It's great fun, and completely drug-free. (Well, it can be done on drugs as well and probably works quite well, but it's certainly cheaper without.)

I'm thinking the fact that I have been having these laughing attacks quite regularly indicates one of the following options: a) I am taking too many drugs. b) I am not taking enough drugs. c) My mental health is deteriorating and I am slowly but surely going loopy. d) I am a simple soul who is getting increasingly simpler and is satisfied with lame jokes. No matter which option is true, I have no doubt laughing is extremely healthy and the best medicine for my soul, so I'm definitely planning on keeping the laughing attacks going. It's the best feeling- laughing can turn the whole world around.

Speaking of funny things. I probably love the accidental joke the most. And being or becoming a journalist, double-meaning headlines crack me up. One of the funniest ones I've seen in a while was the one below. It appeared in the Sunday Mail after Prime Minister John Howard had made comments about terrorism, which he said was an "evil that we have to face." I thought it was hilarious and I'm almost certain the subs there had a bit of fun and were quite aware of the pun. I loved it.

There's a few more examples of great headlines, as one of our lecturers pointed out. Apparantly, they are all real- which is hard to believe.

There's the one about the female student who is delighted at her father’s appointment as head coach of a university football team:

"Student excited Dad got head job" (from the University Daily Kansas)

Or how about those ones:

"Iraqi head seeks arms"
"March planned for next August"
"Prostitutes appeal to Pope"
"Never withhold herpes infection from loved one"
"Eye drops off shelf"
"Squad helps dog bite victim"
"Dealers will hear car talk at noon"
"Enraged cow injures farmer with ax"
"Miners refuse to work after death"
"Two Soviet ships collide - one dies"
"Two sisters reunite after eighteen years at checkout counter"

I'm a bit obsessed with language, so I love stuff like that. I can laugh about it endlessly. (Yeah, it doesn't take much to make me happy.)

And just before I'll let you go, I would like to share with you a few quotes straight from the master. When we talk about accidental jokes, we just cannot go past our dear Dubuya. Here's some of my favourites:

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table." --George W. Bush, Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2005

"They misunderestimated me." - George W. Bush, November 6, 2000 in Bentonville, Arkansas

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -- George W. Bush, August 5, 2004

"We shouldn't fear a world that is more interacted." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., June 27, 2006

"I aim to be a competitive nation." --George W. Bush, San Jose, Calif., April 21, 2006

"If you choose to do so, when Iraq is liberated, you will be treated, tried and persecuted as a war criminal." -- George W. Bush in St. Louis on January 22, 2003

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." -- George W. Bush, January 27, 2000 in New Hampshire

He's quite the comedian, good old Dubuya. Always good for a joke.