WARNING: THIS POST WILL CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT DOES NOT FLOW AND IS EXTREMELY RANT-LIKE IN QUALITY AND COHERENCE

Happy 2009 to you all; I hope that the new year brought grand delusions of change and wonderment and new beginnings. Wow, that was sarcastic. In all honesty, I do believe in a chance for something new and better; however I also believe that a lot of us lack the ability to grasp this something new and better and milk it for all it is worth. Go forth and suckle at the teet of possibility my friends! Having said that, I would like to list my resolutions for 2009. I decided to take a practical approach, and pick things that are very achievable yet will still make me deliriously happy (or insanely sick – see resolution 1).

1. Eat a Big Mac. Being averse to sugary bread and weird ‘meat’ and soggy lettuce and something called ’sauce’ and greedy multi-national conglomerates I have never given myself the opportunity to try or enjoy this ‘food’ product. There is a proviso – I must be rotten drunk and stumbling past the King St golden arches in order to allow the burger into my gullet.
2. Enjoy what are known as ‘the little victories’. I have discovered that these are in fact some of the best. Large, life changing victories are few and far between (unless you are someone awesome like Batman or Richard Dawkins) so I think I might high five the person nearest to me (or just pat myself on the back if I am alone) when I do something like get a killer parking space in a mall or watch a small kid cry when he/she loses the ice cream from their cone. I will be happy!

I want to tell a story because it is utterly sad and quite nihilistic and I need to share the burden a little. On new years day Dan and I decided to go places with air conditioning to get over the hangover and heat, which led us to a certain suburban cinema (our first mistake). As we were walking through the oppressive inland heat towards the cinema, we both noticed a lady sitting at the entrance. She was in a very old, very basic wheelchair and she had her leg, which was amputated at the knee, propped up on the cement pylon that was helping to hold the buildings awning up. Then we noticed that she was urinating and defecating on the side walk – it was pouring through the cloth of her wheelchair. It was possibly one of the most confronting things I have ever witnessed and I am fairly certain Daniel felt the same way. Trying to compute this scene was difficult to say the least. There are so many possibilities for why this was happening; I imagine that she was waiting for someone to collect her after the movie and simply couldn’t hold it any longer. This is possibly one of the most humiliating things that could happen – she was in the open, in full view of a lot of people without control of her body, and all she could do was sit and wait with a stoic face. It was just terribly, terribly sad and totally unexpected viewing on my part. The rest of the day went by in a blur – it involved a really shitty movie (‘The day the Earth Stood Still’ = lame) and a fire near the cinema when we left the film that was chokey in nature. It was a cruddy day to start 2009, however it certainly won’t shape the rest of my year.

On an entirely different topic, I am going to start posting some of my cooking experiments on here. Dan and I moved into a new house in late 2008 and I have a new found love for baking and cooking. Our extremely awesome herb/vegetable garden is providing inspiration and helping me make some very yummy dishes. The next recipes I am going to try are lentil dahl and chilli con carne. Hopefully I live to type the tale!

Also, I have decided to randomly nominate things I love or hate (how very original). Perhaps it will offer an insight into my warped existence. This week, three things have seriously irked me. One is fairly generic – people not indicating whilst driving. Figure it out, douchebags! The second is that when I get a kebab (or a wrap in this particular instance), and the main ingredient (meat or felafal or whatever) is on one side, and the salad and sauce is on the other. They should sit on top of each other so that when I take a bite, I can get a bit of everything. However, some purveyors of wraps or kebabs put them side by side, and it is far too difficult to enjoy without wishing they could be tasted in one bite. The third is when I say ‘blah blah blah this year’ (in reference to 2008) and someone replies ‘don’t you mean last year’ and I say ‘no, this year blah blah blah’ and they say ‘hahahaha, it is 2009 already Adele’. I hate that little bullshit tete-a-tete where they think they are being really funny and clever by confusing you with something that is totally understandable. It is only JUST 2009 people, give me some time to catch up and don’t bore me with your smart mouth. I will figure it out. In summary, my world will not collapse as a result of these things, but man, they piss me off!

More rants to come.