You shit me to tears...

Ah, whatever happened to The Tenants? In memory of a great one-hit wonder of a Triple J Unearthed winner, I give you the things that are shitting me to tears this week:

People who are bothered by me jaywalking
I am a committed jaywalker. I say if it's good enough for our Lord Mayor, it's good enough for me. In the past few days, I've looked both ways and walked against the lights, only to have two people say (not to me, but loudly so I can hear it), "She must be colour blind" and "She took her life in her hands there!" FFS, people. It's Oddelaide. Ever tried to cross a highway in Kuala Lumpur? That's taking your life in your hands. And do you think you might mind your own fucking business? Hmm? If I get run over, I'll try not to splatter you with my tragically-wasted grey matter, OK? Now piss off.

Emos
I know that coming from me this sounds a little rich, but cheer the fuck up! You can't all have had deaths in the family/been laid low by the futility of modern existence/read The Catcher in the Rye in the same week. And I don't think that with those hairdos, you should be driving. I'd really rather you could see out of both eyes. Remember, I jaywalk.

Mornings
It's not that I don't like 'em. It's just that I'd rather not see 'em. I can't remember who said it (and Google and my short attention span stubbornly refuse to oblige me) but I think it might have been Dorothy Parker: her publisher told her to be in his office at eight the next morning. The response was something to the effect of, "Why, are there TWO eight o'clocks in a day?" Hear, hear, my dear.

I don't really mind being awake so long as I don't have to get out of my toasty-kitty-warmed cocoon. Ah, bed. It's the only place to be these frosty mornings. Inevitably, I drag my sorry arse out from under the doona and tramp to the train station for my blissful half-hour of reading only to be vomited onto a platform absolutely heaving with zombies.

Yes, zombies.

Nothing else can describe the way train passengers stagger towards the turnstyles, tickets in their death-clawed fists. Their eyes are dead and their limbs are slack. What else can be drawing them forward but the faint but sustaining hope of warm brains? And I join them. What else am I going to do? If I let them know I'm still alive, they'll have bitten through my skull in the time it took John Howard to refuse to say sorry.

So piss off, mornings. I'll deal with you after midday.

Crappy attempts at marketing
Ad people, please listen to me when I say that I will never buy a product called Nurofen: Period Pain. I find the name insulting and unless it contains dehydrated vodka and super-concentrated chocolate, I can't see how it will work better than standard painkillers. Am I supposed to go, "Ooh, period! I have one of those!" and buy it? Pffft. Get a grip.

High heels
I ain't a shoe gal, as such. I refuse to have any truck with something that causes me pain and high heels are pretty high on that list. When my feet hurt, I'm in danger of committing murder, and not just the average shoot-you-through-the-skull type of murder. We're talking slow and painful, like peeling off all of your skin a hotdog skin at a time.

However, I do love boots. I think I have more boots than shoes. So when my favourite boots died, I was bereft. Just like all the other doggies (sorry, obscure Scout songbook reference) I raised a little headstone and on it I did write, "Where the fuck did my boots go?" No-one answered, so I went and bought another pair. And of course, the new ones pinched like a pervy uncle.

I have yet to sink low enough to buy ugg boots, but I demand comfy shoes, Ford-damnit!

Being expected to pay $12 a kilo for zucchini
Come on. How many people, when asked what their favourite vegetable is, say "Oh, zucchini! Every time! Love it boiled, stewed or raw." They're just padding. They don't have any taste. You use them to make your bolognaise go a bit further or add fibre to your chilli con carne. And every bastard knows that if you take your eye off the bastards they grow into something as long and thick as your forearm that would put John Holmes to shame. So do not tell me that they're worth $12 a kilo.

The fridge
I know I've whined about fridginess before, but it warrants a second whinge. How is it that stuff goes moldy with such monotonous regularity? The cheese turned blue and lumpy while I wasn't looking. And I fished out a bag with some anonymous green sludge in the bottom the other day and on the way to the bin showed it to Bloke.

"What's that?" he said, with wrinkled nose.
"Erm, you probably should ask what it used to be," I said with a blithe smile.

(Hint: it looked like squashed caterpilars, so it was probably about a book's worth of zucchini.)

Teenagers getting book deals
Now this really shits me to tears. It's even worse because I looked in The Aus a couple of months back and realised that (a) I couldn't possibly finish a Vogel-worthy manuscript by May 31 and (b) by next year I would be too old to enter. Something died in me about then. Yes, I think it may well have been the world's smallest violin, so just bite me, all right? But I had a horrible flashback to my uni days (mark one) when my thesis supervisor told me the sorry tale of suddenly realising she was Too Old for the Vogel. Ha, my 20-year-old self thought. I'll be published before I'm 35! And here one is. Not.

So, every time I see a story about some bloody over-achieving 15-year-old with a three-book deal for a gazillion bucks and who just happens to have parents who are teachers or lawyers or rocket scientists it annoys me just a tad. Christoper Paolini, I realise you are now somewhat more than 15 and that your parents paid to publish Eragon the first time 'round, but I'm looking at you, sonny jim.

Housework
When I spend my precious time cleaning something, it should bloody stay like that, goddamnit! After all, every time I scrub the scum of soap and toothpaste off the bathroom, it's another 45 minutes of my life that I'll never get back, you know? Maybe if I'd never cleaned the bathroom, I'd have written that Vogel-winner by now.

Cue violins.

But I'd also have the bathroom out of Trainspotting. Swings and roundabouts, I guess. Swings and roundabouts.