Exhibit B 

As an honest blogger, and a good friend, I feel compelled to post some pictures of Venerable for you all to see. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words so I will limit my post to saying that these pictures show Venerable attempting a breakdancing move known as "The Windmill". Quite frankly, I'm lucky that his foot didn't go through the front of my TV. Exhibit A. 

The Gorgeous Tall One - the truth unvarnished

I have known the Gorgeous Tall One for about 11 or 12 years. I can't actually remember the first time we met, and it is a long and convoluted tale to which I'll not subject you. Anyway, I was thinking about the dirt that I am in the position to be dishing on her, and I've come to the conclusion that it is probably good for my image that she doesn't have a blog.

Most of the occassions that I have in mind are more about me hideously embarrassing her - not the other way around. I actually could not think a single instance where I wished that I was invisible, however I could easily think of many instances when, I am sure, she wanted to disappear.

With this in mind, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Gorgeous Tall One not only for her patience with my follies, but also for her acceptance of them (which, as we all know, is far more important).

How to squish Venerable's carefully constructed cool.

Things at "The New Job" are going well. I've learnt how to charge books out to myself and request stuff that is out in circulation (oh the power ... the power!). I've also officially joined a car park group (don't ask) so I get a free parking spot for four days out of every fortnight.

Venerable (http://venerable.blogspot.com/) was meant to come and have lunch with me today but the forces of the universe were once again conspiring against him. Who else would lock themselves out of their apartment 5 minutes before they were meant to leave for a lunch? Of course, only Venerable.

Over time, these mishaps have become somewhat endearing.

I remember one of the first times we had lunch together. On his way into town, Venerable had bought a birthday gift (a funky cutlery set) for Weatherboi. I met Ven in the lift well, and being really excited about the gift acquisition, Ven pulled the cutlery box out of the shopping bag to show me. Of course the entire box emptied itself all over the floor. Cut to Venerable and Laziest Girl scrabbling around on the floor collecting all the knives and forks and spoons. Later that same day Venerable dropped his little packet of soy sauce (that was meant for his sushi) over the balcony at the food court and cheerfully shouting "Sorry!" to the stunned diners below.

There also seems to be a recurring thread of Venerable embarrasing Laziest Girl. Picture Venerable and Laziest Girl browsing happily through an exclusive store. Venerable spots a shirt and examines the price and exclaims (in an extremely loud and penetrating voice) - "Fuck, I hope they give you a blow job when you buy this shirt!". Picture Laziest Girl trying to become invisible. Of course he is not TRYING to be embarrasing, it just somehow happens - all the time.

Of course I've never embarrassed Venerable at all. Well, maybe the time, in a crowded cafe, I shouted that you couldn't catch straight from drinking out of my water bottle. Or the many times we have had slapping fights over who gets to pay for the coffee. Or the time we made Andre teach us how to moonwalk and I made Ven practice with me in the line at Dreamworld in front of a squillon people.

Actually, this is a great idea - in my next post I shall continue to dish the dirt. Next up, the Gorgeous Tall One.

Self-indulgent - but at least I'm fun at parties.

On the TV the other night I watched an interview with a man (whose name eludes me - Mark D'Ar something or other) who wrote a book of fiction (The Naked Husband) based on his own experiences. I don't all the details but he had an affair which caused the break up of his marriage. The terrible part was that his wife committed suicide. I've got the book on order from work so once I've read it, I'll let you what I think. But (see Sophie, I like starting my sentences with "but") the thing that caught my attention was not so much this sad tale, but (two in one sentence??) that he said that it was very easy to make people like you but the telling the truth is a lot harder.

This actually got me thinking (a bit) and some self-reflection is clearly in order. This blog is really only the "Good Laziest Girl". I don't think that I can ever bring the "Evil Laziest Girl" out in public. You know the horrible fears and doubts that gnaw (sp?) away at you in the middle of the night. The kinds of things that you normally keep stuffed in a locked suitcase under the metaphorical bed of your soul. Stuff that is so nasty that you need to pretend it doesn't exist so that you can show your face to the sun.

Everybody has it. Some people just hide it better than others. Most of the nasty stuff is shut away so tight that you can pretend it doesn't exist. We can display some of our negative traits provided that a charming veneer can be provided. I mean, Laziest Girl is the most academically shallow person any of you will meet. But I can dress it up in an amusing fashion, trot it around at parties and it all seems terribly amusing.

Oh look, Laziest Girl can talk about anything with intelligence. Let's talk about classic literature, now let's talk about the latest Kevin Smith film, now let's discuss the political situation in the Middle East (actually, I'd probably shy away from that last topic as too hard). Did you know that JFK's sister was actually lobotomised by the famous "Ice Pick" Freeman? He got that name by pioneering a form of surgery that delivered a lobotomy with two quick jabs of an ice pick through the tops of the eye sockets. In fact he used to line the patients up and lobotomise his way to the end of the line. Barbaric isn't it.

See, I can impress you with loads of useless stuff, but once something gets too hard to understand, I don't care anymore. I'm like a pathetic hummingbird flitting from flower to flower. For Pete's sake, I have done about five English Lit subjects at Uni but I still can't remember the rules for using an apostrophe (sorry Sophie - maybe we can have another lesson next semester).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitching and moaning in the hope that you all write comments saying how intellectual and intelligent I am. I know I'm smart (not brilliant - but smart enough) - I'm also incredibly lazy.

Handsomest has a sneaky, pseudo-psychological party trick that he likes to spring on people. He asks his victim to recite the seven sins from memory. The theory goes that the first vice that springs to mind is the vice that you are most guilty of. Needless to say mine was sloth closely followed by gluttoney (for the record, Handsomest's was lust).

Why do you loan me such sad books?

I've also finished reading The Waiting Years which Venerable loaned me. I can't believe how sad the ending was - I had tears in my eyes. Mind you, I also have a dvd copy of Watership Down that I have never watched because it makes me cry.

I also finished reading Cabal by Michael Dibdin. This is the first Aurelio Zen book that I've read and it was very entertaining. I felt that the writer was trying just a little too hard though. Everything was a bit overly described - "The streets were lined wiht small Fiats parked nose to tail like giant cockroaches, but there was no one about except a few youths on scooters." Very poetic, but in my experience, and we have enormous cockroaches in Queensland, cockroaches do not stand patiently in line "nose to tail". For starters, they don't have tails and secondly, they tend to do a lot of scuttling. Perhaps if all the cars ran all over the road at night in a chaotic fashion and then, as soon as the streetlights came on, they tried to hide in the basements of the buildings - then they could be described as being like cockroaches.

Now I feel positively squeamish.

Book Group - the truth about "that" incident

I have been so preoccupied with my new job and all, that I haven't given an update on how book group went last week. You my remember that we were going to be talking about Joe Cinque's Consolation. For those of you who don't know this book, it is the newest book by an Australian writer, Helen Garner. Garner is a 50 year old feminist writer with an academic mind. She was dragged over the coals by her peers and the media about her previous book, The First Stone. So there as a real air of trepidation surrounding her newest book. The book is about the true life murder of Joe Cinque by his girlfriend Anu Singh. Joe was a young engineer living with Anu, a law student at Australian National University, in Canberra (Australia's capital city). Interestingly, as Garner points out, Canberra is also the porn capital and has the cheapest and most available Heroin in the country. Canberra has a reputation of being rather boring and of being populated by government employees who don't really do much. But back to Joe Cinque.

Late one night, after a dinner party, Joe was given a cup of coffee by Anu that was laced with Rophynol. When he was out of it, she then injected him with an overdose of heroin. But he didn't die immediately. He hung on to life until lunchtime the next day when Anu finally called an ambulance. Unfortunately they weren't able to revive him and Anu Singh was charged with murder. Garners book is about the murder trials that followed. Anu's best friend, Madhavi Rao was involved in the events and was also charged.

Anu's defence was that she was mentally ill at the time and didn't know what she was doing. Whatever the truth is, Anu is presented as a manipulative person who told everyone she knew that she had a terminal disease and that she was going to drug Joe so that she could commit suicide without him trying to stop her. Somewhere along the way, she came to believe that Joe was the one who gave her the disease (by buying her a bottle of stuff that makes you vomit). The strangest part of the whole story is that the group of people who came to dinner were aware that Anu was going to kill herself and maybe take Joe with her but no one did anything. One casual friend did attempt to do something about it, but was talked out of it and made to feel like she was overreacting.

Garners' book also explores the gap between what is legally right and morally right and what the point of the legal system is. Anyway, it is a great book and we all recommend it.

The last thing we talked about at book group was the role of Madhavi (from now on to be known as Mad Harvey) Rao in the book. I was of the belief the Mad Harvey should have gone to jail for her role in the events and the Gorgeous Tall One believed that Mad Harvey was an innocent bystander. Clearly she is completely wrong. I mean, if I planned to either kill myself or murder Handsomest, I know that the Gorgeous Tall One would NOT stand there and do nothing. So how could she believe that Mad Harvey was guilty of nothing? Anyway, our discussion escalated in volume quite substantially. Enthralled as we were in our first argument, we didn't notice that the whole cafe (and the one next door) had gone silent and were watching us argue. Some of the book group aren't sure if we will be allowed back there for our next meeting.

Our next book is Marching Powder by Rusty Young, the story of the young English guy imprisioned in Bolivia for drug smuggling.

Still alive and blogging

Well, we are nearly at the end of my first week at my new job. So far, it's going ok. They are very disorganised and chaotic - thankfully I love a project. But trying to clear everything up doesn't leave a lot of time for bloggin does it.

On a side note, does a rhetorical question require a question mark at the end of it?

This week I have been putting off reading for Uni as it is totally horrible. I meant to be writing 2000 words on the Calendar and Astrology at Qumran. Sounds interesting right? Well it is, providing you don't have to try and fabricate 2000 words on it.

I've also started reading a book called The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi. The author is Japanese and the book is about a wealthy, married Japanese man who takes a concubine - after sending his wife to choose her. I'm really enjoying it although it is quite sad. I'm a little over half way through at the moment. Hopefully the wife pushes him down the stairs or something.