Hailstones, Hairy Legs and 'Arse Illnesses'.

Despite rumours to the contrary I'm still alive and kicking. Well maybe alive and sitting.  Lets go with, alive and breathing.  Well except when my body decides that breathing should become tricky.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale......complex stuff apparently.  Maybe I should just go with existing, and continuing to swear and shake my fist at the universe. 

I'm starting to think the universe is actually one of those mean girls from high school.  You know the ones I'm talking about.  Perfect hair, perfect clothes, popular, pushes you over in the change room whilst you are getting dressed, so you trip and fall flat on your face wearing nothing but a singlet and your granny undies around your ankles, because it's soooooo funny.  Mind you I am kinda hoping that like at my 15 year high school reunion, the universe will get its comeuppance and become a fat, dull women, stuck in a loveless marriages to an obnoxious alcoholic.  Not that I'm bitter or anything. 

So to sum it all up.  Health shit.  Brain long gone.  Bad attitude continues.

I do apologise to all those who've sent me messages, emails etc and have yet to receive a reply.  They were much appreciated but over the last, well forever, about the most I've been able to stretch my brain to do is the occasional one line Facebook status update.  Lets face it when you only have three braincells left and two of those are dedicated to remembering to breathe, it puts quite a lot of pressure on that one little neuron.  The little fella is doing all he can but he has a lot on his plate at the moment.

I have roughly a bazillion blogs to read thanks to those dedicated bloggers who blog rain, hail, or shine, hardworking bastards.  I may just have to start over from now, as I doubt I'll ever get caught up otherwise.  Frankly reading well written, entertaining, grammar perfect, prose or poetry is, aside from the lost brain issue, rather disheartening at the moment. Though I must say I have really enjoyed Miss Buckle, whose beautiful pictures are like a little ray of sunshine on my crappy little mind.  Cupcakes today, does it get any better?

It's been a bit of hectic time around here, aside from my health.  For those who don't live in Australia, you are probably unaware that my fair city of Melbourne experienced it's worst thunderstorm in history the Saturday before last.  Hailstones the size of cricket balls decided to hit our house with abandon.  This left us with broken windows (any tips on getting glass shards out of toaster will be much appreciated), flooding, shredded carport, nude trees, and a dripping roof.    I think we will be playing "who can find glass shards in the weirdest places?", for months to come.  Fun for all the family. Actually we got off much better than a lot of our neighbours so can't really complain.  I will now suck it up and move on.

Melbourne Hailstorm 

My attempts at being a real girl have taken another hit.  Whether its Bob or one of his dodgy relatives, neither my cardio or neuro can tell me, but my super sensitive reflexes have put paid to the annoying, but necessary, act of shaving my legs.  "Go get your legs waxed you stupid wingy woman", I hear you say.  Well bite me. I refuse.  Number one, it hurts and I am a wuss.  Number two, you have to look at those long fly strips covered in your leg hair.  Ick!  Number three, that would be giving in and dammit, I may haemorrage or lose a leg thanks to an errant blade flick, but I would rather have be known as Pegleg Michelle than give in.  Mind you this logic is coming from a woman who thought that chopping off my own fringe in a fit of pique an hour ago was a good idea. So my reasoning may be questionable.

Note to self: do not cut own fringe you stupid twatt.  It never works, and no one is going to buy your story that it's an artsy haircut in honour of Fashion Week.  

As any woman knows shaving your legs is a rite of passage.  You must defy your mum's rule that you are too young to shave your legs.  You must find a crappy disposable Gillette razor up the back of the bathroom drawer.  Be totally unaware that it's your Dad's razor, or that there are even such things as shavers for men and women.  You must sneak into the bathroom when your mum's out in the garden.  You must sit awkwardly on the edge of the bath with your legs arranged like a giant pretzel.  You must try and do it really fast so you don't get caught.  You must wonder why the razor suddenly stops and won't go further up your leg no matter how you pull on it.  You must glance down at your shin and freeze in horror as you realize the reason the blade wont go any further is because it is embedded in your shin.  You must run screaming to your mum who proceeds with the requisite "I told you so" speech and eye rolling, and then washes out your cut with Detol leading to lots of big girl screaming.  In one week pain forgotten, you must set yourself up in the bathroom again, determined to prove your mum wrong. 

My shaving history has been one of knicks and cuts and an unaliable inability to get every last hair, leading to weird hair patches on ankles, knees and shins.  Hence you may wonder at my saddness at the passing of this dangerous personal grooming event.  But dammit I'm a girl and I should be able to shave my damn hairy legs.  Maybe I should just go with the European trend and embrace my gorialla legs and hairy armpits.  Winter is coming up anyway, so no one will know.

Alas I fear despite my determination to continue, shaving is now a thing of the past.  Running a shaver lightly over my knee and watching my leg leap out in front of me shaking adds a whole new degree of difficulty to what was already a difficult task, with the constraints of Bob.  Add in the patchy sensation of SNAFU, which appears to be spreading, and I may as well get used to my eco-friendly if sight-unfriendly, leg warmers.  I may stretch to using one of those foul smelling cremes that dissolve the hairs on your leg for special occasions, but I have a slight aversion to the frequent use of something that is able to disolve hair, and as the packet states, can cause chemical burns if left on too long.

Maybe if my leg hair gets long enough I could braid it and do cool dye colours.  If the fashionistas can get away with mantyhose, I can surely start a new trend in eco-friendly, au natural hairy fashion.

 (Sexy? No?)

In my recent bouts of procrstination and mindnumbing dullness, I have also added Google Analytics to my blog.  I am now addicted.  I am particularly fond of the section which lets you see the Google Searches that have led people to find your blog.  Apparently if you put in "dysautonomia + marijuana" you come to my blog, who knew?  One reference to medicinal marijuana is all it takes.  I am not alone in this as Lucy from Costochondritis was recently found thourgh a similar search.  Something you want to tell me Lucy?  It is clear now that between munching corn chips and rolling a joint, Cheech & Chong, have finally found the internet.  My personal favourite was that my blog is linked to searches for "Arse Illnesses".  I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed.  It is so appropriate on so many levels and made me so proud.

So on that note, and in honour of my ganja consuming readers, hand over the Dorritos and:

I say
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance
It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance
(Musical Youth,1982) *

Cheers:

The Arse Woman aka Michelle :)

* Trivia for the Day: Originally, this song was "Pass The Kutchie," meaning a marijuana pipe. However, because all the members of Musical Youth were between 11 and 16 years old at the time, the group's manager suggested a lyric change, replacing "Kouchie" with "Dutchie", a cooking pot.