PlugInMatty

'Huggles'? Never heard of it. *hangs head in shame* Kids these days, seriously.

oh James, how I wish I had chemistry with some of the boys in DNA (yes, that's right, sword fighting. I really just went there.) but yeah, my local supermarket doesn't stock our favourite scientific journal. instead, I have to go to the newsagent across the road and grab it from its perch next to the porn mags. my, how far we've come.

So I've been looking for somebody to take out all this pent-up rage on. After a week of picking up everyone's slack, cleaning up everyone's mess, putting up with everyone's shit and dealing with outlandish expectations, I've finally found a person to take out all this frustration on. It went something like this: Friday 4pm. You get home from work and find the heater is turned up to max, that there's a load of washing drying out and there's not a single person home to supervise. After further investigation, you find that your housemate has been off work for the fifth day in a row, and that she's 'forgot' to turn the heater off and prevent the house from burning to the ground. And after five more minutes of exemplary detective work, you find she's removed the tape that's holding her back together, disregarded the physio's very-specific instructions, and proclaimed herself 'pain-free!' at exactly 5:00pm on Friday. But you don't spit the dummy at any of this, because she's flying interstate on Sunday morning and you won't have to put up with her for the next five days. And truth be told, your anger is over-powered by sheer amusement at the way she can run and jump around at a Ben Folds concert when she's been far too crippled to get off the couch and go into work since the previous Friday morning. But anyway. Saturday 9am. You get out of bed and find there's pizza boxes strewn all over the loungeroom, and that your housemate is far too unfit to clean up any sort of mess, despite possessing fitness levels that have clearly allowed her to make it. But you say 'f**k it. f**k you. f**k it.', and you just walk right on by and drag your sorry arse to the gym for another Saturday morning of pain and pretty, pretty gym boys. Saturday 11.50am. You finish your workout at the gym, you hop back in the car and decide to make that supermarket visit you've been unable to find the time for all week. You see that all the lines are massive, that the guy in front of you is a bit of an arsehole and you watch him stare with contempt at the poor girl who's just trying to earn a bit of pocket money and make a contribution to the Australian workforce. Then you watch the same guy walk away shaking his head, muttering about the level of service he's just received. But you don't say anything, because he's bigger, stronger, built to hurt, and he probably doesn't like those gosh-darned homosexuals very much. Saturday 12:03pm. You walk out of the supermarket and toward your local newsagent, deciding that it's time to pick up this month's copy of DNA Magazine. You calmly walk over to the rack, make your selection, walk up to the counter and grab out your wallet to give the girl behind the counter $8.95. The ensuing exchange goes something like this: Girl: "Would you like a bag for this?" *raises eyebrow* You: "Excuse me?" Girl: "Would you like a bag for this?" You: "No, thank you." Girl: "Okayyyyyyyyyy." *raises eyebrow again* You: "Is there a problem?" Girl: "No." You: "Good, because you don't offer me a bag when I come in and buy basketball magazines every month, yet you insist on offering me a bag EVERY SINGLE TIME I come in and buy a magazine that could have - oh my friggin' god - gay people in it. Would you like me to conceal my sexuality? Does it make you uncomfortable that I like boys? Do you offer straight men a paper bag when they come in and ogle half-naked women on the cover of Zoo Weekly or Ralph? No. I don't want a bag. I don't want your judgement. Get over yourself." Girl: *rolls eyes* "$8.95, please." You: "You know what, keep the magazine. Go f**k yourself." And then you walk away from the counter, straight past the five or so people who have gathered to watch your vagina monologue, and you march straight down to another newsagency to buy your copy of DNA and live happily ever after. And then you come home and write a blog about your first tentative foray into the world of gay activism. *Holds for applause* Thank you, you've been a great audience.

Good things from today: - Chicken sandwiches at morning tea - Savouries at morning tea - Having morning tea to celebrate cutting our department's backlog from 40,000 to 8,400. - The fact that management are taking us out to a long lunch next week to celebrate the same thing - Nanna nap this afternoon - Watching a couple of my boys (hopefully) win their other basketball grand final in an hour - Post-game McDonalds - The fact that the boys are 15 and still want to go to McDonalds to celebrate - The fact that they're 15 and still allowed to be kids - Childhood in general - Daily Show/Colbert double - The musical stylings of Underworld and finally... - The scene I've just dot-pointed for the new story I may or may not be working on It's been a good day.

I take your Californian pollution and raise you a Tasmania.

it's actually my halo, reflecting

I need to move out, seriously.

my housemate just told me that she watched 17 Again last night. willingly.

my housemate just pointed at Tori Spelling on the tv and yelled 'Oh my god it's Tori Amos!'

Matthew, unplugged.

my mum drives a stick... a broomstick

It'll be two years next week since I quit that job, Mark. In hindsight, I was probably young and stupid, but it was totally worth it to see the look on the owner's face haha. And if they want a reference from that old job, they can just ask the store manager. He was a good... friend

So there's this girl I used to work with. We used to be close, but she had problems with her boyfriend and started pushing everyone away. Then, when one of the girls in her dept stated the obvious (i.e. dump him, he's a dick), it all ended in a rather fiery confrontation. I believe her exact words were "The only reason we fight is because of all the f**king stress at work". I believe the other girl's exact words were "You tell yourself that, honey." And then, psycho girl stopped talking to me. Dunno why. Guilt by association, I guess. Who cares. Anyway, they passed her farewell card around at work the other day, and I initially refused to write in it. What do you say to a colleague after an acrimonious split? If you don't have anything nice to say... Anyway, despite that, at the last minute, I thought of the perfect thing to say and decided to jot it down. Thnks Fr Th Mmrs. xMatt (Look it up, if you must. But if you don't get the irony straight away, you won't find it funny.) Anyway, as sad an ending as it was, the whole thing made me happy because it reminded me of the day that I quit my last job.. It went exactly like this... It was a quiet Monday morning, many weeks in the making. I'd called in 'sick' and attended a job interview the previous Tuesday, and spent the subsequent six days planning my entire routine. Then, the moment I got the phone call saying 'You've got the job!', I put the whole thing into action. First, I made sure to dress for success. In this case, that meant jacket/collar/tie/cufflinks, the works. Although I'd probably spent that morning watching an NBA game or indulging in random youtube, I made sure that I looked a million bucks. Then, since one of my friends was the manager on duty, I went into my place of employment and jumped on the office computer. After approximately two seconds of thought, I started typing my resignation letter. And since I've kept a copy on my computer all this time, so I can tell you with 100% certainty that my resignation letter went like this: Dear <Owner's Name>, My mother always told me that if you don't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all. Consider this your seven days notice. Kindest Regards, Matt. To quote a figure skating term... stuck the landing perfectly. Scored a handful of perfect tens. Even got a 9.5 from the Russian judge. Then, inkeeping with my brat-ish behaviour, I printed a copy off and faxed it to all the other businesses owned by my boss. I also printed a copy and pinned it to the office noticeboard. Then I printed a copy to hand to the boss. And finally, I indulged in some workplace tradition and signed the underside of the office desk with a permanent marker: So I'm on my back, and I've just f**ked <owner's name> in the arse. Who said history never repeats? xMatt And then I jumped in the car and turned up unannounced at the owner's head office. Never mind that he was in the middle of some meeting. After a brief conversation (in which I wished him the best of luck), I walked out into midday sun and began the next phase of my working life. Not once did I ever look back. And frankly, I'm a better person for it. Anyway, now I've told you that, tell me your funny work-related stories. Or comment on mine. You know you want to.

Damn it Libby, don't be so rational. I agree with your POV to an extent, but to say there are millions of ignorant people 'in love' doesn't necessarily discredit my observation that there are millions of delusional 'in love' people as well. But I'll happy acknowledge the glass as 'half full', as long as we're both acknowledging that the glass actually exists. I'd be interested to know your definition of 'in love', too. I agree that it's subjective, but the bar seems lower than it's ever been in terms of defining 'love'. Would explain a lot about the current divorce statistics, I'm sure...

Winner.

who, me?

Love. Call me a cynic, but I've never really understood society's obsession with 'love'. I mean, I can understand physical attraction (mmm... let's engage in sexual intercourse), I can understand attachment (let's engage in sexual intercourse... again), and I can understand companionship (let's engage in sexual intercourse AND conversation), but what is this 'love' that we all aspire to? I wouldn't ask, but I'm working on Chapter Six at the moment, and I'm beginning to realise that 'love' is something I'll have to tackle at some point in this story. It was my own doing, obviously; but truthfully, when I planned this whole thing out on paper, 'love' was just an incidental thread to tie the whole storyline together. A nice little story arc with the broadest possible appeal. And while I have every intention of doing 'love' justice, how can I achieve that when I have no idea what 'love' actually is? It's like trying to write a vagina monologue. I can imagine how violated My Angry Vagina feels, but I'd only be guessing at the end of the day. And you know what? When it comes to my writing, I don't feel comfortable guessing. So what is love? Tell me. Can you? Do you know? Cos I don't. But whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it's aspirational. Just like people who want to be rich, there are people everywhere who want to be 'in love'. But just like money, there's 1 rich human being for every 1,000,000 who aspire to it. But that doesn't stop them from faking. Fake it 'til you make it, don't they say? Just like millions worldwide who invest well beyond their means to appear 'rich', there are millions worldwide who invest unnatural amounts of effort to appear 'in love'. They buy extravagant gifts ('my husband bought me diamonds, he must really love me'), they have romantic getaways ('we're going to Hawaii in March, we're so in love'), they meet regularly for 'dates' and eventually co-habit... And for what? As much as they aspire to it, how many of them actually reach the destination called 'love'? And don't get me started about fake it 'til you make it, either. I know people who post Facebook updates every five seconds about how much they love their boyfriend. That's not love. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher... Being in love is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are... You aren't. And speaking of public declarations, how soon is too soon to drop the 'L word'? I've known people to drop it after a couple of weeks. I've also known people to just casually mention it, as if they're asking their partner what time it is. And the way they say it completely trivialises the concept of 'love' in my mind. Admittedly, I was raised by a single parent, so I don't really have anything to judge all these relationships against. But surely 'love' is more than having somebody to come home to at the end of the working day? Surely it's more than a regular, monogamous sex? Or are we, as a society, so confused that we actually think these things constitute 'love'? Honest to god, I think we confuse being 'in a relationship' with being in love. I might not have a parental relationship to base these judgements off, but I've been in relationships before, and I've had people tell me that they 'love' me. And the first response out of my mouth should have been 'why?' Because I don't know what it means. And I've never said it back. Call me a bastard, but I'm not going to say it back until I know what it is. Just like the little ginger kid at the spelling bee, I'm not going to spell it out until I get a place of origin and a proper definition. So this is where you come in. Tell me, dear reader, what is love? Because it's 600 words later, and I still wouldn't have a f**king clue.

was trying to think of creative ways to annoy the cat. this photo is the result:

So I've been giving myself a bit of a makeover lately. My dress standards had never been all that terrible but, somewhere along the line, jeans and hoodies had become my default setting. And it was getting shit. And I was getting lazy. And god forbid, I was looking like some generic, suburban hetero. Like I should be in line at McDonalds, or walking to the newsagent to buy a copy of Sports Illustrated. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. So armed with my tax refund and a wad of cash I'd been saving up (I don't keep a credit card), I did what every other gay boy does on a Saturday morning (no, not his boyfriend) and jumped in the car to go clothes shopping in the city. And it was... Kinda boring, actually. Since team breeder became team metrosexual, all the clothing stores stopped employing pretty gay boys and started employing hot chicks instead (sorry darling, but the only rack I'm interested in doesn't have a set of hands attached). So now, instead of browsing clothes stores and chatting up sales assistants, I'm forced to plug in my iPod and offer a polite 'no thank you' when the blonde with nice boobs comes over and offers to assist me in my selection. Seriously, what the f**k? Since when did clothes shopping become an anti-gay experience? Sure, it's nice to talk about pretty boys with a girl who meets her token gay friends for coffee and air-kisses every second Tuesday, but I'd much rather scope out coffee and air-kisses with a pretty boy who's sitting right in front of me. And might I just add... Staff discount. Second only to my dream of dating a bartender is the dream of dating a nice, pretty sales assistant at a clothing store. Again, staff f**king discount. Anyway, back to the shopping, and I soon got bored with the usual suspects and wandered down to McDonalds to grab a frozen coke and regroup. Then I wandered into JB Hi-Fi and pondered buying One Tree Hill and Veronica Mars in their 'buy two, get one free' dvd sale they've got on at the moment. But I couldn't decide which box set to buy as my 'get one free' purchase, so I burnt that idea and went to get a haircut instead. The hairdresser was nice enough I suppose, but she used the word 'forte' in the wrong context. TWICE. Seriously, people who try to use big words and fail just piss me off. AND IT'S NOT EVEN THAT BIG A WORD. And just to top it off, she did this weird combover thing at the end and it looked stupid. Literally, the moment I left the hairdresser, I rushed to a public toilet and spent the next 5 minutes re-doing my hair in a style that didn't look like a young Bob Saget. In reality, that actually meant putting on my ball cap to create 'hat hair', taking it off again after 2 minutes and de-Bob Saget-ing from there. I actually kinda liked it after that. Anyway, I decided to label my city experience a complete failure and cruised out to the 'burbs and to try my luck at a department store. *gasp* That's right, a department store. All the shit in the city seemed over-priced and/or boring and/or ugly, so I decided to go for something a bit more simple and went shopping at a department store. And you know what? It was brilliant. The staff actually left me alone, and I got to wander around picking out things that I actually like. Just nice, simple, plain, comfortable things. Things without massive designs screen-printed across the front. OMG socks and underpants. And when I took it all to the counter, it didn't cost me half of Malawi's GDP. Jesus christ, I think I might go back tomorrow! Speaking of tomorrow, gotta hit the gym again. Only been twice this week. Not good enough. Depends how late I go to bed tonight, though. I've got a nice rhythm going on Chapter Six of The Things You Fear The Most, so I might sit up til 3am writing that. Overall, I'm loving the gym though. The whole exercise/eating well thing is working out quite well for me. Lost heaps of fat/inches, apparently. 20cm off my waist, or something. Put it down to self-restraint. I've also managed to refrain from telling the personal trainer how much I'd like to lose 20cm in him. You can put that down to self-restraint, too. Night xx

Now I hate you.

- survived my first bike class at the gym - did 25.7km in the process - bought a new iPod Touch today - just filled it with oodles of crap music - Michael Schumacher announced his return to Formula One, nearly creamed my pants when I heard - won basketball tonight, team is now 15-0 - had another great idea for chapters six/seven of TTYFTM

So I've got a three-day weekend coming up, and my tax return has just come through... Bad. Boredom + Matty + Money = Bad. Or tequila. I'm the only person I know who actually likes the taste of tequila. Dunno why. Dunno why I call myself 'Matty' on GA, either. Nobody calls me Matty. Well, that's not true. Nobodies call me Matty. Case in point: Chicks who want me to do something. Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Matty, could I ask a favour? Matty, would you be able to grab that box down for me? Matty, could you grab me some paper for the copier? Mattttttttttttttttyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy... You get the drift. Tokyo Drift. That movie's great... on mute. Now it's raining outside. And I'm listening to Yellowcard. And I think I've got a crush on Sebastian Vettel. He's younger than I am, and he races in Formula 1. What the f**k. Since when were professional sportspeople younger than I am? God, I feel old. Just got a text from my shooting guard, too. He's like the little brother I never had. Just wanted to let me know that his other team lost, but he nailed two three-pointers in a row at the end of the game. Sounds inconsequential, but I'm so proud of the kid. Barely had the confidence to even put a shot up at the start of the season. Now he's my best player and the team's 14-0. I think I'll name him MVP at the end of the season. He'll love that. I think he'll cry when we win the grand final in four weeks, too. I'll probably cry right along with him, to be honest. There'll be hugs. There'll be high-fives. There'll probably even be McDonalds after the game. Nothing says 'WINNER' like a 50c cone, no? I could go one right now, actually...

I lobbed into the gym for an hour this morning, as well. Encountered this guy on the bench press whose grunting was so loud that I could hear him over my iPod. Shared a wry smile with a girl on the other side of the room, then smiled some more when she kept looking over at me and trying to make eye contact. Her name is Kelly, she was lovely. Other good things from today: - Had an afternoon nap in the sunshine - Ate a really nice steak for dinner - Wrote 1,000 words worth of dot points for Chapter Six of The Things You Fear The Most - Cut and pasted all other dot points into order, right out to the end of Chapter Nine - Read chapter sixteen of In Due Time, loved it - Had an actual conversation with the checkout chick at the supermarket - Bought jelly beans. - Mmm... jelly beans

This is a fairly simple idea from another forum I use... Post something good that happened today. It can be as personal or impersonal as you like. It can be vague or specific. It can be something that happened to you or something you read about in the news. Literally, it can be ANYTHING. I'll start: - Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me just came on iTunes - Bumped into hot personal trainer at the gym - Had a five-minute conversation about British boy bands (in particular, East 17) with said personal trainer - Left with the impression that personal trainer is not as straight as he first seemed - Found out that I'd lost 15cm off my waist - Got put on the breathalyzer twice, passed both times - Finally took this week's hand-written Chapter notes and saved them on the computer - Watched an awesome game of Aussie Rules on the tv - This Mess We're In just came on iTunes - Watched the 'My Screw Up' episode of Scrubs, and cried. It was beautiful. - Caught up on a blog I'd been neglecting - Found the time to shave off the scraggly beard I'd been keeping for a couple of weeks - Realised it's only 10.30pm, and I don't have to be anywhere tomorrow. Now it's your turn. (Ironically, on the forum I'm stealing this idea from, the 'good things from today' thread is up to 20,680 posts. However, the 'bad things from today' thread has 24,689. Go figure.)

this made me laugh harder than I'd ever be willing to admit.