Get out of my life, you make me sick. And you f**king stink.

As much as I love those little tubes of cylindrical velvety goodness, they're going to kill me.  I'm going to be prone to any of the following apparently: Lung cancer, cancer of the bladder, kidneys or pancreas, mouth or throat cancer, heart disease, coronary or cerebral thrombosis, chronic pulmonary disease, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, high blood pressure, fertility problems, asthma, cataracts, loss of eyesight, dental problems, ulcers, looking really old, and having to go for a dump every time I smoke one.  Now I'm no doctor, but I don't need to google any of those to know they don't sound good at all, apart from the one that'll keep me regular.  As much as I look at the list, I can't find anything that would point to smoking causing happybreathing or supererection.  The only cigarettes that are going to be any good for me are the ones which have on the packet the warning that smoking when pregnant harms your baby.  Being a guy pregnancy is something I am not prone to so I think I am okay to smoke those ones.  Oh to live in the 1950's when smoking was good for you, before science came along and ruined everyones fun.

I first started in my mid-teens.  Weakly and lamely with tea-bags.  I was at that age where I wanted to look cool, but with limited resources, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one to do it.  Not by putting one end in my mouth and trying to light the other, it was sprinkled into a cigarette paper and rolled up beforehand.  The advantages to this were plentiful.  It wasn't going to kill me, it looked like a real cigarette, and upon arriving home to face the parents, I never got pulled to one side for a serious conversation starting "Son, have you been drinking tea again?".

Of course this moved on to proper cigarettes.  Being highly unpopular at school this allowed me to hang out with some of the cooler kids which surely is worth risking your life, and developing a lifelong addiction for, right?  I started on Marlboro reds.  Probably because I was a bit of a Guns 'N' Roses fan, and pretty much bummed Slash.  It's likely that this is the reason that I have a voice not dissimilar to the low rumble of a large plane making its final approach, and why early morning it operates on a level only audible to woodland creatures.

My first experience of being caught smoking came after a party at the local football club.  I walked home with friends, paranoid that my parents would smell it on my breath.  I had no mints, no gum, the only thing I found in my pocket was a lemon flavoured chapstick.  So I ate it.  I popped my head into the lounge when I got home, made some lame excuses about being tired, and was about to head off to bed when my Mother demanded a kiss goodnight.  All my hard work eating a little lemon flavoured lump of grease was undone in that kiss on the cheek.  The following morning my Father had "that" conversation with me about it while I was making coffee.  Luckily, the night before, neither of them noticed that I had drunk so much that if I wasn't holding onto the lounge door handle for dear life I would have fallen over and would most likely still be there now waiting for the room to stop spinning.

Smoking causes blindness.  A warning on NZ cigarette packets.  Although having a big fuckoff metal contraption shoved headlong into one of your peepers can't really help much either.

I got caught again a few years later.  It was the early hours of the morning and I had just got in from work.  Probably around 2 a.m.  Maybe later.  I was lying in bed and decided rather than go downstairs and outside, the folks who were in the room next to mine would be fast asleep so would never know if I just popped my head out the window and had a sly one.  So there I sat, with my head out the window, every so often glancing to my right to make sure there was no activity in my parents window.  About halfway through the cigarette I was shocked to glance over and see my Mothers face starting back at me.  I then did what any sensible person would do under the circumstances.  Balanced the cigarette on the windowsill, closed the window, and jumped back into bed and pretended to be asleep.  It didn't work.  Parents are apparently way too intelligent to fall for that.

And so since then it has been on and off.  Mostly on, sometimes off.  And I go through stages, as I'm sure we all do, of loving it, hating it, loving it again.  All the times before I have tried to quit, I have never looked at it very objectively.  Instead of telling myself it has been x amount of time since my last cigarette, I end up convincing myself that when I eventually cave, it's going to be fucking awesome.  Like my first ever one all over again.

I quit last winter for about a week, then went on a night out.  I was close to buying a packet when I was pretty damn wasted, and talked myself out of it.  But then ended up getting one off the taxi driver.  I sat on the steps of my flat smoking the whole thing down to the filter and it was amazing.  Absolutely amazing.  At one point I thought my eyeballs were having an orgasm.  They weren't, of course.  Delirious with ecstasy I fumbled around in the house trying to find the toilet which I knew was somewhere on the right.  Somehow I ended up in the shower cubicle fully clothed, and still trying to find the light switch ended up turning the shower on instead.  I was standing in the shower, getting drenched from head to toe, and I didn't care.  There's a warning they should put on the packets.

I've tried various things to quit.  I read Allen Carr's book but that didn't work.  I can be an obstinate dick sometimes, so when he screams at me in the text that I WILL give up by the end of the book, I stubbornly fold my arms like a petulant child, stamp my feet all the while screaming "WON'T", and rip out the page with his face on it and use it to make a smoke.  I've figured if I smoke way too much I will get sick of it and never want to do it again.  Of course that one didn't work.  I tried carrot sticks last season.  They didn't light very well.  And I ate about a kilo of them in 2 hours which led to crippling stomach cramps and orange poo. Nicotine gum worked out way too expensive.  It was cheaper to chew normal gum and smoke a cigarette at the same time.  I have thought about buying tobacco and papers instead, and this one is foolproof because a) I am way too lazy to roll up a ciggie, and b) I can't roll up to save my life anyway.  But no, cold turkey is the only method that has led to any success so far in my life, so I may stick with that, with a massive side order of gummi bears to keep my mind and mouth occupied.

So after a few months of weakness, I am going to try and quit again.  Declaring it within my blog will mean at least 3 other people now know of my intention, which may be a bit more pressure, but as winter is now pretty much over, most of the ski hills are closed or closing very soon, and as town quietens down for the summer and people begin to leave, there is nowhere near as much partying to be done.  Which means less drinking.  And less people with little common sense to deal with as I become more and more cranky.  Like the guy who called in one afternoon to declare that he had just seen a weather report on the television which said it would be raining at the Remarkables the following day, and wanted to ask me if that was true.  I guess I should be flattered that he relied on my opinion more than a professional meteorologist, however I can't help feeling my input would have been pointless.  By far the biggest hurdle will be at the staff party this season on Friday, which has a theme of retro ski gear.  God knows how I am going to come up with something offensive to go along as this year, but it does say costume optional so I figure I may just go without a costume.  Or any clothes at all.  With the amount of alcohol likely to be floating about, it will be tough.  But hopefully quitting should lead to expanding the capacity of my lungs once again.  It's been fun once more, but as much as I love them sometimes, I have to get them out of my life.  They are a drain on finances.  They slowly but surely kill you.

And most importantly, they contribute highly to the consumption of lip moisturizer.

I don't have a short attention span. But it certainly isn't that long either.

I've taken up a lot of activities in my life that I haven't pursued to brilliance, just mediocrity.  Which is why as much as it appears I have a short attention span, it is actually longer than you would believe.  But only just.

I may not remember a conversation I had with you yesterday.  Sure I was listening, and taking it in, but bear in mind there was at least seven other conversations that day that demanded my attention, which I took in, and tried to organise in my head in order of importance, but the ordering of it got too much so I just ended up thinking about snow, or lesbians, or lesbians in snow, and that conversation just dropped out of my head.  Which puts me in mind of Christmas one year, a time for giving, and receiving,  and being with family.  Bear with me, this is probably going somewhere.  

As was the tradition at the time, a few of us had been to the local pub on Christmas Eve just drinking and having a good time, as you do.  I ended up staying at a friends house and needed to get back to my parents house on the Christmas day, so they kindly offered to pick me up, drive me to my flat so I could spend a bit of time in the shower scrubbing out the smell of Stella Artois, and then drive me back to theirs for a day of presents, food, presents, beer, and presents.

Due to my mediocre attention span I am not entirely sure how this came about, but as my parents sat in the living room of my flat while I made my way off to the shower, my Mother began to look at part of my DVD collection and asked if it was okay if they could borrow some films.  Of course I said that was fine, thinking I was safe in the knowledge that any filthy films I had were secured in the bottom of my wardrobe (which a few years later, when I was moving out, she would end up packing up for me without batting an eyelid), and walked off to grab a towel and shower.  And that is how, when I walked out of the bathroom with a towel around my waist, on Christmas Day of all days, I found my Mother - the wonderful woman that spent hours in immense pain delivering me some years ago (who I still feel a massive amount of empathy for every time I get measured for a helmet and they tell me I am an extra-large), with my Dad standing next to her - holding up a copy of a DVD called Snow Sluts and asking me, with a slight under-lying tone of sarcasm, "What's this one about then?".

Back to the attention span once more.  It's fucking terrible.  Really really bad.  I could live with it if it was short.  I could live with it if it was long.  But it's fair to middling.  Which basically means I start doing something, and when I think I am okay at it, I give up.  Playing the drums in school - I took a couple of exams, got quite good, but then realised how much hard work was involved in being in a band so quit pretty sharpish.  You want more examples?  Sure, I've got loads.  Magic. Loved it as a child.  And got okay at it too when I was younger.  But this one is surely understandable as magic is not cool.  David Copperfield may have scored Claudia Schiffer, but then Paul Daniels scored Debbie McGee - and I can think of thousands of people on this planet that the words "The Lovely" should be used before, and all of them aren't her by any stretch of the imagination.  The Great Soprendo was married to Victoria Wood for ages, and she still has a bowl haircut, appears on countdown every now and again, and is only Britain's favourite "comedienne" because she has jokes that don't primarily involve periods or useless husbands.  But then where she is concerned, my attention span shortens even further, so she may actually have that, but I have never bothered to pay attention through her act.

Martial Arts. I spent quite a lot of time with this one.  I got up to blue belt, which to be brutally honest is less than halfway, but I did well.  I came second in one tournament (beaten by a girl, one of the more erotic moments of my childhood), had a good few results in group tournaments, then gave it up because I felt I had learnt all I needed to to counter the bullies at school who tormented me every day for being a lardass.  Which was wrong to be honest. To counteract most of that, I just needed to keep my fat gob shut, but who knew at the time?

So getting back to the original point, which I can't remember due to my short attention span, but am going to assume it was something to do with skiing.  Once again, during the course of the season, I have been lame.  Really lame.  Most previous seasons you would find me out there every day, working on something, whether it be on skis or a board, but this year, not a jot.  There's a website where you can check your mountain stats online for the two local hills.  While I thought I was doing really well, I checked the other day only to find I had done 12 days.  Granted, I have been out to Cardrona a few times, which it doesn't track, but still.  12 days.  That's barely a 2 week holiday.  I have done that thing where I have accepted I have the whole season, so taken it easy for a while, and am now coming to terms with the fact that there is only 1 month of the season left, and I haven't hit anywhere near the heights I have done before.  But you know what?  I'm okay with that.  Because I still have that one month to go.  And as much as I don't generally like summer - I like Queenstown.  And I intend to try and do another summer here to see if there is anything I can get into this time.  And if I do another summer, I won't be able to leave before another winter.  

This place just drags you in.

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Dedicated - in a very strange way I guess given the subject matter - to Gramps, who passed away peacefully last Thursday.  Rest in peace.

My bathroom has 3 doors

Honestly, it has. A door to the bathroom, a door to the toilet, and a cunning sliding door affair to shut off the toilet from the bathroom in case someone needs to micturate or defecate when someone else is showering. When I was younger, more foolish and a little more naive, all I wanted in life was one of those huge fridge-freezer combos with an ice dispenser on the outside of the front door. And someone similar to Jenna Jameson in looks, moral fibre and loose virtue to dispense the ice into my Jack and Diet. Naked. (Incidentally, for those unfamiliar with Jenna Jameson's body of work, please do not google her. Especially not at work). But now, I have a bathroom with 3 doors, leading to endless door/room combinations to experiment with. Which cunningly leads me onto explaining a bit about where I am living, in what will probably be a journey into bone-crushing, eye-watering, shit-a-kidney tedium.

I have been here almost a week now, in a scenic little area just outside Queenstown centre, called Sunshine Bay. Which kind of makes me feel like I live in an Australian soap opera, albeit with less hot jail bait Aussie chicks. The house I am living in is set on three floors, with a lounge and kitchen at the top, two bedrooms and a bathroom on the middle floor (with 3 doors!), and a bedroom, bathroom and garage at the bottom. I still can't get used to saying that I am going down to bed though. The view from the lounge balcony is the photo above, which is also the view from both the windows in my bedroom. The windows that dribble cold air over my head when I am trying to sleep. I took a bus ride to Frankton the other day to pick up a heater, but to be honest it is quite small, and offers about as much heat as a tea light unless you sit directly on it, but then that just fills the bedroom with the smell of singed hair and burnt scrotum.
I've ridden the public transport out here a few times now, at first with trepidation, but in comparison to the bus in England it is, as most things out here are, a pleasant experience. A fact no doubt attributed to the lack of council estates, poor people and limited availability of Stella Artois in cans.
From Sunshine Bay, it is about a 25 minute walk into Queenstown (uphill), and then a 25 minute walk back (uphill). Despite this, it is a very scenic walk - a woodland track that runs by the side of the lake - so I am more than happy to walk it. When I first walked it, nightfall was coming fast, and as it got darker and darker I started to worry a little. Firstly, because walking some woodland routes like this in Canada you have to worry about bears. No problem down here, no dangerous wildlife. Secondly, because walking some routes like this in England you have to worry about sexual predators. No problem there either, as the main protagonist is walking a woodland path in Queenstown. And as night falls, it becomes harder to walk as my eyes are constantly drawn to the sky, where there are more stars than I have ever seen in my life. No picture I could take could possibly do the night sky any justice. So close your eyes, and press the heels of your palms against your eyelids as hard as you can until you see spots. It's like that but better. You can stop doing it now, I can't be held responsible for anyone reading this ending up spending the rest of their lives walking into furniture.

So back once again to the house. It is still the two of us here, myself and another English guy who holds the lease. The third bedroom is currently being advertised and viewed. In the interests of redressing the imbalance created by having two guys living here, the advert has been asking for a female. There have been a few come to view it so far. The only one who was genuinely interested however was ruled out for various valid, and not shallow at all reasons. Being fat and ugly had no influence on the decision. The majority of interest has been from South American girls, who have strangely expressed a huge interest, then changed their minds but brought round different male friends on the basis that it would be perfect for them. Each time they return, they come with more friends who they think it would be more suitable for. I am starting to think they just like hanging out here. We disagree about the suitability of their friends on the basis that the ones they bring round have too much penis and not enough vagina.

Moving on further, I think I have finally found a job. I went for training the other day, and have 3 shifts this week starting on Wednesday. It is working in a rental shop in Queenstown, delivering equipment to hotels in the area and helping out wherever else I am needed. I say I think as I have still not signed any contract, or got any of the finer details sorted out, but I am pretty sure it's nailed on. The benefits as far as season passes/rides to the mountains are great, and it is going to be good to finally have something to do other than walk uphill into Queenstown whoring my C.V. to all and sundry and waiting for the inevitable unsuccessful e-mails/phone calls. I am also attending the casual instructor try-outs for Coronet Peak and the Remarkables on Thursday which I am hoping I won't balls-up as spectacularly as I did with Quiksilver.

And finally, yesterday was opening day for Coronet Peak, so I headed up there with a few people for a day skiing once again. To be honest it was a bit of a damp squib. In fact returning to the lavatorial theme I opened with, it was much like waking up on a Sunday after a night out followed by a kebab or curry, making a coffee and grabbing the Sunday paper WITH the supplements and heading upstairs in the knowledge that it will be a long, arduous but immensely satisfying experience, only for it come out in a series of little tiny rabbit pellets leaving you deflated, crestfallen, and most importantly still hungover.
Not that it wasn't a good day overall, essentially the important thing was that I was skiing and on snow again, which is always amazing. And after having work done on my boots they don't hurt as much as they did last season. I was just expecting a bit more of a fanfare being the opening day, when all I could really see happening was a one-man band outside the restaurant - essentially just a busker with more speakers. It could have been improved by replacing him with the legendary recorder-playing busker from Christchurch. And the weather wasn't great, a little low on visibility. But the snow was good, and like I said, I was skiing once again, which made me happier than a dog with two dicks.

And in a final final completely unrelated note, in fact more related to the hilarious "Beaver Liquor" than anything else, during my C.V. whoring I popped into a job agency where the helpful lady informed me to come back next week as she was in the process of sorting through the piles she already had to find out who was still available. My eyes were drawn to a C.V. on her desk. In the name of Ming Poon.
Where is a middle initial "e" when you really need it?