That loving feeling

I have finally bought THE ute people! My god it's beautiful. There aren't a great deal of things that I can properly appreciate but a big growling Hilux has always been one of them.
Which, I guess, does pose as being a little strange seeing as I'm a chick and I've seen many people snort and turn on their heel upon discovering my not-so-secret passion for the great hunk of rumbling metal that is the ute-dearest.
I'm not sure why some people are unimpressed by this little contrary, but I guess its the same reason why the same sort of people cringe with contempt when I go into a patriotic rave whenever I hear 'Khe Sahn' (Last Saturday night I actually scared some bikies with my drunk dancing to it).
I'll leave it at that otherwise I'll launch into a messy bout of typing-diarrhoea about my misfitting disposition yada yada yada -that can only end in my banishment from this Earth..... Please don't ask for an explanation of any of that sloppy word-poo, there's just some questions you don't ask a raving lunatic.

Anyhoo.....My new ute is a 4x2 Hilux dual cab, that's technically a 95 model but under the bonnet it said 94......so go figure. It's gotta canopy, a big bull bar for running down unsuspecting pedestrians and a heavy back bar that'll make other fuckers think twice about tail gating me.

Why did I buy a ute? Well, I guess, for me Hiluxes have always represented everything that's good, strong and trust worthy in the world. I've always associated them with other things I love. My dad, my dogs, my farm, the country, Lee Kernaghan and big hot farm boys (I've since learnt farm boys are generally arseholes- but the subconscious thought still stands).
Ohh.....excuse that Red Neck Moment.

Yesterday arvo my Mum drove me over to get the ute from Glenroy after she finished work and I drove it for the first time home in bloody peak hour. Even though it's only a 4x2 I still felt considerably higher up there then all the other cars. At first I thought I was just being paranoid......but no.....people really were staring at the chick cruising along in the big bad ute. And I never copped one beep or road rage of any sort- that's another thing about Hiluxes, no one seems to mess with them :D

Full of my own achievement and giddy with happiness (and escalated on yet another Red Neck Moment) I sent all my mates the following message:
"WOOOOOO!! I finally got my big beautiful ute! I'm in love! I've made so much love to it, it's endangered from getting cancer after all the post-ciggies. If I ever love a man half as much as I love this ute, I'll marry him! I'm so not ever gonna get married! *Bats at air* Ahhh! Too....Many.....Exhaust......Pipe.....Jokes! Ahh!"

I drove the ute over to Blackburn last night to show it off to some mates and it was also just an excuse to keep driving it. I had to park it in the drive way and spent the whole night nervously peering through the curtains to check its health still being current.
Eventually after more drinks than I care to mention, I stumbled out toting a glass of beer and wine (try it, it's actually really good) to tell my newest suitor I loved it and would never ever leave it.
Concerned, my mates followed and soon we were all sitting on top of the canopy watching the cars drive past on White Horse Road, me waving furiously at all of them, obtaining beeps and yells from open windows from a small amount considering.
Eventually The Room Mate appeared to tell us we were sending her dog spas (that dog was fucking born spas) and the neighbours would soon be complaining.
"If they do it's cause the jealous bastards are just shitty bout missing all da fun!" I slurred, pondering for the first time whether the canopy roof could actually hold our weight.
"Just invite the silly pricks over and we'll party that anal-ness outta their systems!" I screamed, hoping the neighbours would hear and save themselves a call to the cops.
"SHUT UP LANA!!!" the mates said collectively.
"Shit, now you've done it; they'll ring the cops for sure thanks to that outburst"

We we sent on our way. Three of us decided to walk back to the other mate's house.
I asked for a moment alone with the ute before we left but I was dragged away kicking and screaming.
At the servo we stumbled in to gather some salty goodness.
I wasn't hungry so stood by the magazine rack staring stupidly at the men's mags with the naked girls with their goodies obscured on the glossy covers.
"Hey....?" I announced to everybody in the small servo. "Why aren't there any porno mags for chicks? I mean, do they just fucking assume that we don't wanna perve at exaggerated bits and bobs of the opposite sex?"
I wasn't given a satisfactory response, so I blundered on.
"It's fucking discrimination! Our sex drives are just as mechanically sound as all those pricks!"
The servo assistant blushed and looked away while I was ushered away by the mates, but not before finding an innocent plant quietly minding its own business to sexually abuse.
"That'll teach you to vote Green!"

The mates live right next to a Cemetery along the most pot-holed track in Melbourne.
They are actually more like craters and neighbours going missing along that track was a common occurance. In the dark we drunkardly stumbled along trying to navigate our way through, yelling out our usual greetings to the dead people in the Cemetery next door as we went.
At home we crashed on the couch and were telling our usual dirty jokes when my dickhead brother rang from the city maggotted nearly as much as myself.
"Come and fucking pick me up ya slut"
"Ohh well even though you said it soooooo nicely, I can't, I'm fucked." and I handed the phone over to a mate who the Brother had wanted to root ever since he saw her picture on myspace.
She told him how I did a great impression of him to which the Brother flew into a rage saying I was this and that so the mate hung up.
He rang back promptly, "Tttttt- Tell.... tha' ssslut iif she e-va fuckin' hangs up on meee again, I'll fuckin' sssmash 'er"
"Touch her and I'll rip ya dick off and feed it to my dog", I sniggered back before falling over in a laughing fit.
So went the friendly exchange between loving brother and sister till my phone died.

Phlegmy Friends

My Saturday night.
I hadn't really been expecting much; I left my house around 8.30pm and walked to the train station. I was meeting up with mates for dinner in the city who had been at the soccer. I'd been invited but I was too much of a tight arse to fork out the $40 for a ticket. I prefer to spend my Centrelink pocket money on beer.
Thankyou tax payers. I had a job once but it was lost along with my respectability.
That day, like pretty much every day since I finished school for the year a few weeks ago has been spent in a cocoon of nothingness with the clock on the wall being the only thing that changed slightly. Time had seemed to pass in great chunks with very little detail being distinguishable between one hour and another.
It was pathetic....... no, I was pathetic. Actually that shouldn't be a past tense.

The train ride into the city was exactly like a thousand ones before.
Saturday night sees only the usuals.
Guys in bright fluro t-shirts with spiked hair, talking loudly and already tipsy, trying to catch glimpses of high-steppers (frocked up chicks) outside their carriage windows. Hooting and cat-calling when one or two is triumphantly spotted.
Girls in bright dresses and high heels, plastered with makeup as thick as icing sugar, clucking amongest themselves like a flock of chooks, squealing and squirming everytime a cock walks through the door.
I always feel reminded of the farmyard when ever I step outside the sanctity of my house.
Material really is the thin line between us and animals. Though I suppose animals wouldn't have waited and subdued their urges had they run into each other. We just wait until later when we are maggotted enough to act on our instincts. Dark alleys and club toilets are natural habitats for such behaviour.

Then of course there was the usual helping of loud bogans that always seem to be on trains but never seem to have destinations.
The ones behind me were loudly declaring their success as drug dealers, pacing up and down the rows of seats screaming into their phones in that famous lilt of theirs' I do love to impersonate.

I was like a rabbit caught in the headlights when I stepped off the train at Southern Cross and was met with flocks and flocks of screaming fans returning from the soccer. Toting flags and scarves they blindly bumped into me, disappointed to see I carried no team colors to be harassed over.
As I pulled myself free, feeling my skin dripping with contamination (haha, yeh bit melodramatic) I found the stairs that were empty due to most favouring the escalators that didn't ask for unnecessary exertion.
In the usual haunt I found my three mates wedged between a wall trying to take refuge from the crowds that flowed like waves, threatening to sweep up any debris that fell in their path.

As we walked I slowly dropped my irritation with the crowds and became more animated, finding great entertainment in watching this little cop grab one drunken looney and pull him to the ground.
"You think maybe he needs a hand?"
"Nah he's a cop"
"But he's soooo wittle!"
"I'm sure he makes up for it"
One raised eyebrow later and the knob jokes began.

We walked to Crown and found an upstairs restaurant that dealt us a Kiwi waitress who didn't smile.
"Maybe she has bad teeth"
"That's no excuse"
"You want to suddenly see yellow, rotting teeth when you've just begun your meal?"
"I've got the stomach"
We added brown sugar to the water and mixed it till it looked like piss, handing it back to her asking for more.
She showed no expression as she took it back.
We tried harder.
The water and sugar was called upon again to make a concoction that disturbingly resembled phlegm.
When Kiwi walked past I would suddenly be hit with a coughing fit that required me to grab the closest napkin (already planted with the yellow substance) and splutter into it, holding the napkin up open and fully visible to her and several other tables in the vicinity.
"Ohhhh that's better!" I'd croak, peering into my apparent creation, "Ohh that's a nasty bugger!"
Kiwi looked on blankly.
Our attempts for a reaction became less subtle.
Our tools were modest but we used them to the best of our ability, but got no reaction and surprisingly weren't kicked out of the restaurant either.

I had more to write bout, but yeh I'm lazy and can't be fucked.

Bon Apetite!

I woman. I vote. You Tarzan

Haha.....well still nobody has viewed my hapless little ramblings, but I shall soldier on in the hope they will....haha who am I kidding, they won't! So I'm just writing to myself.
Hello lana, how are you? Fine thanks. Yourself? Yes rather good, bit pissed about Rudd being our new PM, goodbye lucky country.
Yeah I probably shouldn't even attempt to begin talking politics, it'd be like a fish describing what flying is like. This year was my first voting. I hadn't wanted to even enroll, hoping I could just spend my life under the radar like some sort of secret person that doesn't seem to exist, cloaked in mystery that keeps fooling the government.
"She seems to exist, yet every election day it's like she was never born! My god man, we must get to the bottom of this!"
But then bloody mum went ahead and enrolled me.
"Mmmmmuuuummmm!!!! Why'd you do that!!??"
"It's the law"
"I don't care, I don't want to bloody vote"
"And I don't want to keep feeding you"
"What?"
"You heard me"
"Your going to disown me because I won't vote? Since when did you get loyal to the government?"
"Don't argue"

So I did a postal vote a few days before hand. I wish I'd known then you could leave it blank, or better scribble a poem or story across it. That would've been gold. Yes, we children are the future. Haha this country is going straight to hell when my lot take over. First thing on the agenda will be laws against decent exposure. "You there! Remove those clothes at once!"

I was on my way out when Mum slapped the voting sheet in front me and my mind was already concentrated on the night ahead (dancing, drinking, boys, etc..... the nuns that taught me in primary school would be so proud to see me today) as I just scanned it briefly, quite shocked to discover there were THAT many parties. I hastily ran through my options. The only minority party I knew anything about were the Greens, because I've waged a personal war against those wankers when they tried to abolish muelsing (long story short they didn't understand what it was and put alot of already poor farmers further up shit creek).
Then I saw "What Women Want". Initial thought- What the fuck?
But then beneath it I saw something that made me laugh. Every party had the surname of it's leader in bold letters beneath the party. And what do you think the party leader's name was?
"LOVE"
So there was a statement is bold print on my election sheet that made a damn good point and made me laugh. "What women want- LOVE". Awwww
I gave them a big 1 for their sense of humour. Why have a leader thats going to uphold our rights when you can have one with a sense of humour?
Cue taking the piss.

I have a dream

School has been done away with for me....... well for another year anyway. And as I sit here typing with my merry little two fingers I am contemplating....... about what the bloody hell to do now.
You see, a few weeks ago, I was just about bursting with anticipation for what was in store for me when this damned school year was cast to oblivion.
That, imminent fate has now transpired..... as time was the only obstacle there. But....as for those plans? The ones bout buying some big beautiful Hilux, blazing all the way up to Queensland- sleeping out in my swag with just my dog for protection, before reaching my destination to begin a HUGE, EXCITING, ADVENTUROUS lifestyle as a farm worker.

*Dead Silence*

Yes, that does sound like a monstrously ridiculous McLeod's-Daughters-wishful-thinking-theory. But, piss off..those thoughts got me through the last 6 or 7 years of crappy monotonous life.
I've been on farms and stations before, they're no picnic; but I've got enough hope in my heart, skip to my step and enough pent up frustration from the same-old-same-old bullshit to put the realistic dead-weight nonsense back in the toilet and HAVE A DREAM!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm always one to follow my dreams.....9 times out of 10, yes, they do fail and take large chunks of my self-esteem each time, but I still get points for trying. It's un-Australian to not give everything a crack, "even if it's just pissing into the wind" as Jack from "My Brother Jack" said.
Unless the thing your having a crack at is the 40 year old bald bloke in the pub with no teeth and a voice that sounds like a cat running over a chainsaw. You can be let off for just not trying..... just because you can doesn't always necessarily mean that you should (And no I shouldn't be taking this advice myself as far as the McCleod's-Daughters-wishful-thinking-theory goes).
Because, yes...I DO KNOW that following the McCleod's-Daughters-wishful-thinking-theory will lead you to trouble. Like, for instance, I KNOW not all men out on properties have features as finely chiselled as Michelangelo's David, the majority are just misogynist pigs who have spent too long in the best paddock with beer guts the size of their ego's. I wish I had a dollar every time I've been blasted with abuse from those pretentious pricks who gaze at each other in quite the Brokeback-Mountain-way (ignore that).
I could go on and on and on.....I could write a book......I've seriously considered it, mmmm never know, just might one day.
The point is I know the dangers and risks I take to do this crazy shit that often leads to a dead end, but I just don't think that there could possibly be a worse feeling than regret. I am terrified of one day looking back and thinking What if? Or just plain Fucking hell!

Welcome to Rusted Gumption!

G'day my fellow tinny-swilling, slang-talking, mother-luvin, cousin-chasing (depending on how small and remote your town is), sun-baked, inhabitants of this great ever increasingly growing browner continent -Australia!
This is my first crack at some sort of a half-baked website to vent my thoughts and flimsy feelings into, so I hope you (assuming there is a 'you' out there actually reading this) will bear with me while I overcome being computer-retarded and a shit typer. Seriously, I am a shit typer, I type with two fingers! I think shit is an understatement.

Now, i will continue to ignorantly splurt out this virtual diarrhoea in the persistent hope that someone will eventually read it. Pathetic isn't it? Need the comfort of an audience to garnish some scrap of self esteem.
No, no, no *laughs jollily* don't mistake me for some sad, little misfit living on the edge of a cliff, with the hope that I possess some sort of talent as the only rope I've got left to cling onto and hold me back.
That couldn't be further from the truth! For one thing, I'm not little! So hah! I'm actually 5 foot 9 to be exact and secondly......I'm not dangling from any cliff, so set your blessed little hearts and fears to rest of this being some pathetic emo's blog you've stumbled into.
Well, enough random ramblings said.......or rather written, allow me to give some insight to the two-fingered typer that is yours truly!
My name is Lana and I'm an 18 year old living in Melbourne. Unlike most though, I have done a bit of lonesome traveling in the hope of securing my dream of being a farmer. Yes, now your confused aren't you? Tehehehe.

I won't go into too much detail because if you've managed to read this far I value your attention too much to bore you and send you packing.
In short I have grown up in the Western District of Victoria on a farm, have lived in Ararat, Ballarat, worked on a cattle station (when i was 16) in North NSW, attended school in Whittlesea (North of Melb), worked on a horse pre-training property in Euroa and am currently finishing off the last tiny little incy wincy bit of my year 11 at RMIT in Melbourne before hitting that grand open road again and seeing where the wind blows me.
This website (if I stick to it) shall hopefully work as a record of my adventures and misadventures. Assuming there is somebody out there reading this drivel, I hope you will, NO! I BEG (!!!) you to comment and return.

Cheers mateys with lots of beers (virtual beers of course.... I couldn't possibly.....what's that? You want the real thing? Oh don't be so unreasonable.....how am I expected to.......what? Ohh i see.....well, I'll try to forward you the money for beer as soon as my pay check from Centrelink comes through. Humph, so much for free web).