Ahh Plinky, you really should think before opening such a can of worms. It is not entirely universally known that I haven't always been called Clare. Close your mouths readers, you'll catch flies. Yes sweetlings it is true. Once upon a time, Mumsy and Dad brought home a little bundle of joy and promptly called her Melissa Joan, and then forgot.

Confused? Me too. Blissfully unaware of this fact I lived my life, was enrolled in school, got a bank account, a Medicare card and all those other things legal people get, until I turned 15 and a thought came to me one day. Where oh where could my birth certificate be? By this time in my life I was living with Dad and his new wifey and so they, in answer to my plea, went about the motions of applying for a copy of my birth certificate. A month passed, nothing, another, still nothing. They couldn't find me. In all the records there was nothing to be found of a Clare Ann born to my parents.

Well that's just Jim dandy now isn't it? I have been living my life, not knowing that as far as the government was concerned I didn't exist.

My entire life perspective (well as much perspective as a 15 year old can have) was changed, or so I thought. About 3 weeks later Mum and Dad pulled me aside. They had received a letter from Births, Deaths and Marriages in response to their enquiry. They had found me. Hurrah, except I was registered under a different name. Hold the phone. How am I supposed to deal with that? Hysterical crying that's how. I'm not sure how rational that response was but to a 15 year old girl who just discovered that she wasn't who she thought she was it seemed like the only logical thing to do at the time.

Turns out Daddy Dearest registered me as Melissa Joan mistakenly and then decided that Clare Ann sounded better but never thought to jump through any legal hoops to make the change official.

This formed the starting point of a 3 year mission to 'fix' my name. Because I wasn't seeing Mumsy at the time and because I was under 18 I needed both my parents to sign the change of name form and after repeated attempts to get forms filled out, signed and posted with the correct fees to the correct addresses with no success, Dad decided that the best way to go about 'fixing' my name was to leave it for me to do when I turned 18 and could do it myself.

Thanks parentals.

Now before any of you start calling me Mel, I have legally changed my name to Clare so no wisecracks please.

I am a cry baby. It doesn't matter if the movie is for kids, ditsy teen girls or grandmothers, if someone is happy, sad or anywhere in-between, you can count on me to choke up and start crying quietly behind a couch cushion.

Unwittingly, I bought this movie for my nephew thinking it would be a laugh a minute. Seriously, with a floating house, a talking dog and chubby Asian boy called Russel where could I go wrong? I'll tell you where. Roughly ten minutes in that’s where. The movies starts and were all shouting 'Adventure is OUT THERE!'. Collective Aw when they get married and build their dream house. Picnic under the clouds, painting the nursery, turns out she can't have children, bit of a downer, but then they are happy again, saving to go on their adventure, they live their life, everyone is happy, they get older, still happy, his taste in ties changes but they're that cute old couple that is still in love after all these years. Then trip up the hill. She falls, is sick and then we're at the funeral.

WHAT?!? I didn't sign up for this. Here's my nephew happily chugging away at his Milo, oblivious to the fact that his Giddy Aunt is choking on her tea, trying to wipe her nose on her sleeve and squinting through her fogged up glasses.

Because I think you are all lovely I will list a few Movies where I turn into a big sookie lalla:-
- Lion King
- Little Mermaid
- PS I Love You
- The Colour Purple
- Up
- The Parent Trap
- Peter Pan
- A Christmas Carol
- The Pursuit of Happyness

I would keep going but my dignity won’t allow it. Feel free to mock me.

60/365 Road Rage

Since leaving school my sense of reasoning and my moral code have been on hiatus and during these few years I have compiled a choice list of smutty words that I have been known to let fly at opportune moments. However, since deciding that I was going to listen to my shoulder angel instead of his pointy tailed counterpart, I have been trying to cut down my naughty word usage to moments when they are absolutely necessary. For example, if someone cuts you off at the lights while indicating that they are going left while turning right and then they steal your parking space, it is forgivable if you yell something at your steering wheel. Similarly, if while repairing the front fence and you happen to hit your thumb instead of the nail going into the fence post, God won't smite you with his almighty smite-er button if you let slip and string of profanities.

I understand that it is quite acceptable in most circles to use 'conversational swearing'. During my hiatus I was a frequent user of such colourful language. However, I have always maintained that replacing an adjective with the 'fire truck' word is just lazy. If you are going for a shock value, try using a more obscure word, or a string of them. I find it truly satisfying to come home from a particularly crappy day at work and answer the inevitable 'so how was your day' question with something along the lines of:

'well, in light of the happenings of today I would conclude that I had an absolutely abhorrent day and I wish nothing more than to berate about the head every single misbegotten son of a trollop who saw fit to assail my day with his imbecilic presence.'

I find this much more satisfying than saying, 'well, my day was shit and I want to punch every stupid douche bag in the head.'

Plus you get the added bonus of knowing that whoever asked you the question is currently sitting in the other room scratching their head, dictionary in hand trying to figure out what on earth you just said.