slaps self in head

well i am a dill

i mismarked my calendar when i had my rent paid up till and am therefore now a week behind instead of a week in front - grrrrrrrr

sigh - i can't help but wish they'd sent the notice of breach back in November instead of waiting till the week before christmas - still, these things are sent to try us - i have organised late payment of my electricity bill instead



had the oddest end to one of todays backgammon games with my step-father - he had pieces off the board already and i ended up with one piece on the two mark and fourteen pieces pilled up on the six mark and then managed to throw a double six, two double fives and a double two to win the game - it was freaky - i was rolling about on the floor laughing - he still managed to slaughter me twelve games to six, but as long as i win a couple of battles, i am content to lose the war

my intention to be a good daughter and go for a drive with mother was thwarted by vehicular difficulties - my nieces and nephew are shutting themselves away in their rooms and not coming out unless absolutely necessary - mind you, that isn't all that different from their usual modus operandi - but it is still interesting to see my own teenage coping mechanism replicated - i wonder if they had their grandma showing up every day for a couple of months, if they'd start wanting to paint their walls black too - lol

followup photo

okay - so here is a picture of it dry - somewhat Ronald McDonald ish

i am aiming to start lopping some of it of in the next couple of weeks, since I only do stuff like this when i am about get my hair cut short - it has been so humid here i am struggling with the urge to just shave it off at a number 3 or 4

Definately not a poem

Drunk as a skunk
i lurch and lumber towards
a bleary future to provide the answer
but there isn't one
or
at least
not one I am satisified with

so fuck it
I'll just bleach my hair

oh dear, that was a bad idea

Holy cow - its Friday!!!

... and so today, I was witness to my parent shitty with step-parent for waking her at an unusually early hour - it was blamed on his orgy of  backgammon since he has been here and thus I tried to rack my brain for things he could do to divert her, but sadly, it is so humid and hot I can't think of anything pleasant, and so he shall be doomed too tramping round the planetarium like wot she has already posited as a cure for my nieces and nephews slack immobility.  I feel such a failure.  Still, I acknowledge there isn't really much to do in Townsville.  I take solice I did not spoil my eldest nieces enjoyment of Breaking Dawn Part One.  Much as I was tempted.  It was actually quite good.

And I don't care how much you don't like the Twilight series or how badly you feel it is writ.  I spent my formative years reading Mills and Boon, so am quite pleased that my nieces have something slightly more complex and moral to keep them occupied.

I am drunk out of my skull and have been bleaching my hair rather unsucessfully.  Kindly my government appointed employment monitors have allocated me only six jobs a fortnight to apply for, but sadly there haven't been six jobs I am qualified for too apply for.  I shall steal myself over the next week to cold call/ well actually cold post a number of business to make up for this weakness in my character.  Perhaps I shall get lucky.

hahahah

The ever so wonderful BHJ's latest post is lovely and reminds me of the story of the time my brother and his friend tried to burn our house down. 

I was there at the time but I remember the story better

The adults were all in the house chatting - neighbours visiting i think - and brother wondered in asking where the metho was - parent told him - not long later occurred to parent that metho was an unusual request for a six or seven year old to make and perhaps he should not actually be allowed to have metho - investigations were made and myself, brother and brother's friend were out the back trying to set the house on fire - it wasn't working with just matches and a small mound of grass

I can't help wishing I had been inside to see their faces
not sure how true the story is
but remember the pile of grass and the matches
didn't help that our house was up on stumps, about three or four steps up
the pile of grass wasn't really big enough to be effective

(don't know what I'll do if BHJ comments on this one - last time I eeeked and flapped my hands like a girlie-girl)

I think it is Monday

birthday bbq the day before - held for my brother-in-law and myself - was pleasant and the eldest provided me a bottle of aged wine - 2004 - i love aged wine - like apple juice of the gods - my mother won't drink it - she thinks old wine will kill her and that the colour looks like urine

okay ... maybe it does resemble a dehydrated persons watery bi-product, but it's awesome anyway


I have (not actually) dead cats scattered around my flat
the heat
they just sleep it out

it is 10:30 pm and the thermometre says it is 32 degrees

I made one of my nieces listen to "Toms Diner" by suzanne vega and it now being played frequently - i am chuffed

I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT DR WHO SPECIAL!!!!
but when will it be on?
is it boxing day?
I shall die of waiting
i hate waiting

Going Postal 17 December
but I am always a little disappointed with the tv versions of the books

my brain is a desert and i haven't written anything for fun for a year
at least
maybe more?

So ... flashback poem from August 2008


If I bought somebody home
Would they like my stuff?
Or would they just think my place was far to cluttered up?

Disapprove of all my books,
And hate all my little things.
Does my flat just represent my personal failings?

I’d want them to like my pictures,
And think the fake vines round the phone cord cool.
What if they just see the dust and cats and think me a lazy crazy fool?

Should I decorate more to lure the innocent and unwary?
Until I’ve got them in my grasp, then stick them with the laundry?



...
one day I shall get together the ones I like and draw a little cartoon to go with them and have them all printed out nice for myself - and which I will probably years down the line burn like wot i did my story starts/attempts from my pre-teens - lol

The Ladykillers is on telly.  I have always meant to watch it.  A colourised version.  Alec Guiness looks so odd with those teeth.  I would like to look like Mrs Wilberforce when I am old.  I shall study her hair style.  I don't think I shall ever shrink that much though, so perhaps a lost cause already.  Really, I would like to look like Maggie Smith, but that is also not going to happen.  Gosh.  Peter Sellars looks so young in this.

I am re-reading all my Terry Pratchett books and flaking out with the cats.

Not a lot of admin jobs being advertised at present, though a couple of government jobs which I may attempt a response to.  Why must they make the jobs all sound so stessful when they advertise?  It's all about needing to be excellent time managers and able to work under pressure in a challenging but rewarding workplace.  I don't want a challenging workplace.  I don't even care if it is rewarding.  I want someone to advertise for an efficient experienced administration support officer who is a quick learner and happy to carry out boring repetitive duties.  bah!

Previous workplace's Christmas Party on sunday (which is also my birthday).  Am heading along and keen to catchup on the latest gossip. 

The final countdown

Saturday (or was it Sunday?) BBQ dinner with family
arrived early
sang dreadfully with my nieces
Queen songs
and
some Christmas hymns
their cat ran away
a bit
well ... just moved on, perhaps

there weren't any complaints from neighbours
as far as I know

Everybody loves bohemian rhapsody, don't they?

i met a friend of my brother-in-law's at a party and he couldn't even bring himself to listen to Queen songs because he was so uncomfortable with the idea that the lead singer was gay - gave him a cold shiver down his spine

my brain is flitting hither and thither today and christmas is near
i have two presents and am hanging out for birthday cash for more
my Uncle Sidney always sends me some money so that I can buy Christmas presents

he is an uncle in a million

Last night

late at night
had just turned off the light to go to sleep
decided to make last minute trip to bathroom
bathroom light not currently working
okay cause laundry light does and that is enough
do my thing
pull on the toilet paper to tidy up
spider rolls into view
was on back of toilet paper roll

*shriek*

panicked scramble
body moves faster than feet
possibly something to do with knickers residing round ankles
collapse on floor in doorway and scrap knee
retreat muttering to bandage the blood
fucking hate spiders

Nostelgia

Tonight "the crow" is on telly.
I believe this was the first time I saw Brandon Lee.

I saw it and instantly wanted him ever so much.
I don't know why.
I even liked him in that other silly movie with dolf whatever his name is starting with L.  Lindgren? something like that.  He was in a rocky movie.
It was very silly.
I wanted to marry him.
I think I was twenty ish?
I had never experienced any kind of long term urge for possession before this.
I was so angry when he died.
I think I even threw a book across the room or some other such tanty kind of exhibition of myself.
Thankfully nobody was around to see.

He looks like such a jock too.  I never like jock-ish dudes.  I like slightly pudgy guys with glasses or boys wot look like musketeers.  Brandon Lee looks like he played football, for heavens sake!

(still kind of want him though)

I recently participated in a telephone survey focused on local government and issues and realise far far too late that I should have answered the question about flood proofing the Bruce Highway as "Very very Highly Important and of great concern" because last year my mother was trapped here for an extra two weeks because of the flooding and a very uncomfortable and fraute (sp? oh whatever) two weeks culminating in the "how best to cook rice" episode which my eldest sister is humourous contemplating revisiting by gifting my sister with a microwave rice cooker - lol - how the chuckles will freeze into little ice cubes wot will shatter into razor sharp splitters on the laser like glare emitted from what is called "my mother's eyes" but which are in reality laser cannons of death by ice splitters!

I have, of course, encouraged her shamelessly.
I wonder what the chinese hell for female transgressers against their mothers is like?
I wonder if it has spiders.
Or maggots.
Or thread worms and such.

Update

Well ...  it is Thursday.

I decided enough was enough the week before last.
I succombed (if this isn't how it is spelt, then it is how it should be spelt) to my sense of duty Sunday night, upon receipt of a phone call.
I stuck to my guns Tuesday.
I spent a half-day playing stupid match 3 computer game most of Wednesday.
I agreed to play with my not quite 2 years old niece evenings Wednesday and Thursday whilst her daddy was away.
I had an interview that was sadly not to fruit cash due to my arthritis this morning.
I have a potential possibility of a temp job till 13th December.
My mother is arriving 10th.
My old places christmas party, which I would quite like to go to, is 11th Dec.
My fortieth birthday is the same day.
I still can't believe I am turning forty.
It seems like a big birthday.
It feels like I should own my own sound system and car by now.
Instead I have six cats that I am lying to my mother about and have only just found some cheap kitty litter trays with lips.
By lips I mean an attachable rim that faces inward.
That could potentially stop kitty litter being sprayed across the room when the kitties dig, if they didn't just use it to defecate on instead.
WHY!!!!!!!
I've been nice to them!
I've bought them the low fat Tuna.
Low fat tuna for HUMANS EVEN.
gosh darn it

Have I mentioned that my favourite new book series is ...
possibly a new low in my love of childrens books, but they are charming as heck.
I do love when people are being their best.
I don't understand reality tv at all.
I have just finished book two and have my fingers crossed that the temp job works out so that I can buy three and four and still buy Christmas presents for the children.

Not that they deserve it after the display of sloth and slackness exhibited during my week of playing mommy.  (I wasn't necessarily a particularly good mommy)

Nachos for dinner, fortune cookies for dessert

fuck but i love this man
with a deep devoted, yet slack and apathetic, non-interventionist kind of love

today is the last day of my babysitting and i shall be much relieved to get back to some solitary time with which to drink excessively if i so feel like it and enjoy the quiet and my cats

i am not used to so much prolonged human company
it is wearying

though the kids are cool
nephew and youngest niece are hilarious

youngest niece has to learn an Irish accent with which to perform her character in drama

ask me not why she is Irish, since it is the four Yorkshire-men sketch

Story attempt for my niece

My sister would like us to write and illustrate a book for our youngest niece who turns 2yrs in December.   I had an idea for a simple picture book, and while I was happy with some of the scribbled draft illustrations what I really wanted to do was a photo montage with additions instead, and I am far to lazy to actually put them together - also it would require either lots of magazines or a colour printer and a computer larger than my little notebook or whatever it is, cause I just can't create in these conditions darlinks.

But 2yr niece is getting a little more sophisticated in her book listening, and something with more words would be the go now.  Here is a first attempt at a more wordy version of the first picture book that I never made.  I probably won't make this one either - lol!

This is the Bean Baby
she is reading a book
It made her curious
to go have a look

(not entirely happy with this verse yet)

She packed up her bag
and she packed up her books
and she packed up meow
and thats all she took
(meow is her soft toy cat)

the Bean Baby went walking
the Bean Baby went soaring
the Bean Baby went sailing
To do her exploring

She walked to the forest
She flew to the hills
She sailed over the ocean
and sent her parents the bills

The forest was tall and dark
and full of bugs and bees
Bean Baby had trouble finding
the animals for the trees
(excellent spot to do lots of animals hiding behind trees)

Then soaring the skys
eating pears in her chair
she saw eagles and pelicans
and pigeons being ware

Trekking the hills was exhausting and long
but she did get to see where welsh mountain sheep belong
(sister don't like the welsh mountain sheep - i LOVE the welsh mountain sheep - sigh - feel free to substitute any hill/mountain animal you choose)

 She road the waves on a board for a lark
The Bean Baby had a close encounter with a shark

She slept on a boat
rocked to sleep by the sea
then traveled back home to her mum and daddy

Possibly true

my nephew tells me this morning his mum wakes him up with a cup of hot chocolate in bed - waves that enticing smell under his nose to gently rouse him to the day

so not gunna happen dude

w00t!

This is what I am going to be doing next week - w00t! 

(This is Myra - she is my sister's newest feline addition to her home)

Sunday morning

so i am playing mommy for my nieces and nephew this week
saw sister off to the plane this morning

eldest niece (who has been sick for past three months or so with mystery illness) has more tests to go through, one of which requires a 24 hour urine collection wednesday and thursday

i get to pour pee from an icecream container via funnel into another container that needs to be kept in the fridge

very happy that sister has a beer fridge
cause that's where the pee is going to get stored

poor cookie has to stop taking all her medications for the three days prior to the urine test, so she is not going to be a happy camper this week and i have my fingers crossed its not just going to degenerate into loud sobbing and screams from the sofa for the whole time

she will still be allowed to have some neurofin, but we have to write down date, time and how much

but she starts vomiting and stuff as well as being in severe pain, so that may get tricky

i put forth that when i was in the emergency room at the hospital for my gallbladder attack and they didn't want to give me any more morphine and i wasn't keeping down the panadine forte (or whatever it was) that they shoved it up my bum instead

funny, but she didn't seem keen on this - lol

do you know ... i thought i had been angry at work before, but i realise now, that it was bollocks, and i knew not what office rage was

i have been so angry this week, that actually i couldn't work


I couldn't even think straight
I pick up a file and then i couldn't find it again.

it is completely and utterly silly


so I have not sent off a dramatic and self indulgent email, such as i would like too

I have not sworn and cursed at anybody in the same room
I am not present for the next week for a good and forewarned reason
and I am just not coming back

though actually I am still inclined to send an email

but
i struggle
any protest on my account is going to be brushed off as the ravings of an emotionaly unstable person who drinks too much coffee.  I would like to think that they ie. other management/important type people that i have encounted - would take a grain of salt with that but there is no way I can be sure of that.

what i really want to know is ... how does one go about applying for work when one doesn't feel comfortable giving a contact number/referee for ones last place of employment?

I do not put it past them to give me a not very good reference.  They have sold themselves on the idea that they tell the hard truths. 

Though the hard truth is that they are weak, petty and vindictive against anybody who disagrees with them.  Maybe it screws with their ideas of self worth or something?  I don't know.  I do not read minds.  Though  I do have a tricky and strong gift for static electricity and that is startlingly painful when the contact point is mid-point of a thumb-nail.

She was trying to make a big deal of the other guy taking a day of, and implying he was lazy and takes days off to be inconvenient.  Not sure how my report of doctors appointment for seizing child will figure in her 'issues' with people who have children and how it interferes with their work.  Fuck but she is a bitch.   I don't even like using the work bitch.  Fuck, lets call it like it is and call her a bleached cunt, hey?

However, other than that my delightful eldest niece has introduced me to Trock.  Timelord Rock.  A couple of the songs have been rather awesome.  I know not if I can ever be satisfied with anything else.  Do you suppose if I wrote to Glenn Richards and Dan Kelly they would have a go at writing a timelord rock song?

THIS isn't the song i meant but is also good

so ...

so ...  i didn't want to work the weekend but circumstances and the bullyface lady from down south with her sudden unconsulted two week deadline conspired against me

and yet

i was called into the office today by the queensland manager - who is here three days this week - to be lectured, LECTURED!!!!, that they really don't want people working overtime on the weekend -
only if its really necessary - and this is the bit that cooked my goose -  particularly not if you are babysitting all week and than working overtime on the weekend ... that's just not on

GO FUCK YOURSELF
is what i thought
what i am doing is tomorrow i am tidying my desk, collecting my stuff and going home ... never to darken the doorstep of their donger again

and good luck with that two week deadline

(though actually i found out today by asking the stakeholder that our lot were the ones to set the deadline in the first place)

if only the were a more painful oriface than the arse to tell them to shoooooove something sharp and jaggered up

never more have i wished i had the power to inflict boils upon others
may they get a nasty rash in the crack of their bums

I confess ... it wasn't the cheese

work is making me cross again and i am waking at 1 am and such and brooding and not going back to sleep until 4 or 5 or not at all

but didn't you quit? you might ask

yes.  yes i did.  but then i came back as a casual, cause there just isn't anybody else to do my job until the new managers start which is still over a month away.

that is hardly your fault, you might say

well no.  but its not nice to start a job with a big mess that you don't know how to do let along fix.  it seems mean.
i am assuming you quit for a reason though, right?  didn't you feel they were mean to you?
well yes.  they keep setting this stupid impossible deadlines and ignoring or not believing me when i tell them stuff ... like the other day!  we told them we don't get the things weekly that we are supposed to get weekly and that woman said, well they said they do.

so she was calling you a liar?

but she didn't say the word liar, you see.  obviously if called on this point pitying looks and questions regarding how much coffee i'd had to drink so far that day would be made.

that sounds like a subtle form of bully to me

yes but she doesn't mean it like that.  she is just thoughtless and tactless with weak people skills.  lacking in emotional intelligence if one wants to use buzz words

how do you know whats in her head?

i am usually pretty good with people and think she is basically a nice person.  she is just sure she is right ... and obviously must think i have trouble tying my own shoe laces and going to the toilet or something even though they insist i am great and they would like me to stay



i don't want to brood, but i do rather want to tell them to stuff it up their jumpers and I can't stop my brain rehearsing things i might potentially say

Melbourne Cup day and there is a horse called "The Verminator" which is awesome, hey?  not rated though.  poor the verminator

Trying to remember if I ate cheese yesterday

bad dreams of the nice highset house with kittens escaping outside where viscious cat killing dogs are because uninvited people keep leaving doors open - visitors, neighbours, relatives - getting back more kittens than i lost??? - trying not to let people see how many cats i have cause i have too many - attempting to strangle my curly haired niece in a rage because she persisted in leaving the doors open even though i had specifically told her not to *waking briefly because i am crying* running trying to get to the cats before the dogs - getting them inside for them only to escape again immediately - the screened in verandah suddenly only being screened to the top of the railing  (and why are there almost no doors in this house?!?) and kittens jumping over the railing to the waiting red cattle dog below which i also apparently own because the owner had asked me to look after it temporarily because they had moved to a place they weren't allowed to have pets and its a nice dog but it eats cats

Puzzled

wild intense dreams of heists and doublecrosses and disappearing mentors that looked somewhat like Marlon Brando - kind of around his father of superman days - culminating in a plane ride back to an overcast about to be cyclone struckTownsville only to have to dodge a tornado which unexpectedly develops in our flight path and takes out most of the Willows Shopping Centre

what has the Willows Shopping Centre ever done to me to deserve this?

I quite like the willows shopping centre

I

I think this is a glorious post, but can't tell you the reasons why I think it so.
Sometimes I wish I were more analytical, but...
... but then I think maybe I wouldn't like quite as much stuff as I do.

Like people who are fussy about sound and can't listen to crap recordings of awesome songs or slightly out of tune radio stations playing their favourite song.

Am debating on whether I will post to Meme Kettle or not.  I wish she would post more.  But since I am slacking in my on posting I am not in a position to demand.  But perhaps I am in a position to ask?  And I wish the ever so delightful Catastophhe Waitress (*hic* sorry am pissed can't spell) would also post.

But then by extention (or is it sion?) I should also post to all my favourite bloggers who have stopped blogging asking them to post and I've not the energy.  Perhaps I should post one non-blogging blogger a week?  Break it down into manageable proprotions?  As a gesture of good faith to my bid for blogging my own self out of the well of boringness that I drown under.  But would I then be one of those embarrassing people who get up before anybody else at awkward parties trying to encourage everybody else to dance?  I am sooooo not that person.  I don't even go to parties for lands sake.

Should I suggestion some consistantly logical random way of nominating a topic?  Like writing something incorporating the word of the day from the online dictionary?  Or stabbing a finger in a newspaper, rather like randomly opening the bible and reading each day as was somewhere suggested to me in my youth growing up within the catholic fold.  Where did I get that idea from anyway?  Darned if I know.

I stole a bible once, did you know?
I think it was when we were choosing our confirmation name.
I really really wanted to choose Ruth because I was told it was one of the names in running for my birth name, but in the end too many people went ewwwww and I choose Cecillia instead because her picture in the saint book had nice hair and she was playing a piano and there were animals about.  She was also wearing quite a pretty frock.
Sister Wombat, whose actual name I cannot remember, we all called her Sister Wombat when she wasn't around, encouraged me to take a bible home to read to help me choose a confirmation name.  She didn't seem to like Ruth much either, thought she was nicer about it than others and told me it meant mercy, which I was rather taken with.  

Perhaps we could brain storm a list of topics and then randomly draw them out from a hat?  What if we all drew out the same topic?  That would be awesome enough for its own post.  Perhaps we could just pick one topic and then post about that adnauseum?  That would hum harmoniously with the inner me that loves shaggy dog jokes and tease my competitve edge all at the same time.  Who can write the best post on one subject!  ooo ooo ooo Isowannadothatnow

but ... I probably won't.

I shall probably have another glass of wine and continue reading Marieke Hardy's book which I am enjoying tremandously (tramendously?) (fuck it lots).  As soon as I've finished I am sending it to my Uncle Sidney to read :)

By golly ... I think I feel a breeze

Ominous rumblings foreshadow an aproaching storm.  Last nights interrupted power supply.  I baked, slow roast, in my ceiling fan deprived state and wondered why of the six candles I had in a line on a low bookcase, only two were flickering - the rest steady as torchlight.  I contemplated my radioless state and the silence and decided to drink the rest of the bottle of wine I had bought to add to the spagboll since the candlelight was insufficient for easy reading.

Tonight the sprinkler has been made redundant and I have braved fat cold raindrops to switch it off.

The thunder, which yesterday I didn't even realise was thunder, is back in long low rolling grumbles reminiscent of a train running past or an extended and rather impressive fart.

My little solar led lights are charged up and ready, just in case and I have finished all the Katherine Kerr books my friend sent me.  I am back to re-reading Lois McMaster Bujold books.  Wil Anderson is performing but I've not the will-power to drag myself into town.  It's hot and I'm stinky and I failed to win powerball.

I shall try and make something of myself tomorrow.  It is still Saturday, isn't it?

Wombat-cat :  she does rather look like she is saying "how dare you address me you peasant"

Sookie :  Wombats mother

Mary-cat

Blossom-cat

my goodness

So one day I just sprinkled this packet of mixed seeds that I figured were out of date and didn't even bother putting some soil over the top and lo ... I now have my first ever poppies growing in my weed filled garden bed.

hands over ears la la la la la

I am sooo bad.  Have spent last few days mostly in bed reading. 

Bought the second Autobiography by Russell Brand, which was as funny as the first one.  And shocking.  And had those few times that I have to slam the book down and close my eyes and scream no no no don't do that, before he recounted the embarassing thing and the belly laugh out loud moment, which in the first one was the stripper he'd spat on in retalation for the slap she gave him and then had to beg the use of her phone cause he'd shut himself out of the appartment, possibly naked - can't quite remember now.  In this one it involved a dog.  Laughed so hard I started coughing and had to go have a glass of water.

Re-read some Lois McMaster Bujold books. 
Re-read some Tamora Pierce books.

My sloth reaching new heights or depths considering how you look at it.

Should be gardening and tending to my tomatos which appear to be dying. damnit.

Gosh darn well cleaning all the kitty litter trays out thoroughly tonight for my poor neglected kitties.  I am neglecting them too, though they appear to be loving the whole day snuggling on the bed opportunity.

My delightfuly 90 year old neighbour watched the show about alien abduction.  He's had instances where he has woken from sleep unable to move and I had previously mentioned to him about the sleep paryalsis (sp?) but he never really pays attention to what I say and was delighted to tell me all about it after watching the sceptic lady on the show explaining about it. lol

Yo

There was an utterly delightful lady I sat next at the bus stop outside of Brisbane.  She was tiny.  Less than five feet.  English.  During the war she worked at a munictians factory (sp? sorry for spelling).  She was responsible for checking for defects in bomb parts.  From the way she spoke - it was the most responsibility she had ever had and she took it seriously and her children (for she was quite elderly at the time I met her) found her irritating and a useless encoumbarage (fuck one day I will learn to spell). 

She was so lovely and it was so sad that her family didn't appreciate her. 

Another lady I met - and was well appreciated by her family thankfully - and surprisingly turned out to be a dragon of a grandmother about manners and such - she was so much softer with me - I was shocked - she worked in some kind of bunker during the war - in Brisbane for heavens sake - she was taken to work in a car with blacked out windows - she had no idea where it was even now - and they received messages and were in a control room that they had the war maps in like wot they used to push little  models of boats and such out onto maps at.

How awesome, ey?

If I were rich and idol, I would visit old people homes for fun.  They have the best stories because they are based on real ones :)

Humerous attempt at oil painting - first attempt - argh - mixed with oil is going to take too long to dry - scissors!

it is late at night and this is a finger length long - there is no way it is going to also be focused :)  the teeth aren't yellow enough - I want it to remind him of my manic grin when he askes me how are things - lol

It's Friday and I've offerred to go in Monday, cause I want things to go nicely for Office Manager,  but can't see how it will be maintained after I am gone. 

Area Manager finishes Friday and I WANT to do something nice for him as a present. 

In my mind, I believe that hand made presents are more meaningfuly, but in my actual brain I understand that nobody really wants crap handmade stuff.  I am battling with my instincts. 

Probably a bottle of rum would be more appreciated. 

I think I shall paint a picture and a bottle of rum and then the picture can be something that they might like after they have consumed the rum. 
The entire bottle of rum. 
I am no dab hand at painting.
Never have been.
Yet I persist.

Maybe one day I shall paint something other people will like.

I have liked stuff I've painted for myself.  One was inspired by my sister and her first baby.  But she never liked it and seemed rather embarrassed by it. 

I kept it for years but in this last year have chucked it along with a couple of the others I was fond of. 










I have become frustrated with the amount of junk I cart about. 

Particularly in comparison with my 90 year old neighbour.  I don't think he could be messy or cluttered if he tried.

His lounge room has one chair.  One television on a cart and one cupboard.  No rugs.  No dirty cups.  Nada.  Nothing.  Just all clean empty floor. He doesn't even use the ceiling fans because he has a theory that they do more harm than good and he only uses floor fans.

He is a rental agents dream.

But then again, most of his chat is of times gone past - which I don't mind at all - I quite like the idea of being the person that he can revive his memories with.  He talks about his deceased wife and of their trips together.  Of how it was for them when they lived in Western Australia.  Of their life in Victoria.  About how awesome she was at making lamingtons.  Of her love of pot plants and how often he whacked his head on the ferns.  They were the first things to go when his wife died.  Apparently they had lots of garden beds and vegetables when she was alive, but now the yard is all just lawn and things that don't interfere with the mowing.

He talks about when he was stationed in Darwin during the war, and of how he lived on his poker winnings and sent all his money to his wife.  He talks of how some of them men would ferment their own booze in coconuts and the various troubles that ensued.

But it would really be easier to keep things clean if I didn't have as much stuff.

The World of Henry Orient

by Nora Johnson

I am only a page in and it had me at the first paragraph.  My uncle Sidney sent it.  (well actually to my nieces, but he said I should check it out first to see if they would like it - so fuckit - its mine now). 

The first paragraph:

"It was very cold that morning in October.  The sun had risen, but was only a faint orange blur through the gray fog, and the water of the East River was full of chilly silver glints.  I had come early, to avoid the school bus.  I indulged myself in this way once a week, to give myself a few moments longer in the comforting society of strangers, and to be able to stand and stare at the insane asylums on Welfare Island before going into the dreaded school building."

Is that awesome, or what :D

oh gosh

... I think I might need a cold shower now
sigh
here

Well ... its my monday

Oh God! but I LOVE explodingdog.com.

I would so like to just cut and paste every single cartoon from this one onwards, especially the rum fairy one and and and well just all of them are grand.  Simply grand.

And now I am watching committed, which is a movie with Heather Graham in it and which has some very excellent bits and is generally rather gorgeous  - and I am not in anyway influenced by the presence of Casey Affleck - although I am a bit cause I have a thing for him.  Possibly one of the main reasons I wish I could lay my hands on 200 cigerattes though actually I just wish I could lay my hands on it cause it was funny and I really liked the whole elvis costello thing that was going on throughout the whole movie and the resolution.  It was a cack.

:)

Monday

And as I slump my way through the day I ponder is there an actual god of sloth and should I be setting up a shrine that I don't make offerings too?

Yesterday was good, actually the day before yesterday was good.  I was sort of productive.  I mopped my kitchen floor.  I scoopped poop.  I contemplated all the good things I would do the next day.

And then I, I kind of obsesessed about the prospect of no further Terry Pratchett books, and ... I couldn't bring myself to finish the book I was reading.  I read three quarters of the way through and now I wonder if I should set up a bookcase for books I really like and am saving to finish or when I really need them.

It is silly.
I will probably finish it tomorrow.

The first time I read a Terry Pratchett book was when I as feeling very very bad.  I was in a job I hated for an extended period of time, that I felt I had no way out of.  I was on a trip that was terrible.  I was reading a book that made certain death funny.  I was gobsmacked.  It changed my life.  Or if not, it gave me something to hold onto.  I wasn't going to off myself yet because I hadn't read the next Terry Pratchett book.

It is silly, but I am finding it hard to reorganise my sole reason for existance now that he is no longer writing books.

Not that I haven't been unfaithful since.  There are lots of authors I have been devoted to since.  Lots.  Lots and lots.

I have a warm purring cat waiting for me in my bed.  He likes to sleep in the back of my knees.  I shall cut short this contemplation of existential angst and mention that Marieke Hardy has book out for those of a brave disposition.   Called, I think, "You will miss me when I'm dead" or I could be wrong.  I think it is probabably worth being wrong :)  She is a funny chick.

I Love ExplodingDog.com

blah

... and my Uncle is vastly amused - in fact let us do it justice - he is    v-a-s-t-l-y   a-m-u-s-e-d    - that my mother thinks I am so much better for my overnight visit to see them, rather than my overnight visit to listen to the ever so delightful Mike Noga, Dan Luscombe and Glenn Richards.

*happy sigh at just thinking about it*

She thinks he seemed subdued today at their weekly lunch that they will be away for 42 days on a cruise.  He was just last night rubbing his hands gleefully that they would be away so long.  In case, I could not hear it over the phone he told me - lol.

I have bit my tongue clean through.





He has confided that he thinks he could handly the weekly lunches so much better, if they happened monthly or at worst fortnightly.

I no doubt give the wrong impression.
My mother is a very good woman.
She has the best, best, of intentions.
But she is a selfish woman inflicting kind acts on the unwilling and therefore, it is very hard to be grateful.  She only does what she wants to do, and not what you would want her to do, if you were comfortable enough to ask for assistance.  She will not even perform simple errands that do not take her out of her way for others.

People who know me and who have met my mother have been aghast at the way I have spoken of her, until they have spent time with her, and then I cannot deny I am sad when their opinions change.  I would like to think it is just that I am a mean and selfish daughter.

Currently I have been unhappy with my workplace and have since quit.  She vasiliates between making me feel stupid for leaving, or stupid for not begging for a job back, to encouraging me because she has always wanted me to move back in her.

At the moment, because she is about to go away (a month ago it was different), she is in the making me feel stupid and like I should beg for my job back.

This is what she did at my first job which I wanted to quit in the first week.  Even though she knew they were bad employers.  She liked hearing the gossip about their personal life.

I would burst into hysterical tears and have to go off into a quiet place for a year after if anybody mentioned their names.  I didn't even get to leave in good standing, such as I make too much effort to in all other jobs after.  I broke one afternoon and just hopped on my bike and left and she made me go back after Christmas holidays as if nothing had happened.  I have never been so humiliated in my life.  At least, not since.

I remember riding around town considering the large concrete tubes in the public parks and thinking about whether I would ever go home again.  But in the end I was too chicken to choose homelessness.  I wonder sometimes what kind of person I would be if I had made different decisions.

However, regardless of my dream idea of independance, if I had I would not be getting to go see my thoroughly delightful niece perform in the local estedford (sp?) and would be much the poorer for it.  Even if group mime apparently allows performers to make sounds and use props.  Though I cannot deny I would be very interested in looking at the rulebook.

I just hope that next year the group get stuck in a box and have to battle against a strong wind because fuck me this is not my idea of a mime.

Post coi backspace backspace backspace gig

(it still makes me think of a horse and cart more than it does music)


It was like that line from shakespeare.
Something along the lines of and all englishmen abed will think themselves accursed they were not here.
That is how any Augie March fan would feel if they knew what they had missed out on.

It was great.

I sighed a lot
big heartfelt happy sighs

you know how in the shower everything sounds perfect?  It was like the room was a giant shower.  The best eva. 

Brundisum
Apple of my Eye
The Cold Acre
Glimjack
forget the title, but one of my favourites from Glimjack - chorus:  Every morning a new sunrise
The Slant
Here Comes the Night
in celebration for his little sister Sally's birthday and her not being able to afford to come to Brisbane and therefore going to Port Douglas Instead - Bottle Baby
Torpor and Spleen
Turn on you (which he said was his favourite from the album - which is lovely for me cause it means he played it and it is one of the songs from this album that I do tend to hit repeat on, along with the new sunrise [the name will probably come to me as I am drifting off to sleep on the plane this afternoon] and long pigs)
Train
One Crowded Hour
There is no such place
Encore:  The night is a Blackbird

Gorgeous old building with battery powered fake candles scattered about, which flickered realisticly - ish.  On approach could not believe I had the right building.  Then saw little signs.  Followed the arrows.  Instructions to walk through the gardens and up the stairs. 

They turned the light out nearly ten minutes before Mike Noga came on.  I tried to just sit quietly but couldn't take it and got my mobile phone out to light my book, so I can't say whether it was his arse my face was inches away from or ... you have no idea how much I wish I hadn't been looking down at my book as he brushed past my chair on the way to the stage.

A rather impressive spill of wine by one of the leather coated trio in front of me.  Battled the urge to rush to the bathroom for paper towels to clean up the potential slip and trip.  Have spent too long in a Safety Department.

Have been thinking my libido was dead till the ever so delightful Mr Luscombe started playing his guitar.  By golly.  Fuckin' gee wizz he ain't half awesome. {8:12 am next day reads back wot wrote and smacks wrist for such effuscive and blatant sexual objectification - just because some one is pretty and talented does not mean I am allowed to leer at them, I tell myself - bad sammy - go write out lines}

Kept chanting to myself to remind myself "don't be the last one clapping" - cause one can get a bit carried away sometimes, ey?

Possibly we could have done without the discussion of human feces as inbetween song chit-chat, but actually they can do no wrong and therefore, obviously, the human feces was absolutely essential and there should be more of it.

I hate to say it, but it was well worth missing Doctor Who for.

{8:12 am next day:  free internet at hotel - watched it on iview - it was awesome too}

Brisbane pre-gig

So here I am enscounced in my hotel room.
Shoe shod feet resting on bag on bed so as not to dirty the sheets.
I have supped and sipped and now await the long slightly uphill walk to the venue.

Did not give in to the urge to pretend I slept in and missed my plane, which was my initial waking urge.  I hate travelling.

I survived the day with mother and worry at the sudden knife-sharp, only a bit deserved, snarls directed at my step-father.  Their relationship always seemed to work better with a third person in the house to water down the direct interaction and to distract from all the little habits that get to one after a while.

Neither the television nor the bedside lamp appear to be functioning but perhaps I am pressing the wrong buttons?  Perhaps there is another button that needs to be pressed before they will work?  Though they are plugged in and switched on.  Maybe the bathroom light needs to be turned on for them to work?

...
nope
...
Oh well.  Half an hour till I mosey and I have wine and a new (new to me that is since they are both deceased)  Constance & Gwenyth Little novel.  Black Corridors.  They continue to delight me.

Free internet is pretty darned good too :)
ciao

I am feeling better for my days off.
Close to sleeping properly again.

Today I went out.
Went to Willows Shopping Centre.
Which is about the only shopping centre left in Townsville with a book store.

I bought my sick niece a book.
(its getting on nearly three months now, I think - poor spotty tummy)
I bought my brother-in-law a book.
I bought myself a book.
(hardcover too - slaps wrist - bad wasteful sammy)
And, bought my twenty? month nieces a book too.
Called "whose bottom is this"
and it has flaps to open within
to find out whose bottom it is
lol

My kitchen floor has not enjoyed mopping, cause I haven't done it.
The computer game still domeniates my life.
Thus I credit what sleep I have experienced.
I have reached "Glorious" level and am reluctant to move on.
I rather like be classified as gorious :)

blah blah blah

So ...
I have spent the last two working days at home. 
I am working on wombat's behavioural issues with her mother.
ie. I am trying to stop her beating up on her.

I am enjoying their purring and the need they feel to be touching me if we are lying down to read or sleep.  In these cooler months it is a full body snuggle up in the back of my knees.  In summer it is just the bearest touch of a paw, in glancing, on ones leg or arm.  It is cooler still and realised in a forceful curling up on foot on bed with knees up to rest my book on.

I cannot deny the competition for attention is flattering.

The battle to be toilet cat is so far dominated by Sookey.  I have had to keep the toilet lid down to stop stoopid cats falling in and as a result my morning and day and nightly visits are much sort after as a blackmail point of weakness.  I must pat them sufficiently to get them down.  Sookey is queen of the toilet, closely followed by Blossom as cat most likely to be petted whilst I am , um, otherwise engaged
in important business.

Wooliff is lap cat when I am watching television of an afternoon.

Blossom is any time cat.

Mary is owner of the television and visits me of a morning for a head scratch.

Bubba, my sweet and possesser of my heart refuses to come inside at present and is content to bar passage in the driveway whene'er I come home from trips away.

hahahah

hahahahahahahhahahaha
I had forgotten how funny this is lol

blogs are such a handy thing to have - so portable

Just popping these here so I can come and find them later :)

I had a quick scan of the first interview and it was quite good I thought.  The second one seemed like they were just taking bits and pieces from a media release.  Haven't even looked at the rest yet.

http://www.messandnoise.com/news/4318049

http://www.bmamag.com/articles/features/20110829-glenn-richards/

http://abcdigmusic.net.au/news/augie-marching-back

http://www.theaureview.com/interviews/the-au-audio-interview-glenn-richards-australia

Yo

As a joke present, I bought a family member a book about cat painting.  Not painting cats, which is another book, but a book about cats painting.  It outlined a number of ways that you could test to see if your cat was artistic.

One of the ways to test if your cat was artistic was to place said feline in a relatively empty room with a few different coloured cushions to see which one they choose to sit on.  If they picked a compliementry colour they weren't terribly artistic, but if they picked a contrasting colour you were in and could start mixing a little bit of their urine or armonia (sp?) with some paint to see what would happen.

I like to think that Wooliff's dedication to sleeping, sitting, curling up on any strewn Augie March shoulder bag is because they are black (as is he) and not because his owner is an Augie March nut.

Twelve days until I get to hear Glenn Richards do his thing at the Old Museum in Brisbane and I've yet to book a place to stay nearby cause I don't got no money.

Galling that the lady at work that I offered to stay for two extra weeks because the first ladies declined their offer of employment and we had to advertise for resumes, doesn't remember that I did so and thought I was finishing this week and sent a lovely email ...

And I think my tendence towards marytrdom is due to my catholic upbringing and guilt that I didn't become a teaching nun like previous generations, but I never was religious and I never liked kneeling (and couldn't for the life of me understand booze tinged irish accents at that age - I was only ten but - probably it takes practice, ey?).

Friday Afternoon *beep beep beep* leave a message after the tone

I had to give up trying to work at about 3ish
my brain refused to function
I kept making stoopid little mistakes
instead I paced
back and forth
pressed my nose to the tinted glass door
drew a picture of a fly passing through one of my ears and out the other on the whiteboard
told the boss I had to stop
he said 'fair enough'

and now I am going to have a beer with the men
and listen to them say fuck every second word
in a non agressive normal chit-chatty australian kind of way

I have been amusing myself

An email advising it was our last chance to submit articles for the company magazine, in combination with my imminent departure, resulted in a wander through past poetic efforts and I sent some off to the lady - though I don't expect them to print my ode to my knickers.  I sat in my chair cackling to myself at my own funny imagining her face.  She sent back a "brillant, thank you", which can only be a piss-take of the highest water. 

I had far too much fun reading my own poems. 
 
These were two I liked too much today - I didn't send them to the work magazine.  She would have thought me a complete nut then - lol

Boney

Playing

And the minotaur ones.  They amused me no end.  Lame but, ey?

He spewed cud into his mouth and chewed

strutted up to me on alligator appliquéd hooves

How yoou doing? Don't think I've seen you round before.

Whats say we find somewhere private and you can get to know The Minotaur?

and he hitched his belt buckle with an unnecessary twitch of muscles in his too tight shirt buttoned only half way up his chest.

No wonder he had to get that greek king to pimp for him by chucking girls into the Labyrinth.

Monday

Well ... my beautiful smart delightful 15 year old niece, who has been suffering a mystery illness for the last couple of months had an endoscopy (sp?) the other day and it turns out she has some kind of spotty rash on the inside of her stomach.
Is that not the most awesome thing you have ever heard off?
By golly.
A spotty tummy.

19 days to go ... and counting

I wish my nose would stop bleeding
It's not proper bleeding
It's more just bloody snot
It happens in cold weather
and when I'm stressed
Probably twenty years of taking NSAIDS contributes a bit, ey?

groan

Who knew one could have too much bacon?
I am going back to bed now.

hahahahahahaahah

oh. my.god. simon.

THAT IS SOOO COOL!

I am trying to figure out how to smuggle one of my cats into work now.

A pet story with a happy ending

Once upon a time a pretty calico kitten was given to a family as a birthday present for their little girl.  She was excited have her very own owners and a little girl to love and she purred and played and was as cute as she could be so her new owners love her.

Little did the innocent little calico kitten know, but the little girls parents didn't like pets.  They did not teach their little girl not to pull her tail, but laughed instead when she hurt the little calico kitten.  If the little kitten, in her pain and bewilderment, hissed or in any other way did not submit to this rough treatment the mean parents would strike her and punish her.

A lowly servant of the mean parents would be kind to her and give her pats and protest when the mean father said things like "animals don't feel pain" when they were inflicting full force smacks to the poor little calico kittens soft and tender nose.  Or laughing that he thought he had seen some blood come from her eye when he had 'accidently' shut her head in a door.

The little calico kitten took to sculking and hidding.  She was so scared she didn't want to walk across the room when the mean parents were present to go outside to answer the call of nature.  She crossed her legs and squirmed and held, but finally found a safe, discrete sandy spot where she could take a dump under cover of fake jungle-like leaves.

One day the mean father discovered her falsely verdant toilet and was very angry.  He yelled at the little calico kitten.  He hit her.  He grabbed her up and shook her.  He threw her across the room into a wall.  The poor little calico kitten was very afraid and shivered in terror at the anger of the mean man and ran and ran and ran, but there was no where the poor little calico kitten could hide where the mean man could not find her.

The man grabbed her up and took her outside to where an old dog house was sitting on a cement slab.  He tied the scared little calico kitten to the little house with a short piece of rope.  The poor little calico kitten could not even reach the grass. 

There she sat, bound to her prison in the full glare of the cruel summer sun for days and days and days, or at least two weeks.  The lowly servant girl would visit her and be kind to her, but was not allowed to untie the poor little calico kitten.

The lowly servant girl pleaded for the little calico kitten.  She said to the mean man you don't want the kitten, let me take her home.  Perhaps the mean man felt bad for what he had done.  Or perhaps he just didn't want have to feed the little calico kitten anymore.  The mean man said yes you may take the cat.

So even though the mother of the lowly servant girl had told her daughter "don't bring anymore animals home" she rang the mother and said bring the car around, we have a new pet.

The little calico kitten found it very strange in her new home.  People wanted to pat her.  They wanted her to sit on next to them on the couch.  They did not yell at her or hit her.  She was allowed to come and go as she liked.  Even when the little kitten had a few accidents in strange places and earned the nickname "The Shittin' Kitten' she was still treated nicely and even given little treats in the kitchen when the mother of the servant girl was cooking.

Though she became quite plush and portly in her age, she never quite got over her time of trouble and confinment and in one notable incident went missing for an extended period of time only to be found holed up in a drawer.

A happy pet story

Once upon there was a stray white and tabby cat. This tabby cat meowed for two weeks at the window a house until one of the people inside the house took him in and fed him.  It had a great big abcess on it's head and the people in the house took him to the vet and put anticeptic on the great gapping wound twice a day until he was better.

This cat decided to stay with the people and their two cats, even though one of the cats was quite naughty and would leap out from underneath furniture at it at odd unsuspecting moments and even though he was much bigger than the naughty cat he never thumped the living daylights out of her like wot she deserved.

The no longer stray white and tabby cat was allowed to sleep on the bed when ever he wanted too.  When the other two cats complained at sharing the space, because it was only a single bed, the person told the other two cats to shush up and not be so mean.

The white and tabby cat was given a collar and a name tag and fed twice a day and slept in the sun by the window in the mornings and when one of the people came home from work he would jump up on her lap and be petted and purr and purr and purr.

The End

but .. but ... where did it go?

And what did I do,
with my weekend of liberty?
but lay slugabug in bed with book and computer
Misusing myself and my time ineffectually
when really I wanted to be in the sun
Playing with my niece or maybe gardening
But it took sooo long to save up for the elven sword
and I had to earn another couple of strength points
so I could pick the darn thing up
I yearned for the 'special' one at the gamblers shop
but couldn't afford it
he kept putting the price up as soon as I'd met the old one
so I bought the ordinary old one and had it ensorcialled
with sockets
though one doesn't get to choose
one has to get lucky to get sockets
and by then it was 7:30 sunday night and I was feeling a bit peckish

I think my arse has grown two sizes in two days
Maybe I should have been shopping for a virtual caftan
instead of a virttual elven sword

Playing with fire

Forget my own head if it were not screwed on

Aha!  I was going to fess that since I have committed to an extra fornight, I have decided I need a special present for my fortitude and have bought flights to Brisbane to see the ever so wonderful Glenn Richards and Dan Luscombe and Mike Noga *sigh* I shall say his name again, Mike Noga, play at The Old Museum on Saturday 10 September.

I just have to hope that I can pay 8 weeks ahead of my rent and be ultra frugal so that I can also pay for some sort of accommodation instead of having to wander the street after till the early hours when perhaps I could find a quiet corner of the casino to snooze in until it is time to fly home.

I have no self control.
Obviously.
But darn, they are all so pretty and lovely and talented.
How can one resist?

If I won lotto I would finance recordings for them all for like totally ages.  Yet more reason why other people should write to Golden Casket to plead my case.

And now that I think of it ... what the hell is Dan Kelly doing?  Has he got a new recording out yet?  Fcukign pull your finger out dan.

Lecture Mode

Okay, so.  Unless you are selling something you probably shouldn't have your 'whole name' on your internet id.  You MOST CERTAINLY SHOULDN'T have your actual name on your internet id.  Come up with some kind of alias before you get any older!!!!!

End of Lecture
Auntily duties closed

*thoughtful silence*

damned if I can remember what the heck I was going to waffle about now

One of the reasons I wish I were a hermit

A person I work with is talking about, and probably would/will, killing their neighbours cat that is taking a dump in his backyard.

This is Townsville folks.  This is the place where men are happy to kill other peoples pets and put their corpses in the wheelie bin, if they stray too close to their yard.

Why can't they just piss all round the perimeter of the yard like wot animals do?

Their mother-in-law suggested they leave out some milk with an aspirin dissolved in it.

How lovely.

I AM ON LINE!!!!

It has been a very long time since I've had internet at home.

The last time I was connected I was obsessing, hopefully in a relatively good and harmless way, about my favourite band and searching anything I could about them.  I would run a google search everyday, just to make sure I didn't miss out on any articles or hints of tour dates or pictures, etc.

This came to a crashing halt the evening I tried repeatedly to feed a virgin pre-paid voucher into my telstra mobile broadband device.  I was steamed.  Could not work out why it wasn't working.  It was two days after I was locked out that I realised what I had done wrong.

Didn't I feel like a dill, ey?

But I am out of practice and this is somewhat forced upon me by my soon to be unemployed state, though not as soon as it was previously because as they are now going to solicite resumes via advertisement I have offerred to stay another two weeks to allow time for this and with the hope that I will at least get a week to train my replacement, since nobody else at my workplace actually knows how I do what I do.  Not that I am sure they couldn't come up with a work around to train them if required, but I would feel bad.

So now after nearly two years of merely eating working sleeping I shall have to attempt to be an interesting person again, if I were before - which probably I wasn't.  Christ I hope that happens quickly, because I am beyond bored with myself.  I haven't wanted to be alone with myself and have consequently either been drinking too much or compulsively playing stoopid computer games until the small hours of the morning.

And now?  I struggle with the urge to fly to Brisbane to go see Glenn Richards, Dan Luscombe and Mike Noga at the Old Museum on Saturday, 10 September.  I wanna. I wanna.  I wanna.

*stamps foot emphatically* 

( though probably in a slightly illiterate way cause I have never been able to spell proper no matter wot my english teacher thought I should cause I read so much)

To look forward to there will be late night drunken posts, probably not terrible good photographs, some sincerely aweful poetry and half arsed craft attempts.

And pictures of cats.

This is the Wooliff-cat, whose official name is cobweb after one of the attendant fairies in a midsumers nights dream

Good gosh - it's only 7:30 pm?

I have fed my fleshy face and thus replete I sit rocking slightly back and forth in my brother-in-laws computer chair - which is just that little bit to willing to tilt backwards than is comfortable.  I catch sight of myself in the door of their mirrored wardrobe and I remind myself of those oblong dolls wot are advertised as impossible to knock over and thus invite abuse ... for the sake of science, of course.

I behaved a bit more like my normal self this afternoon at work.

Well ... normal from a year or two back when I was feeling quite happy and content with my world.
My co-worker, after reading an email I had sent, said the other recipients would be wondering what drugs I was on.

I managed to seque from work to Frankie Howard in one sentence and write 'dooooooooooooooooooom doooooooooom doooooooooooom'.

Of the three people interviewed, two were consecutively offerred my job.
Both declined.

It's a funny old world.

I am not going into work next weekend.  I am going to pick up at home and paint a picture on a t-shirt for my unwell niece.  One of my tempermental cats has been peeing in neglected corners and forgotten piles of stuff.  Have found where that nasty smell in the lounge room has been coming from.  Hold serious concerns for under my bed.  Shall worm the little basket-cases in revenge! mwahahahahahahahahaha

This is my weekend

So ... I have two computers I work on.  One is our companies the other is a clients. 

It should be simple to run a report from our database with times worked on a job and fill it in onto the clients.  Sadly it is not. 

There were some new things we haven't billed before which the person entering the times and equipment didn't understand what should and should not be included and then we had a temp working at the office checking to see if that matched the timesheets and then filling it in on the clients database for us because we were somewhat behind and they said it would make my life easier. 

So now I am going back over our database and comparing times to the timesheets and correcting our database and then going back over the clients database to see what was entered and correcting that. 

To complicate matters I can't delete anything from the clients database and can only enter 13 records of time at a time, the total hours of which then have to equal a line on a different tab and than save that and start the next 13. 

What makes this time especially tricky is that what was entered on the first record should have been broken down into normal time, time and a half and double time.  So I have to change the line on the first record of 3.  Make sure the total hours worked for that record equal the line on the other tab and then find space on the third record to enter the time and a half and double time and then update the total hours worked on the line on the other tab for that record and then since there are a few of these but not all of them, I have to save that record, just to be on the safe side and then I have to go back through the three tiered classification system to bring that record up again to do the next one I may come across, because if I try to just edit a second time the whole database comes up with a run time error and shutsdown.

Six hours yesterday and I am having trouble making myself start today.

I am looking at it and it's like my brain is saying 'why don't you just go squat on a piece of land in the middle of nowhere and grow your own food instead.  you could have chickens.  and goats.  goats would be cool.  you know you want a goat.' 

One Hour Later

ARGH
and of course we have both subcontractors and employees working, who work different hours at normal time and of course the ones who normally only work 8 hour days have been working 10 hours days with overtime being billable but the person entering the timesheets didn't realise and I have already completed three weeks of this and only just noticed they don't have their overtime entered for their 10 hour days during the week - bugger bugger bugger

Thoughtful

hummmmm ... so ... I've resigned my job with a very narrow financial comfort zone -  I would go so far as to say with no zone - and I am still trying to think of some way of coming up with around $400 to fly to Brisbane to go hear Glenn Richards accompanied by the delightful and talented Dan Luscombe and supported by the equally talented and delightful Mike Noga - sigh

If I go down for a week and visit my mum I could get flights for under $250, but that is a long time for my sister to feed my cats and scoop their poop.  It is $250 I shouldn't spend and certainly it will cost me more than that for food and trains etc.  Plus there would be the hotel for the night of the gig cause the trains will have stopped by the time it is finished.

I really need to get my scooter serviced.

damn damn damn damn damn and blast

Sunday morning at work

Another awesome post by Black Hockey Jesus.  What must it be like to be so consistantly awesome?  What would it be like to have a head and a heart that thinks stuff like this?  My head don't think nothink.  I exist in static until somebody asks me to do something. 

This is the thing about being an easy going person - one just doesn't care about stuff.  Hard to blaze a trail when you have nothing you feel strongly about.  I am a moon without a planet and a sun to circle.

Sometimes its so empty in here that a word or the end of a sentence will echo for a while afterwards.  Moonwalk around my brain at a gentle bounce.  Fecking vandals get everywhere though.  There are large sections with rude words sprayed in flurescent paint.  And what is a cigarette butt doing here?  Arsing things get everywhere.  Some people are soo inconsiderate.  And whats this?  Hell, would it kill to use the rubbish bin?  It's not bush week you know!

Aye Currumba

So ... I gave notice yesterday  - but for 2 September.

I want to try and get up to date and leave a nice organised desk for the next person (and to save up for the period of unemployment that is undoubtedly going to follow). 

Was hoping to let it slide for a while without any announcements, but HRish person is participating in charity bike ride and dropping in to office tomorrow and they want to do an exit interview.

My nerves are a bit worn and I keep suddenly crying without warning, so I'd really rather not have an exit interview right now.  I hate crying publicly.  It is humiliating.  And I look dreadful.  All snotty and red blood shot eyes. 

Lady who was demoted is going to go spare and newbie trial manager is going to be unhappy - which will make me unhappy because he is quite lovely. 

Lady who was demoted's 'that's not my job anymore' does not quite seem to be garnering the attention she appears to want - but she is not letting this stop her.

morning

... and saturday doth roll round again and I am number one on google search for "dribbling panic"

I am at work again

I feel like I'm miming against a strong wind
there is a sense of urgency and I'm really working it
but I just can't care much

did I admit I need to eat humble pie regarding the woman from down south?
she was helpful when she was here
but more importantly she didn't get in the way
she did indeed fly like an eagle
I tried not to be a turkey

demoted lady started off well this week and then deteriated into a major pain in the arse and then seemed to be pulling back out of it again yesterday - she is fantasising conspiracies on the part of mature trainee who has been placed in her job - i wish people would stop casually asking 'how are you?' in greeting because she tells you

I have my fingers crossed for next week

I used to write bad poetry for amusement value
type out little bits from books I wanted to share
and take photos for this blog

I feel like I've turned into some eating shitting automaton
2011 has not been a good year
I am determined to do something nice for myself next year

in the meantime I shall keep buying tickets int he RSL Art Union
just because I like looking at the pictures of the houses
and thinking about what I would do if I won them
which I won't
of course
but I apear to need assistance to fantasise lately
cause my brain is like a desert
like desscicated coconut
I can hear the 'shrrushhhhhhhhhhshhurshhh' when i tilt my head

Flashback - blog post from June 2008

I think I have thrush
The cliches are so right
I'd rather have one in the hand, then any number in bush

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I would like to say the stress and strain of upheavals at work have left me mad, bad and dangerous to know, but mostly I am just a bit sad.

And nervous.  Very nervous.

Someone was demoted and someone promoted and there are only three admin staff in the place, so its all close and personal.  There was weeping.

Resulting in an inability in me to sleep properly, culminated in me accidentially playing a computer game until 4:16 am Sunday morning, but which has had the happy result of causing me to dream about the computer game, rather than lay awake thinking about work.

Lady at the shop I buy my lunch from says her record for computer gaming was a recreational drug assisted three days.

Heck, I've only actually stayed awake all night twice in my forty years and I was trying to nod along knowingly.  I really must do some wicked things at some point.

Flashback poem - too much time

Tinted windows
bar my cage
I sit, ensconced in cushioned swivel chair

internalising rage
Against the perfect day, I can see emblazed 

in polarised technicolour glory
as I age my way through another sorry weekly working day

Mind … I would only waste it if were free
Curled with book in bed
Or watching TV

And what does that say about me?
When I don’t choose to be outside when I could be
Instead stewing in juicy daily envy

Do I only have a limited supply of outdoorsy urges?
That whining so easily purges?

Or is it some devious defence mechanism to distract
From what isn’t even a daily grind, but just lack
Of interest and ambition
To contribute! change the world! 

for the better of men, women and children
guilt redirected from dwelling
on slack humanitarian drive
into wistful sighs over potential frolics outside

leaps about the place estatic

w00t w00t w00t
Mr Richards and Luscious Luscome are touring August/September
Will be in Brisbane at 'The Old Museum" 10 September
A saturday and everything
how excellent
perhaps I could fly down for it?
unless i quit my job
or become suddenly sensible and save money instead for when I potentially quit my job blah blah blah blah

If I go I'll have to sneak down without telling mother cause there won't be time to visit and she will do her narhna if I don't visit.

bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce

But I slept better anyway

Sunday and I am torn between trying to do more work or tidying up?
A quandry.

I really should get home to hang out some washing at some point too, else next week I shall have to come to work wrapped up in a sheet.

But the office looks like a bomb's hit it and I think we are supposed to be suffering our yearly internal audit next week in addition to the blonde terror.

God.  I've only been here nine months.  I said at the interview I was happy to work hard, but I wanted a nice quiet job which I didn't have to stress about out side of work hours. hahahahahahahahahahahaahhahaahah

Smallest violin in the world

A poor nights sleep and a weekend of work before the bully from down south arrives and my brain presents me with endless scenarios most of which end in me cowardly telling my boss I'm sick and can't come in for the rest of the week - lol - I am such an internal drama queen. 

sigh - next week will be heinous. 

She will barge in like a blonde bull.  Tell us how crap we are.  Make a slap-dash hurried job of it, whilst telling us we do everything wrong.  Dumping the labourious shit bits on me.  Imply I am slow and incompetent because the labourious shit bits take me so long.  Perhaps tell me she can't see the point in me being employed here again -  and then when it is rejected I shall be blamed.  Which is what happened last time. 

She talks a good game though.  Tough and authoritive.  I can see in her head she sees herself as nononsense and efficient, cutting through red tape and streamlining outdated fussy incompetence.  Flying like an eagle surrounded by turkeys.

She works hard.  Under control she would be a nice person.  Probably.  She will slave for the week she is here, in an atmosphere that is less than welcoming.

*cough cough*
oh deary me
*cough cough*
I think I am experiencing flu-like symptoms
*cough cough*

I do apologise that his has just become a place for me to whinge about my job and I am not blogging this for sympathy and poor babies.  I just need to vent and I find writing cathartic. 

Pinning thoughts to my blog with words helps stops them from running around endlessly in my head. 

It's like an endless pinball game in my head sometimes.