Passing through

So am at brother-in-law's and he has burnt me a steak, just the way I like it, even though he considers it a crime and it tastes soooooooo gooooooooooood that I licked the plate and knife afterwards only it is a steak knife and now I've kind of cut my tongue a bit.


and I fly to Melbourne Friday, and hopefully the flights won't be cancelled because of the ash cloud, but the friends I am meeting are flying in earlier than me, so perhaps they won't be there and I shall be left friendless and lost in a strange cold and according to the weather bureau possibly overcast with showers city?

probably it will all be fine
this is probably just normal pre-travel jitters
except with an ash cloud

Friday Afternoon Adventures

• Taxi from work to airport 4:30 pm
• Plane leaves 5:20 pm
• Arrive 7:00 pm catch train
• Train arrive 7:30 pm (ish, i hope) walk to hotel
• Dump stuff at hotel and walk to venue 8ish?
• Venue doors open 8 pm
• Forgot to charge mobile and battery is about to die
• Flight leaves 8: 30 ish next morning
• Need to be at airport an hour before plane leaves
• Will have no alarm clock since was planning to use alarm on phone
• Can only remember one phone number off by heart if I miss plane and need to call for help
• Have no spare money if anything goes wrong
• Have changed my mind about what I am wearing but don't have time to change
• Forgot to bring coat
• Currently 19 degrees in Brisbane and falling
• Have headache

Struggling to focus

I am ridiculous today. 

I have not done the washing.

I have yet to pack the clothes I should have washed.

I am going away for two days and packing seems silly.

I contemplate taking an empty bag and buying something to wear when I get there.

I should save my money as the oil light on my scooter refuses to go out even though I have topped the oil up.

I am nervous and worried and excited and none of my friends will be there, so the entire trip will be anticlimatic because half the fun of travelling to gigs in the past has been being with my friends.

I am trying to remember where I had that awesome tandori chicken pizza that gave me indigestion last time and was entirely worth it.

The place I am staying on the second night had a bath last time I was there and I can go spend stupid amounts of money at Lush and have a bubble laiden scented soak with a book and perhaps a little bit of booze and maybe candles? or would that set off the smoke alarm?  besides which not very good to read by.

I hate travelling

Have just booked accommodation for Brisbane trip and it is ridiculous how anxious I get doing stuff like this.  Butterflies in my stomach and slight dizzy feeling.  Very silly. 

Halfway through booking the room I suffer concern that I have the days wrong.  Have to go google gig dates.

Go back to booking rooms and suddenly am worried I have booked the flights wrong? Have to go check flight information.

Finish booking rooms and am now worrying if I have all the ticket information I need? 

ARGH!

So just to stop myself from being an idiot I have printed out all the flight information and ticket information and clipped it into a bundle so that it looks organised and hopefully I won't feel a desperate need to recheck it until closer to the date (which I will do probably a couple of times a day starting from a few days before I am due to go away - I am such an idiot).

PS.  I don't need therapy - I know it is just because I don't have an emergency fund for if things go wrong and I've missed a flight before and had to call my sister to get me home.

PPS.  Actually I nearly missed a second flight in Adelaide too.

PPPS.  I am totally going to be sober as a judge whilst away no matter how nervous I get in crowds of people I don't know and am taking extra alarm clocks and maybe even will ring for a wake up call.

PPPPS.  Perhaps I will ask Bec to text me a reminder to check that I haven't sent the alarm for pm instead of am yet again for the fifty millionth time.

Phooey

The rain doth gush and pour from the heavens, like as if from a non-water-saving shower head. 

I have unfortunately worn a white shirt to work today.

I shall have to scarifice the potential future use of the cardigan I leave stashed at work, on the offchance the airconditioning gets to cold, for the sake of modesty on the scooter ride home.

Saturday Night, and I ain't got no curry

I've pigged out on Thai Green Chicken Curry and been rude to a scruffy young man who said he was from holland, but whom sounded like he was more like from the western suburbs of Sydney.

Dark street. Angle parked cars. Scooter parked in the no parking zone. Lone portly female in singlet top loading up scooter.

Scruff: Can you tell me where Kelman is?
Me: No, sorry.
Scruff: Are you from around here?
Me: Not really.
Scruff: I'm from holland and don't know my way around. Where do you live?
(Friend of scruff who looks like he is on drugs says something incoherent. Possibly attempting to sound like he was talking in swedish or something)
Me: Over thataway (waves hand vaguely to left)
Scruff: Where's that?
Me: *names suburb* whilst continuing to put food and bag away and get helmet
Scruff: So how do I get there?
Me: Where?
Scruff: *names suburb*
Me: Follow the main road
Scruff: Which road is that then?
Me: Look I'm not very good with directions. Ask somebody else. Have a nice night.
(puts helmet on whilst ignoring scruffy dude and wishing that scooter would start properly but knowing it probably won't)
Scruff: Yea. I can see that. Don't have an accident.

I should have been more assertive earlier in the exchange - but I am not in a talkative mood - however if I'd gone with whole sentences earlier, such as "No I don't know where Kelman is. I don't know my way around. I'm sorry I cannot assist you. You should ask somebody else." Then potentially all further communication could have been avoided.

Of course, potentially not, but it would have meant I wasn't the first person being rude in such an ambiguous exchange. I probably haven't managed to convey how creepy and pushy he was being. Like a hard sell telstra salesperson except in a dark parking lot.

Babbling

*twiddles thumbs*
am at loose end now
...
it is twiddle or tweedle?



dum-de-dum-de-dum
*drums fingers on table*

A dual cab ute of young men (muscular nubile young men) pulled up beside me at the lights last night when I was heading home after babysitting. Started hooting and calling out stuff at me (not bad stuff necessarily - nothing vulgar). Invited me out. Said it would be free drinks for me. Called out their mobile number and invariably, as always happens, somebody called out 'pop a mono' (which means do a wheelie/wheelstand), which sadly is not possible on a little beatup 50 cc scooter.

Next set of lights I decided to pull in behind them instead, cause all that whistling and stuff makes me feel a little self conscious. Particularly since I am not a skinny or impressively breasted lady and it is soo very obviously a pisstake. They pulled over into the turning lane at the last minute to be beside me again.

sigh
stoopid boys
am probably old enough to be their mother

Ride to Work Day

I have been not looking forward to this and whinging, but also looking forward to having done it. My agreeance to subject myself to this torture amused me and I felt I would deserve the pain.

I slept in. Flung myself from bed at 6:24 fed cats, grabbed clothes and without stopping to brush teeth lept aboard bike and took off. The cats were bewildered and scared at this strange aberation from routine.

I get to end of street and realise it is rubbish collection day and that I have a full (and stinking) bin that I have forgotten to put out.

Cursing I return, deposit bin on kerb at sprint, bound aboard bike again and wobble off for my 6 kilometre ride to work. Don't even get to end of street. Am changing gears and the chain comes off. I haven't ridden regularly since high school which is a good twenty-five years ago. Cudgel brain for how to do this again. Vague memory of it being relatively straightforward. Chain is jammed between cog and bike frame. I pull. I tug. I put foot to frame and lean back with my sadly considerable weight. It does not budge. My hands are black with grease.

I walk bike home. I see if I can lever chain out with spoon lying on outdoor table. Spoon bends.

Contemplate faking car accident by flinging myself from top of stairs, but live in lowset house.

Scooter to work and go have breakfast at cafe and console myself with loose leaf tea, whilst shuddering inwardly at the thought that I am probably going to have to ride to work for a week to prove to my co-workers that I am not a piker.

Broken Record

have I mentioned I hate travelling? i have jittery, ants crawling under my skin feeling from my finger tips, up my arms, along the muscles that run from shoulders to neck (whatever they are called) and up to my ear lobes. inside my ear channels itch (though actually they always itch because i have psoriasis inside my ears) but anyway. have I mentioned I don't like travelling?

farking shoot me already
i am such a neurotic chicken weiner nancy dog girl

Edit 3:47pm: Holy Mother of God! 12 degrees and raining by 6 pm? I am going to die.
I don't even own a raincoat :(
Bloody hell

Unsettling Dreams

sleep tackled me to the bed
and messed with my head

first dream
emotion regression back fifteen years
choking with suppressed rage
nearly at end of some kind of course of study
using a notebook with black pages
nagging sisters
and i throw it all in
days before completion
and move house without telling anybody
new address or number
and am attempting to live in same town
without running into anybody i know

very odd

not something i've ever done
though just before i moved out of home
it was something i thought about

second dream
i had a baby
for some reason my hospital bed
was just curtained off cubicle in a waiting lounge
some of the fathers family were waiting there for somebody else
watching television
i had broken up with the brother
they thought i had been cheating on him
and that the baby belonged to somebody else
the baby was small
maybe a little premmy
she had hair
i felt as loving to her as i do to a kitten
i was naming her 'grace'
and was considering 'faith' as a middle name
but was thinking that 'grace faith' didn't go so good together
rest of dream was like stuck record
thinking about the name
grace faith?
grace charity?
grace prudence?
and how mean it would be to call her 'chasity'

terribly jerry springer really
when one thinks about it
but at least the baby wasn't murdered in this one, eh?

Unsettled Conditions

unrestful sleep last night
late to bed
slept a claytons kind of sleep

woke 2 or 3 am
read book till daybreak
most unsatisfactory

i am stressing already about trip perhaps?
and the fleas
and the spiders so attracted to my shower
and the bees suiciding on the fluros

there was a fly in my beer tonight
i didn't swallow the fly
i know why
felt it on my lip and thought 'what is that?'
then nearly vomited
eugh