Man on the Moon

Last Saturday my last shift at the nutshop. Well, the previous Saturday had been my 'official' last shift, and my co-worker was all lovely and we had a nice shift and chatted a lot and hugged goobye and whatnot. She is, as DW put it, the kind of girl who has butterflies and rainbows surrounding her. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. She's also the kind of girl who studies a lot and makes sure she doesn't work over the limit that will reduce her youth allowance money. So, when she saw that she was on the roster for the next week as well, she was a little peeved. Hence I covered her half-day shift last week and had a real last day.

I have to say, its probably a good thing I did, because otherwise I would have left with a far too optimistic view of nutland. Saturday coworker #2 is a girl who I also like, but have a more rocky relationship with. About her, DW would say, 'she has good knockers'. She's fun to be around when she's in a good mood, but when she's not she can be quite painful. Insert political family-business-bitchiness about how some people can afford to sulk around and still have a job, while others had to earn it, blah blah blah. She's the daughter of the manager. With that though, some people can perhaps afford to quit with less personal ramifications. Anyway. She was in a shit from the very start when she came in half an hour earlier than she was supposed to, at her mum's mistake, and all I had the whole morning was bitching about how the shop was left crappy last week, how the new girls were crap, how she's going to have to work both days of the weekend now, grah grah grumble snoot. I sympathise, sure, but it was a nice thing to leave. Guess who gives a shit how much you had to cook on a day where you were nearing $30 an hour? Guess who cares whether some barely-sold product has a full display? Well golly gee, keep guessing, because its not me.

Tomorrow I'm going to enjoy my free morning in true commo-lezzo-poofo style and make lentil burgers.

That is all.

Pickles

THE GOOD:

My comfy wumfy pants. OMGZ SO comfies!

Getting my groove back in the first German tutorial. This may have something to do with the abscene of the girls who are all OMG WE'VE ENTERED THE ROOM EVERYONE talky talky laugh-loudly-at-the-tutor's-jokes, oh-we-so-get-it-even-though-its-in-german, now lets whisper loudly to each other in german! (Hm. I need to work on my concise adjectives.) Anyway, one half of the said pair is actually lovely, and the other is not entirely awful, but it is nice to not hear the same cutesy voices every two seconds. Our tutorial is at 5 pm so the uni is nice and emptied and there are like six people in the class, plus we've got the sweet East-german tutor that I liked from last year. But to be honest, I enjoy feeling competent and loquacious again.

(But did I go too far in my excitement to share my associations with the word 'integration'? First, I offered something dramatic about how it used to be a positive, but now was seen as a negative, because people lost their own culture! Then, after a few simple entries by the others like 'language' and 'living together', in an attempt to not to seem too radical, I mentioned that if people of different cultures lived 'close' together without integrating, there could be 'violence'! The tutor murmured something about that being an extreme example.)

A break with unigirlfriend, signing up for a legal comp and talking about social stuff.

Brian offering his apologies for putting me on a back to back shift and offering to take over earlier on Wednesday evenings should I ever want him to.

Experimenting with going to bed with wet hair and a little product = waking up with nice nice curls.

THE BAD

Keep a non-paying former guest's passport as security, or give it to them because they need it to get paid? Would you pay back money owed for nights you slept somewhere for free, if you were just getting back on your feet and finally had nothing tying you there? What's to stop you taking the passport and walking away? What if you were annoyed about how you'd been treated there? I've got to say, if I was in that situation I'd put pretty high regard on looking after number one. Perhaps I'd mail the hostel a cheque for what I thought was fair, then never show my face around there again. Perhaps honour would win out and I would return the passport and promise the money soon. Perhaps the free breakfast given by the receptionist girls would keep me on their good side. Here's hoping, for my sake!

And then there's the woman who wants to go to Kangaroo Island, who finally gets the last place on the second-best tour and is waiting promptly for her tour bus in the morning, who waits forty minutes before coming back to the hostel. The bus driver who misses her on the list but comes back just as she's gone and calls (leaving no number, so I have to wait til the office is open twenty minutes later to contact anyone) to say he can't wait any longer and has to go. Too late to catch a taxi, no chance to book another tour. I actually felt sorry for him too, after giving him an earful of my (rightful) disapproval, because he obviously took his boo boo to heart. And then I had: "Sticky situation! I'll give you a sticky situation!" in an American Parent-Trap accent continuously refraining in my head.

THE UGLY

Call it office politics, suspected theft, a testosterone war, 'no trust', the IT boy claiming too much authority, a tendency to 'annoy' staff behind the front desk, a tendency to 'help' staff behind the front desk, stepping out of the view of cameras, too much 'social acumen', a dirty set up. Morgan's been kicked out of the hostel and it sucks. For him, I would imagine, even more than for us, since we're talking about his home and family. Damn it.

Bobbling head

A mix of social obligations on the horizon. Dinner in town with a mixed group of old school buddies tonight, the 21st birthday DW's friend tomorrow night, and a housewarming party on Sunday for some uni girls who have just moved down to the 'big smoke' from the country. In the still-further future there is a night of house-sitting which DW has gone so far as to roster off work, heh. And plenty of relatives' birthdays. Does town feature into any of my social plans? Perhaps not, although I am half-inclined to convince DW to come to see a magician/mentalist show with me while the Fringe is on, a guy who apparently stayed at the hostel before I worked there and was quite... awe-inspiring. DW is not normally my choice of companion for those sorts of outings (rather, by his own choice he's a closer-to-home type) but... who else will get geeked out with me over a magician? Anyway, yeah, I feel kind of over the whole drinky drinky town scene at the moment, but isn't it lucky that at present there are many things to do in Adelaide city apart from that. Mad March!



Recent realisations:



I eat meat almost every day. I don't really *need* to eat that much meat. I have no desire to be vegetarian, exactly, but from an environmental/economic standpoint I don't really feel like I should chow down on the animal flesh as much as I do. Plus, I just grossed myself out typing that last sentence. Maybe it'll be the vegie platter for me tonight.

When my car has a funny smell, I should alert the authorities (by which I mean: my dad) ASAP because it means that water is leaking from something and is a precursor to an overheated car and a wet carpet and a new radiator and a bill.

I have almost the least amount of responsibility and authority at work, which actually suits me fine. There is this new kinda chain of authority where people who are in other senses 'equal' now have to sign off each other's books and all that jazz, and I am basically out of it because I don't do anything extra apart from run reception. On one hand, there's my boss saying to me that he would have loved me to be the one to start organising procedure manuals and stuff, but that he knows with uni and whatever I'm too busy to commit myself to that. Which is true. However, I seem to be screwing up a lot lately anyway with basic things like guest's money and forgetting to extend them on the computer, so on the other hand I'm thinking that it may be for the best anyway. Speaking of work, I stayed over on Thursday when I worked a back-to-back night and morning shift, and wasn't that a laugh and a half. I was giddy and happy drinking a cruiser with some friends on the balcony after I finished, then subjected myself to the cold shower of the northern toilet block, then... then when sleeping time began, there was massive noise from the TV, despite my room being upstairs, and city traffic and germans arguing in the next room and somebody rhythmically pounding on the door to their room when they forgot their key in the middle of the night (I let him in with my magical key). So, it wasn't the most restful night. I'm yet to decide whether or not its preferable to catching a bus home and getting up half an hour earlier.

Tata for now.

A fragrant machine

The cogs are creaking into action; life has shifted gears. I am all uni uni uni. Well, I had one day at uni, and it was during 'O-week'. But. During that day I was plenty sociable - joined the German club, which I should have done last year, plus the *cough* running club - what can I say, the sexy third year law guy manning the stand might motivate me. Although I think I'd have to, like, actually finish Couch to 5K before I attempted a run with the group, lest I be *that* person.

But seriously, I'm like, all inspired =P Podcast downloading as I type!

Plus, I have a locker in the awesome 'women's lounge', no doubt created in days of compulsory unionism and demand for such places. There are couches, a microwave (yay) and even a bed, lest I feel the need to lay down and recuperate away from all the men. Plus bookshelves filled with old feminist books. On Thursday it was like our private lounge, and my friend wants to get a locker in there too. I'll be interested to see how busy it gets during the semester, but either way(making girly friends in our refuge, or having a personal couch space) is appealing enough.

However, despite all the excitement, I was completely knackered when it came to spending the whole day 'on' and walking around town in 39 degree heat and whatnot. I had this meet and greet as a buddy for an international law student (there we go again, uni uni) but it wasn't until the evening so it was quite a long day in town. The meet was amusing enough, with far more 'buddies' than new people needing to be 'buddied' showing up, and I chatted with plenty of randoms, completely anonymous as a second year. My allocated buddy was one of the ones not to show up, so about half way through I took advantage of my anonymity and disappeared. By which I mean, I inconspicuously walked out of the door, although the puff-of-smoke thing would have been cool too.

And then, my boyfriend went all sweet and collected me from the plaza. I cut his rope-finding trip to Kmart short with my arrival but he didn't go back, understanding that I was 'sick of everything' by that stage. I actually wasn't - It's funny how I could be so over it walking around town with the others but suddenly so willing to wander the stores with him. Anyway. I appreciated the gesture, and he ferried his sweaty girlfriend and her new heavy textbooks back to her house.

Tonight I'm going to the Fringe opening ceremony. I was very indecisive about whether or not I wanted to go, being slighly head-achey and blah feeling earlier, but I have now bucked up and decided to join the crowds and crazy people. Fire! Gelati! I went to see Tim Freedman in the Garden on Wednesday, who was as old-sexy as ever.

I smell faintly like a hippy, so I'm sure I'll fit in with the Fringe crowd. I ordered a bunch of Lush stuff with a shopping gift card that DW gave me for Christmas and it arrived today. So now my feet are scrubbed, my skin cleansed with clay and my temples rubbed with the jasmine scent of 'Flying Fox'. Ommmmmm. Actually, I think Flying Fox is meant to be something of an aphrodisiac. Rhhwah.

Soul Kitchen

Desires... to write lyrically, to live communally, with friends and cheap food. To travel locally. I feel a swelling of affection for the people I'm close to, an appreciation for talking in cars and at late night dessert cafes and on walks through the dry hills.

I look forward to being focused, when uni starts, but fear that I won't be. My time and interests are too scattered. I dread the rearrangement and negotiation of my work schedule, toy with quitting one job, the other job. To quit the hostel would seem a step backwards, and I feel that the intense sociality of it is something thats good for me, despite it being wearying at times. To quit the nut shop would be in a sense easy, but in a sense much harder, because its so comfortable.

I look forward, too, to reinvigorating the friendships that were started last year at uni, that fade with distance and time apart. New shiny people, people whose flaws and stories aren't so intimately known yet. (But: see first paragraph. Simultaneously relishing in familiarity).

People are very capable of deluding themselves, of asserting and even believing that what they think now is what they've thought all along. I say that with a wry hope, though, that the criss-crossing opposing emotions of two of my particular broken-up friends will eventually settle in the right place. Whether that 'right place' is with both of them happy to be together, or both of them happy to be apart, I don't know.

Something about the combination of books that I'm reading: Sack's observations of mentally deficient patients in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and the argument between the pastor and the scientist in a Sue Miller novel - made me realise today that I believe in the human soul. I can't even remember if it were a question of belief before today or not.

Valentines Day was good, and a good opportunity for a quiet shout out about how happy I am at the moment with all that... stuff. A while ago, when we first started going out, I remember thinking that in future years, after we'd hypothetically broken up, I would always remember DW, the person, who had happened to be my boyfriend. But he would remember his girlfriend, who happened to be me.

It was only today, recollecting that thought, that it occurred to me that this assessment might not represent something negative. Part of the reason why I wouldn't see potential for a relationship with one of my close male friends is that I feel that his idea of me is too fixed, that I am a defined persona in his perception. Of course, its not that the persona is in any way faked - its me, my own essence poured within the lines of his picture. But those lines are there. They're shaped slightly differently with everyone, but they're always there, in slightly better or worse formations. People make you see yourself in different ways. Some time ago, floating in one friend's image of myself as an elegant, articulate, kind girl, I remember thinking that maybe it was bad that DW didn't make me see myself in that way. But really, it's that he doesn't make me see myself in any one way. He doesn't pour my substance into any particular self-shape. And maybe that's not a bad thing.

Sunday.

Feeling floppy. Went to Supermild last night, which was as superly mild as the name suggested. There was an outside area to chill and talk (in the perfect end-of-heat-wave weather), a bar where it didn't take long to be served, space to sit down, retro music and a small woody dance floor which was curiously lacking in groping and grinding.

I've just been watching Rove, which has been a rare occurance since about 2003. Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long: cute. Especially Ginnifer! New girl-crush. On the other hand, Amanda Kerr. The word vacuous comes to mind. Rove asks her a question: Does she prefer to be the giver or getter of surprises on Valentines day? She's like, "...Huh! Every day should be romantic, right? Like... why just be romantic on Valentines Day? That's like, what I think. About Valentines Day."

You know who else is hot? Callie. She is so in my hypothetical threesome. Whereas Ginny and I, we wouldn't work in that way, you know? That's more of a 'want to be' than a 'want to be with'.

Wouldn't it be awesome if cats could be trained to use their kneading behaviour for back massages? If you do have to get up for work, tired and quivery and slightly queasy, being woken by a cat purring and treading and kneading all over your back is the best way to ease into the day.

You know what? I did that survey at the start of the year about 2008, and one of the questions was about best book read. Let me just clarify that two books I read in 2008 were so notably awesome that I have to amend my previous post to tell you about them. One was called Dead Centre, an investigative look into the Joanne Lees/Peter Falconio case.

(http://www.holisticpage.com.au/DeadCentre_RobinBowles%7C9781863254045... Ok, I need to learn how to make 'proper' links).

The second was As Nature Made Him, about David Reimer, a man who was raised as a girl after a botched circumcision. Nothing I candescribe in this sleepy state does this book, full of conflict and questions and bizaree real-life characters, any sort of justice, so just read it. Actually, I think this one wins best book of 2008, or maybe one of the most absorbing books I have ever read.

http://www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0060192119

I'd say that the authors simply let the fascinating stories of both of these books tell themselves, but its a credit to all the planning, interviewing and investigating that the final products can read in that way. Both stories suck you in: I read case notes from the former at work, and now have difficulty accepting 'remembered' evidence from any victim. I was completely gutted when, after finishing the tentatively uplifting conclusion of the latter and looking up John Money on wikipedia, I discovered that David had committed suicide some years after the point where the book finished.

Ok, I'm done. Early morning shifts, nights out... I'm going to sleep, and hopefully for a long time.

25 things

25 things about me.

1. I tend to keep things way longer than necessary, due to vague beliefs in Being Prepared and This May Be Important. Eg: a black hand-me-down dress which I never once wore, stayed in a drawer for about four years because I might wear it to a beach party. Like, it would be super perfect for a very particular kind of beach party. There was no beach party, and I eventually parted with said dress.

2. I have a little container of spare buttons, too, the kind you take off clothing tags. But that's more because I'm fond of buttons. I remember enjoying playing with my Oma's (much larger) tub of assorted buttons when I was little. LAME KID ALERT.

3. On that note, when I was slightly older (like, grade two or so) I collected the coloured leads that fell out of pencils. For a while that seemed to be the trend, but I was the only one I knew who would spread them out lovingly on the kitchen table to give them 'exercise'.

4. I think I've become less strange as I've gotten older.

5. With that, though, I'm also probably less imaginative.

6. I have Cyndi Lauper, 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' in my head. Its quite an annoying song.

7. I was just before reading about people who have epileptic fits in the parts of the brain that controls memory, and how it triggers them to hear random music from their life over and over. In various patients it has been a blessing or a curse. Now I feel bad about complaining about a little 'ear-worm'.

8. I don't like the term 'ear-worm', but I like the girl in Germany who first introduced me to it. I remember her speaking very slowly and animatedly so I would understand. Ohrwuhrm was the name of a song by a German a capella pop band.

9. I want to buy a new camera, one that makes people look gorgeous all the time. This isn't totally wishful thinking. Sometimes other people take photos and everyone looks great on their screens, and then I take one and the subject has morphed into an oily, gaunt, blood-shot version of themself. This will not do.

10. Double digits! Is it bad that I thought that sounded dirty as soon as I typed it?

11. I prefer spiders to moths.

12. I want to go camping.

13. I read message boards without responding, and blogs of people I don't know in person.

14. I'm pretty glad to be the age I am now, but there's something kind of weird about visualising my life staying basically the same for the next three or four years.

15. I want to see the musical 'Sunday in the Park with George' because I've heard one really good song from it.

16. I'm sometimes not very good at finding things in supermarkets.

17. I'd be more keen to go back to uni if it was replacing something, time-wise (e.g. work) but I'm quite lazy and not looking forward to deciding how much to shuffle stuff around.

18. Today I found out a Taiwanese girl who I thought was, like, 22, is actually 30. And she, who thought I was 22, found out that I was 19. And then she told me I had a good 'EQ'.

19. Damn, should have saved that for number 19. It's... well you know now... my age.

20. I like ants. I mean, not on me or anything, but I think they're cool.

21. I also like cocktails. In me.

22. Room number 22 at work has a broken door. They say its been fixed, but its still actually kinda broken, and I keep forgetting to tell guests they have to make sure its pulled properly shut. Wow, now I'm suddenly paranoid that someone's stuff will get stolen or somebody will be murdered or something, and it'll be partially (fine, perhaps mostly. or even all.) my fault. NOTE TO ALL THIEVES AND MURDERERS, I WAS KIDDING ABOUT THE DOOR *cough*

23. I still have a single bed, but I may get around to getting a double sometime soon.

24. My recently-bought shoerack collapsed dramatically in the middle of the night a few days ago, and now my room is messy again.

25. Woot, the end. I may or may not post this on facebook for the purpose it was intended for.