Notes from a distant past

I finally begin to have adventures worthy of the name, and suddenly lose the impulse to post details of what's been happening to me! Ralphie, I know you're disppointed that there hasn't been an update on here for an eternity, so if nothing else, the email prompted me into action. That and the fact that I just finished reading a book, and have hours of boredom stretching out in front of me tonight without any other reading material, and nothing to do but write. There might even be an addition to someone else imaginary's adventures...but only if I can wrest my notebook back from my flatmate who currently has it by her bed. But enough digressing. Adventures.

I got back from Bath today, having spent a very busy week running around all over the place. There's been a few things happen in between that and the last post that I'll gloss over, but it's all too far in the past now, and feels like a lifetime ago. There's been the inevitable bouts of homesickness, helped out by supportive emails from Nad to remind me that things could be far worse - I could be stuck back there in the middle of all our now married or otherwise hooked up friends, a solitary single doomed to fit her social life around that of her friends partners...From some fates I have been temporarily spared.

There have equally been many trips to various pubs. I did drink a lot the night that Joel died. Far more than was good for me. It was as much the shock as anything, and to quiet the little voice in my head that was reminding me of all the things we'd planned, but now wouldn't get to do, all the little things that went to make up him being Joel. It's been a rough time for the people who knew him, but since that night I've kind of been insulated from that to a certain extent. I wasn't in Melbourne to go to his funeral, although I did hold my own moment of silence for him at the time. Being over here, it's not going to hit for a while, really. And as one person pointed out, with him living in America for the past while, it's more like he's gone on a holiday for a while than anything. But at the same time, there are things that make me think of him. Seeing a nose-to-tail accident on the side of the highway, even though it's just a minor fender bender; seeing what was supposed to be Miami airport in the latest installation of the James Bond movies; hearing Jesse's Girl. I didn't mean to write about all of this again, but I guess it's part of what's been going on in the past month and a half or so, so it's hard to leave it out all together.

Lots has happened since then though. I kind of needed to get out and about a lot for the weeks after that. I was going to pub with the friendly people from work - there will be more on that later, I'm sure. I went out to see Footloose at the theatre one night. I've been shopping as much as I could afford to. I've been to the movies a bit, been out to dinner, been to a work Christmas party, started playing hockey for what was - but somehow no longer is - the worst team in London, who like to party after games, I've been away for a weekend, and I've planned a holiday at Christmas. I've been ice skating without falling over once, much to everyone's shock, but none more surprised than me!. I've mailed presents to the other side of the world, and recieved them in return. It's been a hectic time, accompanied by far more chocolate than is good for me. I've mad new friends at work and at hockey. I've seen pretty boys, I've flirted shamelessly with some not so pretty boys. I've only bought 3 rounds of drinks since I got here, and discovered that chivalry is alive and well in certain parts of London. in short, I've been living life as much as I can, trying to make the most of the experience over here while my life is basically on hold, justifying selling pretty much everything I own to get here, without blowing the budget completely and ending up hopelessly in debt. I'm trying to cram everything in!

I've taken photos, I've created videos, I've written cards, I've tried to keep a journal but gave up after 2 entries, and only one of them finished. I'm so busy that I barely have time to sit still, but have somehow made my way through a surprising number of books.

I've experienced the crush of the London Underground at peak hour, the wilting, breath-stelaing humidity of being crammed into unventilated tunnels in a train packed to bursting with people dressed for weather at least 10 degrees colder than it is in there. I've been on London's busiest shopping street in the bustling Christmas rush, and had the thrill of knowing that I have finished by shopping, only to remember that there's that one extra person who still needs something. There's been the obigatory jokes about Australia losing the last Ashes series from the English, only to have that turn to silence when it became clear that they were outclassed in the first test, and let themselves lose the second. I've written emails home asking for things I couldn't bring in the 20kg luggage limit (that I managed to exceed by 13kg). I now have my Blundstone boots firmly attached to my feet, with my footy socks underneath. I'm almost used to an archaic flat without either a TV or a microwave (although i do tend to forget to get meat out ahead of time to defrost; a low heat ove does wonderful things if you give it a chance, just don't forget that freezer bags and ovens don't mix!), and am thinking of taking up crafts that I attempted before but got quickly bored with to distract me from the fact that it gets dark here at 4pm right now. I carry a brolly everywhere I go. I mimic those around me enough that my flatmate insists I'm developing an english accent, only to hear me drop back into the broadest imaginable Australian strine.

I've been drunk. I've been sober. I've laughed. I've cried. In short, I've been so busy with the big adventure of living - includling the continuing gut-wrenching boredom of a new daily routine - that I barely have time to think about maintaining a blog most of the time. Things would probably be different if I could get into this from work though, so we'll see what happens. In the mean time, I'll jsut have to settle for getting through my day with emails from anyone and everyone, whether they be across the office or across the world. Contact is the anchor that keeps me from drifitng into homesickness!!! Contact and constant distraction. If I keep moving, I might forget that there's half a world between me and my home. the speed with which time is moving right now also makes me think that my time over here, which stretched out forever before I left home, will be all too short in the living of it. So I'm trying, desperately, to make the most of it, and to imprint it all on my memory. Sadly, it seems to float in one side and drift out the other, so this is about all I can offer by way of an update right now, a photo of Regent St by Christmas by night!

Joel...

The world stopped today, or it should have, because Joel isn't in it anymore. The guy with the filthiest sense of humour, the biggest heart, the loudest quickest laugh, the cheekiest smile, the most alive person I know, is no longer, and it kills me to write that, because it still doesn't seem real. No car crash could wipe out that life, surely? And now the wine bottle isn't deep enough because I'm here, and he's not.

He's not in America, which he has been for the past year or so; he's not back in Melbourne, watching the football, or flying a plane; he's nowhere. It's too soon for me to know details - apparently even his family don't know for sure what happened yet - but I know enough. Joel has died and an enormous gaping hole has opened in the world where he used to be. There will be no more emails filled with innuendo and jokes. He will never make the flight he had booked to go home in a couple of weeks. I will never get to be hown the sights in America by him - no more night of debauchery like we had planned for a weekend in New York come February. There is, in short, no more Joel, and I am desolate, and alone with nobody here who knows him who can tell me about the way his mouth would quiver and twitch when he was telling some story that he knew would make us giggle like school girls. There will be no more great parties thrown by Joel, no more hilarious speeches that have been havily edited by various friends wot make sure that he doesn't embarass anyone - most of all himself - too much. The world must surely stop now that Joel has gone from it.

I've only just heard, it's true. Most of this is an effort to convince myself that it's true, that he won't be popping over the Atlantic and lobbing on my doorstep like he was threatening to do in his last email. His mother, who had planned a party for his trip home in a couple of weeks, is left to contact the friends on the guest list and tell them what has happened while we, his firends, the people who grew up - at least in height - with him, the biggest kid of them all, try to come to grips with the idea that what she tells us is most certainly true. And somewhere out there, his American wife, married in a whirlwind romance so typical of Joel who always fell hard and fast for any girl, has to fill in the details for his far too distant famly and friends while dealing with her own grief. My heart goes out to anyone who knew him, whose life will always be that little sadder now he's gone, but that lot brighter for having knon him in the first place.

I've run out of my own words. I'm sure Joel, the king of the paraphrasers, won't mind if I resort to a quote to fill the emotions that threaten once more to swamp me with tears. Because whilst he wasn't my north my south, my east or my west, he was a whole chunk of my life that is now gone. And given that he was a pilot, it's only right that the planes should circle in the sky and proclaim the news, he is dead, however long he will live in memory. In the mean time I'll just keep hoping that, somewhere, someone has made a terrible mistake and I'll be getting a phonecall any minute from him, laughing at the commotion he's caused, for all that he would never play such a cruel joke on any of us.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

. . . . . . . . .

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-W. H. Auden

RIP Joel Parkinson, 1980-2006

London calling

Yes, that's right. I, Killi, am now a fully fledged Londoner, complete with employment and umbrella. I have the regulation postage stamp flat that costs the entire gross domestic product of my country to rent for a month and needs copious references to get the priveledge of handing over your first born to live there. I now have a job that, miraculously, takes just under an hour tog et to - I'm considered lucky for my 45 minute journey; envious others I know travel upwards of an hour on an average day with good connections. I walk around with a suitcase on my shoulder in place of a handbag because of the combination of diary (like I can remember where or when anything is, given the whole week of gruelling interviews I've just subjected myself to) A-Z map of the city (because nobody, but nobody, not even the famous cabbies with "the knowledge" can get around without one of these little babies to tell them where they live and where they're going and everywhere in between), umbrella (an English essential which is also carried in a bizarre number of shops; my guess is that it's more in case your current brolly breaks from overuse, rather than catering to those who don't have one. Even tourists bring them along in the middle of summer), and an assortment of other bits of paper that seem to breed and multiply during the course of the day. I glare at anyone who has the nerve to walk at a leisurely pace up the middle of the footpath when I'm trying to hurry around them in heavy traffic - because there is ALWAYS heavy traffic. I sweat it out with my jacket on in the sweltering temperatures on the tube trains. I talk on my phone as I walk along the street, ignoring the looks I get from others with my obvious strine accent.

So, at the end of my first "business week" (notice, not work week. For all the exhaustion associated with it, three job interviews a day isn't classed as work; you don't get paid for interviews. But that's an argument for a whole other post), what are my thoughts about being in London? How am I filling my time? Am I over the horrendous jetlag associated with the 25 hours it took me to get here in the flight from hell? Well you might ask.

I spent today in and around Oxford St, the shopping hub of London and tourist mecca. It was crowded, it was noisy, it was a battle just to stop from being swept in the opposite direction to the one I wanted to go. Which would be the main reason why, in spite of the fantastic shops available there, I didn't accept the job offer from the company who seemed to be gobsmacked that I aced the phenomenally easy CAD test they set me (I know people who could have aced it in 2nd year uni...really, people, what are they like here that being able to do fairly mundane things blows their mind??? Maybe I should have taken that one afterall...). Flattering as it is to hear how brilliantly you've done in something you've done everyday for ages, I couldn't handle the thought of fighting my way in and out of the office everyday, only to sit and stare at a computer screen for hours with what seemed to me to be minimal social interaction. So what did I do? I took the one at the Oval, pefect for summer lunches at the cricket!

So, am i glad I've come halfway around the world leaving all my family and all but one of my friends behind, as scary and lonely as that promises to be? You bet your life I am!

Of Brides and Suitcases

My friend got married yesterday. The flow of emotion through the day was something I'd kind of expected, but not the to the degree that it ended up happening - and it wasn't just me. There were tears and laughter through the whole day. And then it was all over, and I was left to deal with assignments (yes, I'm procrastinating again) and packing my suitcase, something the blushing bride accomplished for her honeymoon the night before the wedding. She's already gone on a plane, on her way to Tahiti and a cruise ship at 5 this morning. I have planned to go to the airport and visit her, but realistically I was never going to make it.

It's strange to think that the wedding, which has dominated so much conversation between a little group of people, is over. What the hell are we going to talk about now? A whirl of a day that didn't seem real in it's fluff and fantasy of sunshine, satin and flowers - and by her own account didn't seem to have happened to the brie eithe, as she sat beside me at the bridal table last night. Perhaps that is why, for the most part, it was more a night of laughter than the obligatory tears of parting. In fact, the laughter was a constant, even through the tears. But at the end of it, in a whirl of satin and lace and tulle, she went out the door of the reception place and into another part of life - the life of a married woman who lives half an hour from my own childhood home, instead of the 10 minutes it has always been before.

I know I'm going to be going off on my own adventure next weekend - and the thought is starting to scare the crap out of me, to be honest - but this is really the first hint of just how much things are going to change with that step. I won't see the bride again before I go. Unless she comes to visit me, that's it for the next 2 years, all going well. It hit me some time during the reception, and I had to dash out into the bridal changeroom to indulge in some tears with another bridesmaid trying to help me pull myself together. It was further helped by the arrival of the best man and one of the groomsmen wanting a photo taken, then commenting that during the whole process one of them had been staring at my chest (not the first time he's passed comments like that and, if he runs true to form and staysa close friend of the groom, probably not the last) - I've discovered that fighting the urge to slap someone is quite the remedy for high strung emotions!

I think the hardest part right now is knowing that we didn't really get a proper goodbye. Much and all as there were hugs on the day, and two big teary hugs before she disappeared out the door and into her new life (or rather Mum and Dad's car, waiting to take them to their hotel for the night), it wasn't a proper farewell. There was too much else going through our minds, too many others to hug, and a bunch of the groom's mates trying to convince him to throw her into the fountain as they nearly knocked him out by attempting to carry him through the doors on their shoulders, disgruntled bride in tow). So now i'm stranded with only phone calls and the very occasional email to keep me in touch with her - and none of that for the next two weeks either. Oh, and a very large suitcase that is in need of filling. Well, at least there's something to distract me...

The times they are a-changin

Somehow I've managed to go ages without writing anything here - or anything full stop, to be honest, apart from a couple of abortive attempts to get a couple of assignments rolling before I've finished my research, never a smart move in all honesty. So what the hell have I been doing instead? Interesting question...

Well, there was my venture (thankfully over now) into the wierd and wonderful world of office temping; a land where nobody knows your name, or bothers tof ind out because you're just the temp and therefore not worth the effort; a place where it is quite acceptable to pay someone the rates of a skilled draftsperson (ie more than I was getting in my last job) to print out a website all day, or do filing, or collate pamphlets into folders, jobs that would be done by anyone with about a quarter of a brain. But my working life in Melbourne finished up last week, even if my desperate struggle to get that cash into my bank account didn't, thanks to one of my employers not yet verifying my hours - thanks heaps boys, it's not like I'm leaving the country or anything, and need to change my cash into pounds, but hey, you can enjoy using my drawings as much as you like, huh.

Since then? Well, there's been what should be lots of things, but now I come to think of it, doesn't seem like too much to have filled a week with. See, whatever there is behind me, it's what's looming up in front of me that somehow seems to keep distracting me. On Saturday my friend gets married. We went out for our last traditional shopping odyssey last week - junk food by the river and four hours wandering the shops aimlessly afterwards. Our real lives kept intruding, though, since we've both got big events on the horizon. We were later than normal because she had to stop off to pick up her honey moon travel documents and had the world's most thorough travel agent who went through every detail of her trip in annoying completeness. Then I actually had to break with tradition and buy useful things while we were shopping - a cardinal sin in our tradition where we normally go out shopping with good intentions and come home with bags of things that we don't need, but desperately want. From now on, it's going to be very different for the two of us (what with me living in London and all by the time she gets back from her honeymoon...).

In another stroke of pre-departure genius, I went out on Friday night and met a boy. A lovely, sweet, cute boy who goes to Canada a week after I go to London. We're in the process of trying to arrange another meet-up before I go away, in spite of the fact that it seems fairly aimless right now gien the situation. I literally just got a text message from him, so I'm kind of smiling right now. But it's typical of me. I go out week after week for months and only meet slime balls. Then, two weeks before I leave the country (and three before he does) I meet the best guy and, what's even more unusual, he seems interested in meeting up again. Now I've just got to think of a suitable reply, and find time to meet up with him! He wanted this weekend, but what with the wedding and all, I can't. Talk about bad timing...Maybe a trip to Canada is the only way to sort it out! Now there's a thought...

Meanwhile, I'm trying to get through my pre-departure list...Failing dismally but trying. Tonsilitis doesn't help my cause (hmm...possibly not the best idea to have gone out Saturday night as well? But surely the alcohol in the disturbingly large number of cocktails would have scarred away the germs? Maybe that's why I feel better now? Surely the anti-biotics couldn't have worked already?). So, it's backt o the books while I deliberate actually calling this guy to sort it out properly. Text messages are ggreat, but rather hard to deal with on this front! Meanwhile the clock ticks by. Can't decide if that's good or bad!

Oops, they did it again

I'm procrastinating, yet again. Assignments, this time. In spite of being a temp employee of various companies over the past few weeks, and actually getting home at a reasonable hour thanks to only needing to catch a train, rather than adding a half hour on a tram to the end of that and walking for 10 minutes. The upshot is that I'm WAAAAY behind on where I should be for the research on my next assignment. And the 3 that I've got to get done before I go away in oh, say, UNDER A MONTH?!?!? I was working it out. I've got 5,500 words to write (and research) between now and then, and somewhere in there I have to be a bridesmaid (not nearly as challenging as being a bride) and pack up everything I own and get myself together to LEAVE THE COUNTRY. Stress? What stress?

And yet, here I am. Sitting on the internet, having caught up on my emails (who knew that so many could accumulate in 3 days?) and feeling energetic enough to read the paper - online, at any rate. I have no right to be anywhere near a computer right now. It should be all books and notes and post-its, but yet...here I am.

Somehow it's a good thing to, because I'm feeling all righteous anger right now. Some nutter in the government has decided to dig into the realms of the history book once again, to the part under the heading of "Things we should forget we ever did, or only remember with shame and downcast eyes". The subheading? It's called the White Australia policy, our very own version of aparthied, but more like a particularly selective bouncer at an exclusive night club. Yes, we'll make you sit a dictation test. What's that? You're a university educated englishman? well, you can take your test in French. Sorry? You come from the slums in the Philipines? How would you like a dictation test in, oh, say, Swahili? No jokes here, it did happen. And oh, what do you know, it looks like it's about to kick off again. http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/integration-the-key-howard/2006/09/15/1157827132026.html (and sorry, once again, still haven't re-learnt how to link. I should have known better than to do it once and then forget all about it for a while. Including forgeting where I found the directions last time) This time the test will be in English, granted, but fact about Australia? Have these people never watched one of the 6:30 current affairs shows? They're always showing high school kids who can't answer simple questions about Australia, like what's the capital city. (It is Sydney, right?!?) How on earth do they expect people who come from countries that probably have little enough idea about where Australia is, let alone what the hell fair dinkum means, to know the answers to their tests? Oh, I forgot. They give them 4 years to wait here and study for it. Reckon it'd take about that long too.

Does nobody realise that a pretty large percentage of the people already here come from backgrounds where they wouldn't be speaking english. And their cultures have all gone into the melting pot to make the culture that the terrified little weenies are trying to hold up as an example. Surely there should be room to include more ideas, not less, in the mix? Becuase if this type of draconian measure is needed to protect whatever it means to be Australian, perhaps the notion of Australian-ness is not as strong and as clearly defined as they'd have us believe, if it can't withstand a little challenge (which is arguable in its existence anyway) from other countries. Is it really worth propping up something that would be so ill-defined, something that clearly demands much more of its citizens than most already here would have a conception of? And who, exactly, has the right to try and define what the hell it is anyway? Ask anyone who lives here what it means to be Australian and you can almost guarantee that no two answers will be the same. It's not like we have a slogan (do we? do we have a slogan?) to rally us under the flag. There is no God Save the Queen (or the land of hope and glory - or it was once, anyway), Land of the free and Home of the brave, Liberte Egalite Fraternite, or any of that. Why? Because it hasn't evolved yet. And these things can't be forced. They have their own rhythm.

I'm as Australian as the next person. As far as I can tell, my newest non-Aussie ancestor was about 4 generations back - my grandfather's grandfather. (Given that the distinguished gentleman in question changed his name and appears to be untraceable, but by all accounts regularly recieved large amounts of money from Ireland, I doubt he would have been coming in through the legitimate channels that the government is so keen on these days. Although you never know. Who had large amounts of money in Ireland back in the 1850s when the famine was in full swing? hmm, English aristocracy, wasn't it?) As far as I can gather, that makes me pretty much true blue, fair dinks, dyed in the wool Aussie. I may be about to jet off overseas for a couple of years, but I'd like to be able to claim my nationality with some pride. I love being Australian, and I love the reputation we once had in the world at large. It might be a bit inaccurate (a few too many people think we have kangaroos as pets. Sorry to disappoint, but we don't, generally. Drop bears are for real though.) but it's generally likeable - a good thing when you're miles from home and all alone in the world. But right now? No. I don't want to endorse the actions of my government. Finally, I'm understanding what it must be like to have been an American who voted against George Bush. And I'm feeling sorry for them.

The moral of the story here? Never let a politician take a look at a history book. God knows, they might just think that some of the horrendous things that people have done to each other in the past were good enough to repeat again. For everybody's sake, don't let them uncover the books about the 1930s and 40s.

RSVP or else

There are not nearly enough words in the english language for tired. Sure, there are plenty of them, but none of them go nearly far enough - the only one that really comes close to the kind of exhaustion I and a few of my friends are feeling right now is probably 'dead'. And no, I don't mean dead tired. I mean the full body-stopped-functioning-I-can't-believe-I-can-still-type type of dead. Why the fatigue? It's called a hen's night...and it wasn't even one on an epic scale.

I did start early, I'll grant that. We sat down in a restaurant that had only just opened, to find that it was 5:30, and nobody was really hungry yet, in spite of deliberately having the tiniest lunch we could find in Strudels, and resisting the tempting array of tarts and cakes that the waitress had stragically placed our group next to (we'd been to bridesmaid dress fittings...Like we were going to indulge in junk food right away, knowing that if we gained weight in the next four weeks we'd be popping a seam???). The great thing about chinese food, though, is that you can stagger it's arrival. Or you can try to, at any rate. Sadly, we timed our departure not so well, because the gorgeous boys in suits were still sitting down when we left and we were forced to decline their polite bellows to know where we were going by the fact that our hen had no idea, and we wanted to keep it that way. Why oh why we never let her go down the stairs to the street first, I'll never know because, as it turned out, we had plenty of room to bring the boys along with us.

And now we get to the part that has left me exhausted and flat. Don't get me wrong here. Cruising around Melbourne in a party bus going to night clubs is quite fun. The "male revue" was kind of crap and corny, but it was giggleworthy to watch the shirtless barmen strutting around like they ruled the world, and kind of interesting to note that most of our group found it more amusing than appealing. And for the hen who was at least 5 months pregnant and giving the once over with a lip curled in distaste to anyone who happened to cross her path - when you're that preggers on your hen's night, and still have the nerve to stick an L-plate onto your veil, you'd better not be so disparaging to the other women who weren't so fortunate as to get up the duff and shotgun their partner down the aisle. You'd better think before you suggest that you're better than anyone in your skanky little skirt that looks more like you should have bought it for the baby you're carrying than anything a grown woman should be wearing. If you look like you should be working in the strip club next door, you have no right to criticise anyone else on their appearance...and that's the first of the nastiness out of the way. As much fun as all of that was - and incidentally, I'm wearing a veil next time I go out with all my single girls...I've never seen so many guys approaching any girl, however stunning - it was also a huge disappointment in many ways.

We sent out 38 invitations to the night. Of those, about 10 were for dinner alone, and the rest were for the nightclub tour. On the RSVP date, we'd heard from 2 people who weren't in the bridal party or related to the hen directly (and that's not counting her future in-laws). 2 people. Out of 38. And both of those 2 were no's. So we waited. We sent the hen to harass the people we didn't know. She harassed effectively and, while the dinner got down to 11 people, the bus was running a healthy 20 or so when I confirmed the booking earlier this week. We hadn't been able to extract the cash out of the people in advance like we wanted to, but we were fairly certain at least that most of those would turn up. Until we sat down to dinner and discovered that the in-laws weren't coming out after dinner afterall. 2 down. There'd been a couple of others pull out overnight as well, but we were still at a solid 15, not a bad number, overall. Then there was a phone call to me. Someone had to go into hospital - not something she could help, so I hold her absolutely blameless, especially since she and her friend, who also pulled out, were 2 of the only ones who had actually paid in advance. About 20 minutes after that, there was a text message to the hen, and another one was down. 12. The minimum number that the tour company quoted was 14, so I spent the better part of dinner getting fairly stressed about all of that. That's the problem when you organise things. You're never sure how they're going to turn out.

It should have been no surprise to me when one person simply didn't show up at all, without having contacted any of us to let us know. But somehow, it was annoying, and I'm pretty sure that the hen was more than a bit put out as well. She'd gone to a lot of trouble for the guest list, and has been to many parties that the pikers have thrown, being far too sweet to pull out without considerable anxiety and at least a phone call to apologise. So we ended up with 11 on the bus, which gradually dwindled to the core 5 by about 2 o'clock when we headed back to our hotel after a night that was, for us at least, fun, if somewhat quieter than the average hens night probably is. What can I say - we're not the most out there people in the world, and we still forked out a goodly amount of cash between the bridesmaids to make sure the night was as fun as possible for the hen. And it was. There were 5 very happy, tired girls who sat down on the couch in our plush hotel room to scoff our bedtime maccas before scooting off to our beds for some sleep, eternally grateful to the receptionist for giving us a midday checkout.

We loved that hotel. Great spot, luxurious rooms, bathrooms with everything you could need, pay TV,comfy beds, a balcony - all round greatness, we thought. Until this morning, that is. Two of the girls were in a bedroom without a window - not an issue, we figured, given the amount of time we planned on spending there, and that they were going to be asleep. We failed to notice the skylight right above their beds - the skylight without any kind of blind. They woke up at 6am to blazing sunshine and, for obvious reasons found it difficult to go back to sleep. At least one of them is currently comatose on her couch at home by now.

The rest of us were split between 2 front rooms, overlooking a not too busy CBD street. There was a bit of noise last night from a club up the road but, given some of the noise we're used to, nothing too serious. Until they decided to start resurfacing the street at 8am that morning. We hadn't gone to sleep until well after 3 last night, and we got woken up by machinery at 8am? Surely there are laws against that kind of thing! If not, there should be. There should not be noisy work like that on the streets in areas where people may be sleeping any time before midday. It's hardly fair on the people who've been carousing until the wee sma's and are no longer the 18-19 year olds who can handle those sorts of thoings without really blinking an eye. We don't get hang overs yet, and can recover fairly well, if only we have enough sleep! Even the full cooked breakfast that we had wasn't enough to wake us properly from the sleep deprived stupor that we seemed to sink into within half an hour of gathering in the living area.

The only reassurance we had was that we had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on the night, and that we were satisfied how it had all turned out. The hen may have some lingering hurt about all the rejections of her party, but the people she's clostest to were all there for her. And the others? Well, they jsut got themselves dis-invited to the wedding!!!

Procrastination and other skills that don't appear on a resume

I've been seriously lax abut posting anything up here recently. There are many reasons for this. I had one entry all set to go, and almost all typed out. It was funny, witty - all-round hilarious, in fact. But it wasn't to be. Momentous events overtook my study of the life of one of the "beautiful people", and the world of blogs was doomed never to hear about my friend and her ability to make everything seem minor compared with the importance of hr glamorous existence, if only because it turns out that there is one thing that can make even that excitement seem insignificant - pure, incandescent, incoherant, blithering rage will, in fact, rule out pretty much any other thought, feeling, emotion. It will take over the world, for however long it takes to find your way through the red fog of "He must die"-ness. The he in question is the unjust, unreasoning fool who decided to terminate my employment contract for the most ironic of reasons - chat room usage.

Now I've never made any secret of the fact that I use the internet. But chat rooms are the one thing I have never visited while at work, and haven't used out of work hours since i finished high school many many years ago. So it was understandably devastating to lose my contract, a mere 7 weeks before I go away, as well, for something that was clearly a made up excuse. The rage really started to kick at the point where I realised that not only was I not going to get a chance to defend myself (he referred all my protests to the recruitment agency I was working through, an agency that he hadn't informed of any reasons for my finishing, and who could do nothing about it either). The part that really pushed me over the edge, though, was the fact that this was all done over the phone on a Tuesday, at about 2:30. So not only did he not have the guts to do it to me face to face like every other firing I've ever had, but he made me work through Monday, without givng me the option of going out and drowning my many sorrows.

So now I've entered the strange world of the office temp, a place where you turn up in new and exciting workplaces, only to find that you're getting paid fairly good money to twiddle your thumbs and raise the art of procrastination to never before seen levels. This is the first day where I've been able to speak (well, type) about what's been going on without bursting into a towering pyre of anger (today it's only simmering) and actually have internet access that is usable. I don't count last weeks posting in a role where I spent the day printing out the company web site. About 700 pages and a couple of hundred dollars later, and I go back there next week to finish the job. The irony was that, in spite of "working" on the internet that day, I had no access to anything else. So here I am, waiting patiently for the phone to ring, and wondering how I'm going to fill in the next four days here, questioning why it is that I went to unveristy when I could have the cruisiest job of all time just waiting right here, with half decent pay to boot. Why did they always discourage procrastination when I was younger? It is, apparently, a marketable skill - the ability to appear busy without actually achieving anything. Thankfully I have much practise at this, and can bluff my way through the rest. I'm just wondering why I never thought to add it to my resume under skills...

Off the Leash

There's nothing like a Friday to bring out the school kid in all of us, and today is no exception. Apparently, though, it isn't just me. There are others out there being visited by their former childish selves today, as shown in this blog entry on a serious Melbourne paper - http://blogs.theage.com.au/allmenareliars/archives/2006/08/may_i_fart_now.html#trackback (Sorry, I seem to have lost the art of linking once more...what can I say? I'm still dealing with a fog of flu, or whatever I've had, and throw in the fact that I'm blond and it's Friday and I'm a lost cause)

It's reassuring to know that I'm not the only person out there who feels that one of the funniest things around is a good fart joke - the only thing funnier is, sometimes, a bad one. I know it's very bloke-ish of me to say so and that, if there are any girls out there reading this who don't know me personally, there are probably some shaking their heads in disgust right now at the idea that I could agree with all the guys who find farts hilairious. But at the same time, part of the attraction is knowing that it is completely inappropriate in so many situations.

There have been plenty of great comedians base thier early careers on a well-timed fart joke, and they live long in the memory...Benny Hill (OK, he was as much a sleaze joke as a fart joke, but it was there!) Ronnie Barker (and Ronnie Corbett as well, I guess). In fact, they seem to be mostly British, the ones who spring to mind quickest (unless you count the D-Generation, and their Bargearse creation. Giggles will threaten to overwhelm me if I linger on thoughts of the detective sergeant, however, so I'd better move on).

Social testing has confirmed that the fart is the most universally accepted joke. Almost every culture tested would laugh at a bit of trouser trumpet action - and the ones that didn't find it funny wouldn't laugh at anything. Even that great stuffed-shirt of all time, Queen Victoria, who gave her name toan era of prudishness and holding back, was known to giggle at gas from time to time. In fact, rumous has it that she was one of the first users of the "whoopee cushion" (OK, maybe not, but she did like a fart or two). Mind you, her grand daughter doesn't look any more likely to crack a smile (or let fluffy off the royal chain), and neither do any of the princes - although for some reason i suspect that Fergie would encourage it.

So why has this come up now (and how do I carry such arcane pieces of trivia in my head)? Well, it's Friday, isn't it. And if you can't have a giggle on Friday, well, there's no hope for any civilisation where youc an finish that statement in a way that doesn't include the words "when can you?" So, until then, God Save the Queen.

The Substance of Things Hoped For

There are many rules that have been observed here before. Here's another one: nothing ever works out exactly as you plan it. I'm sure the winners of darwin awards would agree. I'm fairly certain that none of them planned the dire accidents (or should that be acts of stupidity?) that landed them on the list of winners - or even honourable mentions. That said, I think there is a certain amount of inevitability in death following on from the idea to step inside a giant helium balloon with your girlfriend, but without the help of an oxygen tank. Foresight had nothing to do with last weekend, however - although it probably should have had a bit more of an impact on the four days of couch time I've just had trying to recover from, in part, my own stubborn stupidity.

Honestly? I'd been looking forward to the weekend for weeks - more than the normal "everybody's working for the weekend" type longings (incidentally, how great was that song?? Everybody wants a little romance? Everybody needs a second chance? Gold...). More like "Friday on my mind" - Wednesday just won't go, Thursday goes too slow, I've got Friday on my mind. Catch was the horrendous cough that sprang up somewhere between the never-ending Thursday night and Friday morning. Even the obliging people doing a presentation on a type of insulation used on pre-cast concrete buildings struggled to keep my attention (who would have thought? Bubble wrap as insulation! Wonder how much fun the builders could have with that? I've even met a profoundly deaf guy who loved popping bubble wrap) with the free lunch they provided. Little surprise that I was home and tucked up in bed long before the normal time for a night out.

I must be getting old though. Everybody in the bar we went to looked about 12, and neither I nor either of my friends could stop commenting on the indecent clothing the younger girls - or the apparently ill-fitting underwear, and how appropriate it was for the girls to be moshing like that. We sounded exactly like our parents did when we first started going out back in the day...given that my Mum dropped us off so none of us had to drive, we fitted right in, until the point where we walked in the door and realised we weren't flashing nearly enough cleavage.

The only thing to make old bones feel better is a massage. Even if the masseur, who is charging you an insane amount of money for half an hour of absolute bliss keeps telling you that you need to come more often so she can work out the painful knots she's finding in your flu-affected shoulders. Bliss, I tell you, bliss. And lunch afterwards, with the nice eye-candy working behind the bar just proved that some things can, and do, live up to expectations.

Which makes it a shame that the night that followed was what seemed, at the time, to be a dismal flop.

In spite of being in full 40s glam hair and make-up, it turns out that I was somewhat less than perfect for the 1940s themed Swing dancing ball I went to. See, I tried to make a modern wrap dress do the job, and it simply wasn't made for dancing - or not for spinning, at any rate, becasue everytime I turned quickly, not only would the dress fly open to reveal a large expanse of leg, the ties holding the dress closed would wrap themselves around my poor unsuspecting partner. Combine that with one particularly uncoordinated guy(honestly, he was. He was worse than me - quite the achievement, generally speaking) and a fairly quick song, and you have yourself a nice little mix to keep the old guys on the sidelines fanning themselves everytime the move-challenged guy spun me around - which was a lot. I have never, ever been so glad of the little shorts (Ok, almost hot pants - on any other persont hey would be) that I normally reserve for wearing when I'm playing hockey but luckily thought to put on that night. It did, however, make a handy excuse to stop dancing for a moment and "adjust myself" to I was revealing a whole lot less!

As fun as that was, I was back in the car and on the way home by 10:30 - before the clubs on nearby Chapel St had even started to get interesting - although there were enough people out and about to raise their eyebrows at a couple of girls in 40s gear walking down the street.

The upshot of all this is the cough I'm still nursing. I'm not going to say that there's anything wrong with sounding like a 50 year smoker with emphysema - I mightthink it, however. It's more that the coughing does interfere with one's sleep so...and the redness subsequent to the coughing is awfully difficult to mask with even the best pressed powder. Not to mention what the other people in the train carriage with you of a morning think when they hear you bringing up a lung - or at the very least sounding like you're about to.

So things don't always work out how you plan them. I now have a quiet weekend planned for this one coming up. Only a couple of family functions and a whole lot of essay writing (any tips on last minute resources on either the representation of "otherness" Merchant of venice and Othello, or the works and influence of Edgar Allen Poe would be much appreciated). But who knows...maybe this weekend will exceed expectations? I'm certain it will all even out somewhere. And if nothing else, there's a miracle in the offing in the sporting world - my decidedly average hockey team looks like making it into the finals, and my football team has levered itself off the bottom of the ladder, and beat Collingwood into the bargain. What is the world coming to?

The Best Laid Plans

It's funny how things turn out. This blog, for example, was never meant to end up as a kind of diary, and yet look at it now, a regular catalogue of the things going on in my life, one way or another. Another is the birthday present of a friend. Actually, this friend has been mentioned on here quite a few times - it's theone who's getting married.

It was her birthday back in June, and she's a nightmare to shop for at the best of times. This time was even harder, since everybody was holding back a couple of good ideas to use as wedding presents later this year - also a hard ask. Another friend and I decided to band together and get her something girly and fun. Not easy. she wa so preoccupied by her wedding plans that she couldn't offer any suggestions herself, so we took that as our inspiration and created our own present - a wedding-free day. We'd take her out for a pamper session, a meal and drinks. It was all presented as a booklet that we made, giving her a choice of location (she chose local), type of night out (drinks and a boogie), variety of pampering (masssage - a good choice, since we also shout ourselves whatever she gets!) and the meal (lunch). She seemed to genuinely like the idea, once it was explained to her. Then she went off on holidays with her fiance and his family and promptly forgot all about it.

It's only this weekend that we finally get our chance to give her the present - most unlike her. Normally, she jumps at the chance to be the centre of attention, and the "no speaking about the wedding" injunction seems to be needed as well. Even though we've had to split the plans across 2 days (technically, it's still the same 24 hours, though) to work around her hectic schedule (we counted how many times we've beenable to get together without it involving family, wedding, or gym this year; we could count the times on one hand, and three of those were our own birthdays) we've all been looking forward to this since it was locked in stone 2 weeks back. I mean how often do you get to have a night out followed by pampering for a day, and no responsibilities? It's a dream, and we don't even have to go more than 10 minutes from home to do it, since the locations are all within a block of each other, and at a point that is roughly the same distance from each of our homes.

But, as the saying goes, the best laid plans can be laid to waste, and all through what seems to be an environmental issue. I'm asthmatic. No big surprises there, since almost everyone in Australia these days seems to have some kind of respiratory problem (but has anyone found out the reason why this is? Oh no, let's spend our tax dollars on a billion dollar advertising campaign to make the public forget that they hate the archaic new industrial relations laws, for example. I'm firly mild and haardly ever need to do anything about it, except take a preventer every morning. If I do that, I'm generally fine to do whatever I want, so much so that I don't really carry any medication with me anymore. So it came as a bit of a surprise today that I needed it - needed it enough to have to go out and buy some. Even bigger surprise that I wasn't the only one in this office to need it. Innocent enough in itself, and any other day, I wouldn't really mind. But tonight is not any other night. I was planning to go to a smokey pub and have a few drinks tonight, neither of which is easy when you're having breathing issues and have pumped yoruself with enough salbutamol to give you a fair dose of the shakes - it doesn't improve your chances of getting into the bar in the first place, given what the shakes can do to your coordination!

Longer term, other plans are suffering from other minor issues at the moment - clearly, issues of far less importance, as will become clear, than the fate of my night out with the girls. London - and by association, the US - is again under what the media keeps describing as a terrorist cloud, thanks to some people who thought it would be a good idea to plan to blow a few planes out of the sky over the Atlantic. There are many comments I could make about those people, but I think I'll refrain, since it does nobody any good to pass comment on the beliefs of others - you'll never convince them to think otherwise, generally speaking, and neither will they convince you. The upshot is that people are now unable to take carry-on luggage on flights out of Heathrow, unless it is their passport and ticket, in a clear plastic bag. Given the tiny amounts of whatever the substance was that the media say was required to make a bomb, You have to wonder if that's going to be quite as effective as they'd hoped. Whatever, it has messed with at least one of my plans in a big way. I have a large - alright, very large, enormous, could-fit-me-in-it size - case to take when I go on my big trip. I'm looking at having to pay an excessive amount of excess baggage just to be allowed on the plane. That amount has just increased fivefold, since I had planned to take things that are easily broken (and also quite heavy) on the plane as carry-on. Things you wouldn't want in your checked baggage like, oh, I don't know, a laptop, a book to read on the TWENTY THREE HOUR flight...and apart from that, any other items I might need in the course of the next 2 years that I won't be able to fit into the 20kg limit - which I'm tipping will be quite a lot. And now these terrorists have to go and spoil it all...I might just indulge in conspiracy theories here - or rather tales of dire coincidences. You see, my first solo overseas trip landed in London on October 5 2001 - within a month of September 11. My second trip to the UK was only a little more after the tube/bus bombings. I'd commented only Tuesday (Wednesday?) night that it was about the right time for something to happen in the terrorist way, since I was heading overseas again soon. And now, here we are...spooky, huh! It seems that there is a giant conspiracy to either keep me out of the UK (not going to happen, I'm afraid. I love it too much over there) or make sure that I never have to line up for any attraction (yes, that's right, I'm one of the few people to turn up at the Eiffel Tower at about 2pm and not have to queue AT ALL - I just walked straight up to a ticket window. Similar experiences all through Europe and the UK.) - or alternatively, it's jsut a way of making sure I can't smuggle in all the jars of vegemite and packets of tim tams and iced vo-vos destined to be traded for couch space once in London. I'm sure that's what it's all about. And once again, thebest laid plans...

In Search of Filthy Lucre

People might have noticed some themes in the posts here, if they've been reading them regularly (has anybody except the people prodded into it by me read this regularly? If you're out there, please let me know!). One of the recurring thoughts is my lack of money - while i have no shortage of either debt, or other ways to spend cash in a hurry.

Well, I've discovered the internet as a way of making money. It is with that in mind that I now have Google AdSense ads on this page. I'm not going to ask people to click on them for my sake - that would only get me in trouble with the every so lovely people at Google, not something I'm wanting to do. I'm simply going to explain how they got there in the first place. This is a no-names no-pack-drill type of exercise, so the only thing I can say with absolute honesty and clarity is that I am not talking about myself in the following story. This isn't one of those "my 'friend' " stype stories. And now that I've got all the disclaimers out of the way, on with the show (which may prove to be a bad way to lead into this particular story...).

Let's just say, I have a friend. I have several, actually, but we're talking about a specific one here, not just the generic 'friend'. She's come upon harder times than I have, to the extent that she needs to find $2000 in a hurry - within the next 2 weeks, in fact - or she won't have anywhere to live. She's getting desperate for ideas and is heartened by the idea that her cousin has just announced to the family that she works as a stripper while she finishes her medicine studies - there are many crude jokes here that could be made, but I'm trying to resist the temptation to mention anatomy lessons. Apparently, the cousin has been encouraging her to take up the craft as well, promising her that there's no touching, fantastic money, and that the places look after their girls. I don't doubt any of that, but I've spent the whole day sending her messages and alternative suggestions for how to make the money in the sort of time frame she's looking at, or alterntive arrangements that give her a bit more time to get it together. Don't get me wrong; I'm certain that there are perfectly respectable women who work in strip clubs for a living. I've heard that it's a not uncommon way to support yourself while at uni, although I've never known anyone who admitted to it. So I've encouraged her (I can't even give her a nickname here, since I promised her not to tell anyone. Does this count?) to look at every alternative before acting, and tried coming up with a few myself.

In the process, I kind of evaluated a few of my own financial decisions that have led me to my present get-cash-anyway-that's-legal-and-lets-me-keep-my-clothes-on state of mind. I've signed up to do surveys, I've auditioned to go on gameshows - unsuccessfully, incidentally. I answered enough questions right to get onto Temptation, but it appears I wasn't "quirky" enough for them at the moment. Not bitter at missed oportunity to get stuff for knowing useless crap simply because I wasn't willing to come up with a goofy style of buzzer pushing on a smart people quiz. Not bitter at all. Huh! I say to their casting people! Huh! And on top of that I'm selling various bits of old tat on ebay. Anything to make sure that I never, NEVER end up in a situation where I'm seriously willing to consider taking my clothes off for money as a serious option - if only because I'm fairly certain that there are far more people out there who'll pay me to keep them on.

So, in the name of selfish self-promotion, yes, I'm in search of ways and means to get my website out there...spread the word peoples!!! (And yes, that s was deliberate. I'm certain there's more than one of you out there, I have faith!) Help me to keep my clothes on - and those of my friends!

Navel gazing

There is a certain amount of self-absorption required to write a blog, it seems - and yes, this is going to be another post about a foray into the blogosphere. It's not just that you seem required to give more thought than most people wuld contemplate to tiny details of your life to create a post (well, not so much HAVE to as choose to, if regular posts are needed. OK, wanted), it's also the fact that, in all honesty, inputting your thoughts, feelings, actions, reactions, whatever out there, there's a kind of expectation that someone will care enough to read it. Yes, I started this particular blog out of sheer boredom and, admittedly, that's part of the reason why I keep posting so regularly, but part of the attraction of the idea is the thought that, somewhere, out there, someone (other than you Ralphie, sorry) will find this blog and decide that it's worth reading - not just once, but worth coming back to. Of course, if that person happens to be a publisher willing to take a punt on a person who can barely write a sentence without typos, let alone have an attention span long enough to write anything longer, even better - anything to get me out of my current task of designing a car park layout for a soccer field.

So, with that knowledge, be prepared for something of a bombshell.

Yes, my life is being put out there to a certain extent, even if it is a bit anonymous. And there has been a fairly large amount of navel gazing involved in putting those posts together, mulling over the advantages of writing about my love of all things red, as against my anger at some injustice in the world (the red won, of course. Far more interesting than the fact that the world is in a complete mess - everyone knows that! Ooh, and incidentally, Nad, you remember the night I predicted that red was going to be huge a few months back, and how much I wanted a pair of red shoes, and you laughed at me? Well, the pair of gleaming shiny red patent leather peep toe wedges I saw in Myer on the weekend says I was right...). None of that is terribly surprising though, and certainly not worthy of the title of bombshell. No, my confession is much darker than that.

Not everything on this blog is the entire truth.

There, it's out there. There are lashings of truth in here, yes. My Mum did get an 80 cent tax cut from the last federal budget. Yes, I do, really, REALLY like red at the moment. But while it is mostly true, I also use that old tool, exaggeration. For example, I like to make out like I lead an exciting, party-going lifestyle. Sorry, to disillusion anyone here, but unfortunately, my life is not that exciting. Why else do you think I wrote about the morning routine of train girl? Equally sadly, I don't hate my job as much as I sometimes claim - I think I would have fallen asleep long ago if I really did hate it that much. That's not to say that I like exchanging emails four times a day with a guy working for the council because I foolishly left a couple of trees showing in the car park layout I'm working on right now - or rather, supposed to be working - but there are moments when being in architecture - and I hate to say this, but there's nothing else for it - it rocks. To see something built that you had a hand in might seem boring and mundane, but trust me, it's a bit of a buzz. On the flip side though, to see something that you designed, that looked delicate and beautiful when you handed the design over the council hacked and turned into something that looks like a children's carousel is a soul destroying experience. So yes, I do engage with my work far more than it would seem from what I write about it. That said, if someone was to offer me a bt of casht o do something else, just try and stop me. Studying architecture has already done its bit for changing how I view the world. I think it's time I was able to go on holidays without coming back with hundreds of photos of buildings, or construction details - visiting the cathedral being built in Barcelona (La Sagrada Famiglia, sorry about the spelling issues, I can never get it right) was a revelation worthy of the entire 8 weeks living on a shoestring by itself. But enough already.

So no, not everything I say is the exact truth, if I decide to be perfectly honest for once. It's a stab in the vague direction of true but really, who would want to read the thoughts of the person who spent last weekend curled up on the couch at her parents couch (because yes, she is in her mid-twenties, but has yet to leave home for many reasons)? Not me, that's for sure...

Monday Strikes Back

The Evil Empire that is Monday has struck again. Not satisfied with plunging the temperature so low this morning that my windows on my car were iced over thick enough to take a good few minutes of blasting with heat from the inside and pouring water from the outside, Monday has continued to strike over and over today. Somehow I managed to drop five minutes between going into the bathroom and getting into my car, which meant I should have missed my train. It was one of those things, I guess. Time vanishes into the ether, without explaining itself before it goes.

Imagine my surprise then to get to the station and see the platform still crowded with people. Seems my car wasn't the only piece of machinery struck by iciness this morning. Apparently, the train network was also suffering - or it was on my line, at least. Two trains were cancelled in a row apparently - the one I normally catch and the one before it. Seems that the trains were in such a bad way the Connex were forced to resurrect one of the old trains, that's about twice as old as I am, in order to have any train come through about half an hour after the last service to run normally. I don't agree with the fellow traveller who called it "inhumane" to cram us into that old rattler, but I do think that there should have been a solution. I'm guessing anyone at the many stations after mine wished for some alternative as well. I was crammed into the standing room, and I get on at the fifth station on the line, and ride for half an hour from there to get to the city. There were many disappointed faces outside the train as we moved through the stations.

But Monday still had worse in store for me this morning.

I was dying of tiredness and thirst by the time I finally made it into work, havng stood for another 15 minutes waiting for a tram, only to have to cram into one without any seats left, or be even more late for work than I already was - another half hour or so on my feet. So, naturally, I needed a trip to the shops for a drink not long after I got here. There are perks to working in this area. there are a lot of coffee shops, and pretty boys in suits who go to said coffee shops at certain times of day. It's almost enough to make me get up early enough to try and look pretty for work - but no, not quite; I like my sleep too much for that. So off to the coffee shop I trekked with our lovely receptionist. We normally go at about 10:30 lately. Ever since we discovered the existence of someone we now call "Open neck guy". No, his neck doesn't open. He was wearing an open necked shirt the first time we saw him, and no viewings since then have been able to break the name. But the thirst inflicted on me this Monday was too early. Not only was there no open neck guy, there were no suits there either. And I don't even drink coffee, so i had to trek into another shop for the required burst of caffeine and sugar in the form of a coke bottle.

But Monday still wasn't done.

I once worked in an office which was the architectural equivalent of the United Nations. The boss was an Englishman by choice, if not by birth; there was a Malaysian, an Italian (who has since married an American and moved to Korea), a half-greek half-irish Australian, a south Australian (technically Australian, I know, but everybody except the Tasmanians would probably dispute the fact), a pole and me, the token local. It came as something of a shock to me to find the ever-chatty pole coming into this office today to be interviewed for a job, which she got. I was asked about her - which I hated, since I wanted neither to tell the truth about what i thoughtof working with her again, nor to destroy her hopes, since I know she supports her family - and she has been offered the job. So I'll have her back in the same office as me again. Not something I'm overly thrilled about to be honest. It's something that could only happen on a Monday.

So it's with understandable trepidation that I face this afternoon and wish, whole heartedly, that the day was over. If only Monday could pass as a half day, easing into the week in a way that would be far less painful, I'm sure I could bear it. But until such time as someone is foolish enough to pay me money to set my own hours, I'm stuck working for "the man" - two of them, in fact - and putting in the hours that he (or in this case they)demand. Monday, bloody Monday.

Katie - for Ralphie

For the past (insert disturbingly large length of time in here) I've been working on - well, I'm not quite sure what to call it to be honest. Like all aspiring writers, i tend to think of whatever I'm working on at the time as a novel, but I'm not sure that the six chapters of waffle so far written would really qualify for that description. One thing's for certain - there is at least one friend who is getting very impatient for the next installment in the life of Katie Barnes.

So Ralphie, just for you, here goes...for anyone else, I truly apologise for jumping in at the middle like this. In fact, I just apologise in general for what is to follow.

Standing nervously in the corner, Katie looked at her watch again. She didn't have long to get from the party to be sitting on her father's couch when the football started. She knew from past experience that if she was late, she wouldn't get let in until quarter time. Nick might have loved his daughters, but he hated to be interupted during a football match. But that aside, her general was running late. And it was his own party. The crowd of familliar and unfamilliar faces continued to shift around her. Out on the dance floor Emily was in the process of ebarassing herself - her favourite party past-time. Distracted by the movement, she didn't notice when someone spotted her from across the room and bagan to make his way towards her.

"Katie, you told me fibs," accused Wasim. Katie jumped around and smiled inspite of the lemonade now dripping down the front of her dress.

"Not nearly as big a lie as you told me," she joked. "And if you don't like the surprise, I can go?" She smiled again when Wasim shook his head in a happy no.

"Hmm, I didn't think you'd say that. I can't stay long though. I really do have to go to Daddy tonight. I can't leave him alone all night."

Wasim sighed, long used to the idea that, whatever anyone told her otherwise, Katie would always be happiest curled up on a couch somewhere, whether she had a book with her or the football on the television. He remembered the struggles he used to have to get her out on a Saturday night, and wondered what could be so important that she'd be out tonight. It might have been a party to celebrate his wedding, but he was under no illusions about her priorities.

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked her.

"What, I can't jsut turn up at a friend's wedding celebrations?" Wasim raised an eyebrow.

"OK," she confessed. "I need your help on something. I declared war on Meredith."

Katie should have known better than to just spill information that large. Wasim's face told the story of his shock at the idea that Katie would even think of taking on her mother. His face fell even further with the realisation that she wanted his help to do it. Katie explained the situation, feeling that she owed it to him to expand on her reasons and to let him know just how awful Meredith truly was - how much worse than any of them had ever thought possible, that she'd been living a lie propped up by blackmail for the whole of Katie's life.

"Jack told me to get as much information as I can. But I don't know what to do with it," she finished. Wasim knew exactly what he wanted to do with such explosive information as she was bound to find - run away from it, as far and as fast as he could. He knew, however, that he couldn't run away from a fight like this.

"OK, Kat. I'll help. I know someone you need to talk to. But go, find your information,then come back to me. I'll set it all up." A light of mischief came into his eyes. "Actually, this could be interesting."

Katie hugged him, and moved towards the door, waving to Emily on her way out. A quick thumbs up to her friend, and she was gone, on her way on her first information gathering mission.

* * * *

So there it is...probably the scrappiest bit of writing I've done in a long time, thanks to the idea of actually having to do some work sometime today (although taht idea wasn't helped along by beer o'clock striking the office at about 2pm this afternoon...or the attack of the munchies that hit at about 4...). Comments? Thoughts? Opinions? Wish for more? Wish that Katie and her friends would land at the bottom of a very deep hole and never climb their way back out? I'm open to ideas!

Green with envy and blue with cold

OK, for all the northern hemisphere people out there...we know it is now officially hot everywhere. I'm understanding that. However...I have to say that, since my fingers are currently blue from being foolish enough to use a tap in the bahtroom and NOT waiting to required 15 minutes for the water to get above the freezing point, I see no need for rubbing in the warmth and sunny-ness that is the heat wave sweeping the northern part of the world right now, like in this blog, the cupcake tent

It's especially harsh when I'm not going to be seeing any sun until next April...So please, people, think of the poor pasty sun-deprived Australians out there before writing about how stinking hot you are...

History never repeats - or does it?

You've got to hand it to the Australian government for sheer ingenuity, and for the wide-ranging research they clearly do to find solutions to percieved problems. In the latest bid to control the touchy issue of border security, the idea of a floating asylum centre has been - and I hate to say this, but feel I have to - floated. Yes, that's right. Not content with processing those who arrive here illegally in off-shore centres on nearby islands like Nauru, it has been decided that these people don't even deserve to arrive on land, instead shunted straight to a mobile, floating dentention centre. Clearly, the federal government have turned to 18th century England for inspiration on how to treat a mass of desperate people, many of them pitifully poor - especially when compared with the people who are telling them they can't come here.

The floating detention centre is intended to limit the back-tracking required by boats that are rounding up the boat-people and illegal fishermen poaching in Australian waters. Where once they would have been taken to a northern Australian port, or to Nauru or Christmas Islands as part of the "Pacific Solution" (the name of the enormously costly program of keeping people from Australia unless they are willing to work for peanuts in factory jobs that the locals are apparently considered unqualified for - but I digress nto other controversial waters), the proposal would see them off-loaded onto a boat. Civilian tenders have been called for to supply the boat.

Can anybody else say "prison hulks"? Because that's what I'm thinking.

A little history lesson might not go astray here, for those people who never read any of Colleen McCullough's book Morgan's Run, or Dickens' Great Expectations (not to mention any o the many texts written about the convict transportation era). Not too long after America declared its independence, and therefore stopped being a dumping ground for the flotsam and jetsom of English society, a decision was reached to relieve the overcrowding in jails by putting some old ships to a new use, anchored in a river, housing prisoners until such time as they could be shipped off to that other great big prison, Australia (OK, I know,I've taken quite a few liberties with this version of history.I know the hulks were around before Australia was even considered as the new dumping ground for convicts. I know lots of things that don't get included here. This is an overview. Anyone wanting more information is refered to Google or Wikipedia for much more accurate impressions of prison hulks and transportation.) Sure, this version won't be anchored in the Thames like the original hulks were, and I'm sure we won't be hearing any horror stories about disease and over-crowding (although that doesn't mean it won't be happening, just that we won't hear about it). It seems to me that, after looking to the 1950s for inspiration for so long, the goverment has finally moved past that era. Well past it, in fact, and have found the ideal solution to dealing with large numbers of unwanted people who have somehow transgressed - mostly by wanting something better for themselves and their families.

That's right. Put them in a boat, and nobody really needs to care about them for years at a time. They've one-upped the 18th century English with this plan though, the the boats they're talking about now aren't dis-masted naval vessels anchored in the Thames where the stench was apparently appalling. Instead, this incarnation combines the best elements of the transportation system with the hulks - civilian contractors (in the original version this offered a handy opportunity for those who were finding the slave trade umprofitable to have government sanction for the moving of large numbers of people with little or no sanitary precautions and even less food) supply the vessel, and by keeping it far offshore (for the convenience of the navyand customs officials, obviously) asylum seekers get taken right out of the media spotlight to be treated as they so clearly deserve - locked up in conditions in breach of humanitarian regulations for years, left to rot, before being shipped back to countries that, for whatever reason, are unable to provide healthy living conditions.

So hats off to the Australian government for proving, once and for all, that a democratically elected government can embarass so many of it's own people. And apologies to anyone who thought that I was going to be able to keep my own, decidedly leftist leanings completely out of the equation when maintaining a blog...

Of Mice and Men...(or chocolate and fried foods, at any rate)

There are rules that govern the universe, and they all seem to be coming to bite me at the moment. The latest one is the rule that says as soon as you aren't allowed to have something - and it can be anything at all - straight away that's a thing that you want. Desperately. More than life itself. And there are so many things in the world that fall into this category for me, that I thought I'd indulge myself in a little materialism and go through a few of them, in the hope that there will be some relief from the wanting that seems to take up not only my time (like my love of reda for example. And I'm hoping like crazy that the link comes out on that properly, because I've never tried one of them before, and I have no idea what I'm doing. But that's another thing I'm quite often wanting - a clue.)

So, here goes.

I'm not allowing myself to eat junk food at the moment. This comes out of the sudden realisation that it's a little over 2 months until I'm going to be immortalised on film at my friend's wedding. Given that it's my brother doing the photography, I have very little faith in him wanting to catch me from a good angle. And then there's the fact that the bridesmaid dresses, lovely as they are, are satin. Teal satin. Not necessarily the most flattering look for anyone above the miniscule-can-fit-into-the-clothes-of-a-small-child size that one of the other bridesmaids is. The catch is, as good as this resolution may be for the wedding photos, it simply isn't good for my mental state. I work in an office that is basically above not just one, but two take away food outlets, next door to a chinese takeaway, and up the road from a whole host of other junk food suppliers. They have been, if not my firends, certainly my comfort on days like today, when I have the feeling that a cold is about to descend on me in full force and I crave chocolate or, more particularly, donuts or potato cakes. None of the others in the office are under the no-junk-food injunction, so they're free to bring in whatever they choose. And bring they do. This morning we've had chips, potato cakes, battered savs, dim sims, donuts and coffee scrolls moving through the office. There's only 10 people who work here. And five of them are in a room next door. This is an office that loves junk food, make no mistake. And it is torture - kind of like chinese water torture, actually, where you get pinned down and forced to listen - in this case smell - but can't do anything about it. It is a serious test of my will power. And the most miraculous discovery of the week is that I actually have some. The clostest I have cme to caving in was the desperate need for caffiene that could only be satisifed by fizzy drink, since I drink neither tea nor coffee. But I was good. I went the Zero otpion, no matter how loudly and seductively the sugar-packed alternative called my name. And it was certainly yelling fit to burst as I closed that fridge door.

YEs, it's indulgent to sit here and rant about how much I hate having to denymyself these luxuries. I know. There are people starving in the world. Some of them are probably jsut down the road from me,in fact, being housed in a shelter not far from here. Believe me, I know this. Knowing it, and stopping myself from the wanting, and the whining, are completely separate issues, however. So, until they decide that the delights of the take away food outlet are to be shared equally throughout the world (and the coinciding concern about the expansion of waist lines is also shared in a more equitable fashion), I'll keep on with the wanting - and probably the whining at the people who make the wanting that much harder to bear. It's another one of the rules. Life isn't fair. If it was, I'd be able to have my cake and eat it too. And then be able to walk down the aisle in front of my friend without any concerns about popping a seam or falling out of my dress. No, life is most definately not fair.

And the rest of that epic....

In a moment of inspiration (OK,I confess - it was extreme boredom) I started clicking the Next Blog button that I noticed up there on the right. I've clicked almost of all of those buttons at various times. What can I say - put a button there, someone's going to push it. That the someone was me should surprise nobody. So I pushed it. And then I pushed it again; and again. And I found that there are some interesting - and potentially scary things out there, and that they can come in amusing sequences.

One thing I did notice, however, was just how many blogs there are that are dvoted to documenting the life and times of people who cannot - or might not even want to - document their own. The blogoshpere is full of proud parents. Which set me thinking (since i wasn't thinking of work, I had to have something to fill the space...CAD drawings make an interesting backdrop to websites, but they don't distract you nearly as much as they should...) Somewhere out there, in 20 years or so, there are going to be a whole lot of kids having 21st birthday parties and, instead of the traditional photo board,they'll be getting a whole other type of memory celebration. So howwould my life have looked on a blog, way back in 1980? Probably not nearly as interesting as it does from here, to tell the truth - although it would have had a killer soundtrack and some dance moves that would have everybody out on the floor. That everyone would be rolling around on the floor laughing at the same moves would be beside the point.

So how would it feel to have a permanent record of growing up, all your most embarassing stories where anyone could get at them? And that photo of you and your brother/sister in the bath together that you thought you could bury forver getting out into the world? No thanks. One of the things I loved about my own 21st birthday was that there was nobody there with any embarassing stories (OK, tehy had the stories, but most of them had something to be ashamed of within thier own closet that I could drag out for a square up). I managed to dodge the speeches, the awkward clash of family and friends. And yet...Somehow, my own 21st wasn't nearly as good as some of the others I went to. In fact, I enjoyed two parties of three or four others far better than I enjoyed my own. And that was knowing in advance that there weren't too many skeletons coming out to haunt me.

So maybe all those parties will be better than my own was. Or maybe, just maybe, there'll be a whole generation of kids scarred by the knowledge that, somewhere in cyberspace, there's a record floating around of all the times they called their teacher "Mum" by mistake, of every step, every word, every deed. And that, if people are willing to sift through the endless political rants - and there were plenty of them, too - to find the site, their life is laid out for all to see. Or maybe they'll just see it for what it seems to me - an expression of parents' wonder at the little person suddenly in their lives. That the expression is quite often sickly sweet will only affect the other people who happen to stumble across it. Who am I kidding? How many kids would think that way????

Think about what this is doing to poor defenceless people! Their life online! Forever! So I take a moment and be grateful that I grew up before the digital age. Back in the 80s, when Pacman was considered cool, and computer screens were all green text with a black/brown background.

The God of Small Things - and epic posts

Another weekend gone. They seem to evaporate at the moment. One moment, you're looking at a lovely deep pond of relaxing free time with the sun shining - as it most kindly was on the weekend - and the next, its all dried up and the only thing left is the hope that is rains during the week to fill it all up again. And somehow, you know its gone, but you can't for the life of you think how on earth it went so quickly. Because it does. It rockets by. Most of my Monday mornings alone seem to take five times as long as my entire weekend. I can only think that its becasue, instead of sitting wishing I was anywhere else like I do every Monday morning, I spend the weekend moving from small thing to small thing - or occasionally, running through something a touch larger.

Take this weekend just gone.

It started off well enough, in spite of yet another train missed by inches on my way home from the city and the mother of all traffic jams on the tram lines leading up St Kilda Road - what's the plural for trams? Flock of sheep, gaggle of geese, glut of trams? and why is there never one when I'm running late in the mornings? Questions for the ages - with a dinner at a great Indian restaurant. I admit, it didn't live up to the home cooking I've had at a friend's place, but nothing ever does compare with home cooked food.

Running around after that making movies of the places we used to hang out to send to a homesick friend in the States was one of the more fun things I've done in a while. It was worth freezing in the bitter wind to see the looks on the little 18 year olds who go to the places now as we walked around outside, too tight to fork out the cash to get inside the places. The fact that they were wearing those tiny shorts that all the little girlies seem to wear at the moment (hello to my mother's voice coming through there, too), with even tinier singlet tops, the boys ogling them had t-shirts and goose bumps, while we were rugged up with coats, boots and scarves might have been part of the look. In fact, the only people with more wintery clothes than us were the security guys, and they were looking at us like we were terrorists there to scope their manky little club. Yes, we've moved onwards and upwards - we headed to a much quieter manky little pub instead afterwards, with llive acoustic music, instead of plugged in and pumped up bass.

Saturday saw my hockey team return to form. The 4-0 thumping was bad enough; it sounds even worse to hear that the score was nil-all at half time. So I won't say it. Instead, I'll move on to th joy that was Saturday night. There's a bit of a tradition in my family over the past few years. I'f I'm not going out, I'll go and sit on the couch with my dad to watch the Bombers play when it's a night match. And play they did. I probably should put this in some context. During the 2000 season, my team had what was arguably the best season. Ever. They equalled winning records that stretched back to the season before. They only lost one match in the season. They were all conquering. This year, they've equalled their worst ever losing streak. 15 weeks without a win, and with only a draw against the much-hated rival for this year's wooden spoon, Carlton. Their other win was way back in round 1 on April Fools Day - against the defending premiers, no less. So there wasn't a lot of optimism in our house when Mum retreated from the tension of the game. (Or maybe it was more the yelling at the TV screen. It wasn't me. I promise. It was all Dad. There is no genetic tendency to yell during football matches that goes through at least 3 generations of my family. Honest.) So imagine our surprise when they won. And it wasn't just our own happiness - although we were pointing and laughing at various points whent here were skills on show we were certain had disappeared forever. It was a sheer joy on the faces of the players as well, as if they couldn't quite believe their luck either.

So, even though the next day was spent chasing around small details of invitations for a hen's night, or sourcing material for wraps t match the bridesmaid dresses, and my hockey team had slipped that little bit further out of touch with the finals this year, there was plenty of reason to smile. The bombers had put Brisbane out of football finals contention and Carlton was back in thier box on the bottom of the AFL ladder. All's well in the world.

Something old, something new

One of my very good friends is getting married in October. She also happens to be my cousin, so I'm involved on a lot of levels. Not nearly as many as she is, but there's plenty to keep me busy on the day. She's kept all of us entertained watching her try to juggle the many balls involved in organising the day. Occasionally, she lets one slip, and nobody laughs harder than she does when it happens. Like when she called up one of the bridesmaids to come out on the first trip to try and find dresses. Catch was,she hadn't asked the girl to be her bridesmaid yet. My own invitation was similar; I wasn't so much asked as told I was going to be one. When we went for a dress fitting a few weeks back, it came out that I was supposed to know I was maid of honour. Apparently all the others knew, it had just slipped her mind to mention it to me. She's changed the date of the hen's night twice, without seeming to realise that she has. Only the crossings out in my diary mark the changes. But I can understand how it happens. Her life is a balancing beam, and she and her fiance walk a fine line between thenir families, trying to see each group of parents as much as the other, fit in time for each other, and plan a wedding on top of that. Right now, friends aren't high on the list, and we understand that. We're giving her a day away from wedding talk as a birthday present - massage, lunch, and a night out on the town with the girls, something we haven't done in an age with her. Only catch is, she's so busy that we've had to shcedule it across two nights in mid-August. Her birthday was in June.

Somehow, our worlds keep accelerating. I'm going away the week after her wedding. The last time I see her before I go will be at the airport at about 4am the day after her wedding as she takes off on her honeymoon. It makes me sad to think that by the time I come back, she'll be living the full married life, and I'm going to miss the easy coming and going we've had for our whole lives. We'll always be friends, but nothing will ever be the same after she moves in with her husband. It sounds jealous, I know, but its not (entirely). I wouldn't want her life. But at the same time, the changes that are coming are huge - the biggest either of us has faced so far, I think. That we'll be at opposite ends of the world will just add to the challenges. And, I'm thinking, the phone bill.

The Biggest Yawn Ever

It's a slow afternoon here today, so I'm tempted to post again. Sadly, I'm giving in to that temptation, obviously. Given that even a brisk walk up a lovely boulevard in Winter sunshine didn't manage to kickstart my day, I'm hoping that this will. So, as I struggle through the biggest yawn of a day ever, I'll try not to fall asleep at the keyboard and get through without putting anyone else to sleep either.

It's a pay day today - one of the good things about it. It's lucky for me that it is, though. Somehow, I'm not so great with the whole concept of budgeting. I'm sticking to the budget, up to a point, but that doesn't mean it's working out for me. Let me explain. I earn a certain amount - no, I'm not planning to put down the pitifully small amount that my 7 years of study nets me. Let's just say that the architecture profession needs a union. Now - and that amount goes straight into my bank account each week. It stays there for about half an hour every week. THat's it. By tomorrow, it will all be gone, redistributed to various points around town. There's the bit that goes to pay for my car (ooh, and if anyone knows someone who wants a nice, low milage, well-looked fter blue 2003 astra? Let me know. It's for sale soon!); there's a chunk that goes straight to my credit card; another whack goes into my ever-shrinking savings account. I'm left with a pittance, a tiny fraction of the total amount on which to live. And I promise you, no matter how much it is, byt Wednesday morning, there will be none of it left. I live through Wednesday without a cent to my name - or to my purse, at any rate - and try very hard to avoid the cravings for anything that involves spending money.

Given the whole must-work-for-money tenor of my life right now, the cravings come in the shape of longings for junk food. Chocolates, chips, potato cakes, dims sims, coke - hell, iced tea seems pretty attractive right at this minute. That makes it doubly hard when one of the guys in here taunts me with the food he's going to be buying for afternoon tea. He has, generously, offered me a dollar, before going through his own options: cheesecake, battered savs, ice creams, deep fried mars bars (notice the theme of foods involving amounts of fat I'd normally shudder to think of but today, simply because I know I can't possibly have them, want desperately). Perhaps the worst part is knowing that, if the boot - or the cash - were on the other foot, I'd do exactly the same thing to him. But until I get home and get my money out tonight, all I can do is rub in how many years of the torture that is an architecture degree he has left. With 18 months to go, I figure I've got bragging rights for the moment. Because, as he so eloquently puts it, singing a happy tune, "Uni sucks. It really, really, really sucks."

To adventure or not to adventure...

I'm the first to admit that the title of this blog is a little optimistic. I'm not a person who has a lot of adventures. Anyone who knows me will agree with that, I think. And no, the 12 hour oddyssey that was my outing around town on Friday night doesn't count, if only because I was officially asleep for the last four hours of it.

I never hear gossip first - a recent example being me congratulating a friend on his engagement when I turned up somewhere late, only to find that he'd been dumped by his fiance and told everyone else before I got there. At the moment, I don't go anywhere, because I'm trying to save like crazy (and going a little nuts as a result, because I'm sure my bank balance should be growing, but no...its somehow managed to shrink instead. My credit card debt, on the other hand, continues to grow - how? I'm not going near shops!!! I'm paying it off!!! I'm not even carrying the cards with me anymore!!! Yet still it grows, in one of the mysteries that will always be too much for me to understand).

TOday, however, marked a step closer to the adventures I know are waiting out there for me. I have a visa to work in the UK. True, its only a working holiday visa, a poor second (maybe even fifth) cousin to the ancestry visas so many Aussies seem to qualify for, but it will let me stay there longer than the two weeks that's been my record so far before running out of cash. (Yes, it's a recurring theme. I know. But to do things, I need money. I spent 7 years as a poor uni student, and now I've got to pay back the government for the paltry sum they loaned me to do it. I'm thinking if I work until my 87th birthday I should almost get there.) The point is that the adventure is so much closer. In under 10 weeks, I'll be wrapping up my work life here. Two weeks after that, and I'll be landing at Heathrow and finding my way to the couch of some friends until I have a job of my very own to support my shopping habit. Suddenly, it all seems more real to me. The lists I've been making of things I need to organise are getting whittled down, and the count downs I've been running since I bought my ticket way back at the start of February have finally made it into double digits. Things are starting to happen.

Now the only question is, will I have the nerve to get on the plane and leave almost everyone I know behind for two years like I plan? There's so much of the world that I want to see, but so many adventures that I know I'm too chicken to do on my own. So, to adventure or not to adventure, that is the question. I think I answer "To adventure!" and, in the spirit of that, feel compelled to down a shot of something harsh and alcoholic that makes my face contort into an unattractive grimace. Cheers all round.

That time of the week

There's something special about certain times of the week. The point at about 8 on a Sunday morning when you realise that there's nothing stopping you from going back to sleep (although this time of morning quite often passes without the smile it deserves when the Saturday night has ended much closer to sunrise than it ought to at my age...). The time on Saturday - whenever it may be - when you meet up with your friends to head out where ever you might be going. Christmas, any time of day. Midnight on New Years Eve. And to this list, I'd like to add 5:30 on a Friday afternoon - especially Fridays.

It's the point where there is no more work to be done for the week (and anyone who's seen how often I post has probably worked out how much I celebrate that moment). The weekend still stretches out in front of you, and whole 2 days for you to do whatever you want (OK, that's not necessarily true, but you've got more say than other days of the week), and no reason to come into the office in the morning. Even leaving my car keys, house keys, credit cards and diary sitting in a bag on my desk when I dashed out of the office at about 5:28 last week wasn't enough to drag me bag to the office, so I survived the weekend without shopping, probably a good thing actually, and used my spare keys to get around. Anything rather than going back to the office! Felt a bit guilty about it on Monday when I found that the guys in the office had waited around in case I came back after they couldn't find my phone number to get in touch with me. I did feel guilty about that, sure. But I'm still going to be running out of here at about the same time tonight. The only difference is that I've told them I'm leaving a bag here deliberately so I don't have to carry it around to various bars tonight when I catch up with a friend straight from work. That way, there's no guilt on Monday. Because, as everybody knows, Monday is enough to deal with all on its own!

A Train Odyssey

There's a girl - woman, rather - who I see on the train almost every morning. She both fascinates and annoys me. It's not that she's strange to look at, or, like some other public transport users, mutters (or worse yells). She's not one of the people who listen to ipods so loud people at the other end of the carriage could sing along if they felt like it. (I don't mind this when the person has my taste in music, anyway. If they don't, I just put in my own headphones and turn up the volume, so I can't really complain about other people doing the same. Doesn't always stop me though) But this woman seems to be completely ordinary when she walks into the carriage and, like this morning, sits herself down in one of the last vacant seats. I'd be interested to see how she gets on when there aren't any spare seats, but so far she seems to have had the magic touch in that way. I've never seen her have to stand. That in itself should be enough to get me interested. I get on three stations earlier, and I occasionally have to stand all the way to the city, so how she manages is beyond me. That's not what draws the eye, however.

She has a routine.

It begins when she sits down and strips off her sheepskin coat. Then she reaches for her handbag - not the tote that she also carries, but the small Gucci handbag that most women would use for their money, maybe a lipstick, their phone. But notthis woman. She uses this gorgeous little designer bag as a make up purse. Out comes foundation, compact, mascara, eye shadow, blush, lipstick, lip liner, powder, moisturizer - in short, a full kit. She sits and gives herself a full make over on a wobbling train, balancing the small jars, trays, palettes,and tubes on her lap, applying with her left had, and holding a small mirror in her right. It's quite a performance, and one that I know I could never manage successfully. As someone who rarely wears make up during the day, and never to work unless I'm having a really bad skin day (or, like today, I have some sort of mark, be it bruise or cold sore, to hide), I'm fascinated to watch this woman when I'm sitting near, but not next to her. Its only when I'm next to her that I find it annoying, and that could be as much from knowing how I look in the morning (does the expression death warmed up mean anything here? Or maybe, given the uncontrolled - and uncontrollable - state of my hair most mornings, a hag would be a better description. Either way, it isn't pretty) as from the fact that her coat bunches between her and whoever she sits next to.

The thing that really gets me, though, is that this happens every morning. There is always someone on the train putting the finishing touches to their outfit, whether it's a guy in a suit doing his tie, or a woman pulling her hair into a ponytail. Generally, they do it because they were running late that morning, and didn't have time to do it at home. Some tend to feel that its almost rude to leave the house without being perfectly presented. Not this woman, who clearly plans the time on the train to finish getting herself ready.

I guess what really annoy me, is that I can't work out if its genius or insanity. Is it insane to turn a train carriage into an extension of your bathroom or your bedroom? Or is it genius to snatch a few extra minutes of sleep, putting to use time when you'd probably be staring at the newspaper of the person sitting opposite? The chance that it could be a little of each drives me so insane that I get twitchy when I hear her polite "Excuse me" as she climbs into the seat beside me. So maybe, given how much better it is to sit next to her than the loud obnoxious swearing school kids who sprawl across four seats each, the problem is with me? Maybe, just maybe, I'm really jealous that there's nothing I can take out of my own morning routine and do on the train.