Slow burn

You'd think my flatmates, at least, the primary victims of my recent moodiness, would have learnt not to annoy me by now. You'd also think that they'd have learned to leave work before 7 on a Friday night for their own sanity, as well. But no, it turns out that Flatmate L has taken her workaholism to a whole new level, and managed to set a match to my fuse into the bargain.

I'm not that into work. We have established this. That said, I felt at least a little better about the fact that I didn't hit today's deadline, knowing that I had put in a solid couple of hours overtime in the attempt. I'd worked as many hours in the week as I would have before our hours (and pay) were cut. I didn't feel good about myself, but I didn't feel like I was in imminent danger of being fired for being slack, either. Sure, I procrastinated, but I had a fair crack. If they want more than that, they've got to pay me for it. But Flatmate has a whole other approach to her work. She lives it, breathes it, lives for it, and will one day die for it, I don't doubt for a second. Working in a financial role, she has manic periods at the end of every financial year, and then six months later when they test all their budgets and forecasting. But in other years, the bits in between have been semi-normal. Until now. Because it's not end of financial year, or half year. In fact, it's a long weekend. And she's not home from work yet.

There are no deadlines that aren't self-imposed. She's brought this on herself. And we're about to head off to Norway tomorrow. She has no clean clothes. She informed me last night that she doesn't even have enough clean underwear, as far as she knows. I'm a little wary about sharing a room, after that announcement. But beyond that, she hasn't even gotten her bag out of the closet to think about packing. She is notorious for last minute packing, but this is almost as extreme as when we went to say goodbye to her before she moved to the UK, leaving it until about 5 hours before the flight, to find her sitting on the floor beside an empty suitcase. But at least then she was doing the work herself.

Because the bit that has me all fired up was the fact that I got a call at around 10 o'clock, having just virtuously finished my healthy dinner and cleaned up after myself - dishes and all - and starting to contemplate what I was going to be throwing into the backpack that never got put away after Scotland last month. The phone call wasn't the usual, "I'm just leaving now," call. It was a "Can you pack for me" call. Call me nuts - OK, so right now my anger management issues are probably suggesting that I am a little batty - but asking someone to do your packing for you so you can stay at work, when it's 10 o'clock on a Friday night before a long weekend, before you're going to another country, is not entirely appropriate. So I ask you, how much should you expect of the person who booked the flights, booked the hotels, presented you with an itinerary, and opened the web pages for you to book the few things she couldn't afford because she'd already maxed out her cards on the other things for both of you without seeing a penny in return? Is it OK to put work ahead of everything else in your life - health, friendships, hygiene, sanity? Because right now, I'm thinking this is the question that L needs to be asked. And I'm thinking I'm not the right person to be doing the asking. Because to say my temper is a slow burn is like saying the Chernobyl nuclear plant had a small leak.

Still waiting

In my search for perfection, I've been working on my procrastination skills. I already had a fairly impressive ability to be diverted from whatever I was supposed to be doing, as I noted last night. But I think I've taken the art form to new levels but typing 'procrastination' into Google.

I think the most disappointing thing I found, though, was just how many websites are out there trying to convince people that procrastination is bad. Mottoes like "Why put off until tomorrow that which you can do today?" could be found. I tend to ask, rather, "Why do today that which can be put off until tomorrow?" There were religious overtones to some of the sites advocating enthusiastic embrace of tasks at hand, meaning they were never going to grab my attention in the first place other than to make me marvel at some people's ability to link two such separate issues (what, God is going to smite you if you don't get through your chores? As a side note, has anyone else noticed how the word 'smite' seems to have made a come back recently? I'm sure I never heard it spoken until about a year ago, and now it crops up everywhere).

My favourite find, though, and the one that led to best procrastination results, was to discover the existence of Robert Benchley, an America wit, friend of Dorothy Parker, and member of the Algonquin Round Table (I just wanted to work that last bit in...not really relevant, but there you have it). Benchley was the author of such aids to procrastinators as "Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment." * He is also quoted as saying that, "The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him." I lifted that last one off a website filled with his quotations, so a certain amount of irony there. But one way or another, I got very interested in a man who even claimed to be able to use a pipe as a tool to keep him from doing his work - not only smoking it, but laying it across his typewriter keys, and so preventing him from typing. A man after my own heart, clearly. He led a fascinating life, once he got past the fact that, on hearing about his elder brother's death in the Spanish-American war, his mother is famously supposed to have asked why it couldn't have been Robert who died. Involved in the early days of cinema, a writer for Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, among other publications, his wikipedia entry reads like a who's-who of literature and film in the first half of the twentieth century. I'd never heard of him before today.

Imagine if I hadn't been killing the morning, to borrow Harper Lee's description of Mr Radley, "buying cotton"? I'd never have known about Robert Benchley. So I had to spend the afternoon find out out more about him and reading his advice to authors...There were no other demands on my time, of course.

Procrastination or divine inspiration?

It's funny how as soon as you're supposed to be doing something, everything else seems so much more alluring. Take today at work, for instance.

I'm working to a deadline so I can jet off to Norway on Saturday without worrying about coming back to a crisis next Thursday. There's plenty to be done, and I should be concentrating fully on the task at hand, especially given that we're already weeks behind schedule, largely due to my inability to pay attention to detail, or so it seems from my narrow view of what's going on in the project. But no. What did I spend a seriously large chunk of the day doing? Not work, that's for sure. Instead, I was doing useful things like reading career guidance on getting into publishing, what you have to do to become a literary agent, things that drive literary agents nuts when people make submissions to them. Anything and everything to do with getting a book published. Of course, I don't have a book finished and ready to publish. Several half finished works of genius are floating around out there, sure, but nothing nearly cohesive enough for me to even consider getting in touch with an agent. So I resolved once again to get back into writing more. That's been part of the blog writing, to be honest. It's not all about telling the world the sort of pathetic crap I fill my days with. At least some of my recent wordiness has been aimed at getting back into the habit of writing regularly. And it's kind of working.

Except for the fact that I'm sitting here writing a blog post now, when by rights I ought to be working on one of the aforementioned works of genius. Earlier tonight, when I should have been doing a sewing project that is generating me extra cash to tide me through the pay-cut crisis, I was merrily playing on a fiction forum reading the many comments of other people, reading excerpts and short stories, doing anything, basically, except sitting down at my sewing machine until it was getting to the point where I was at risk of not getting the job finished in time. It's done - the lure of money works that way when you're skint, unfortunately - but now I'm putting off something again. The writing lark was all well and good to distract me until I hit the point where I was supposed to be doing that. Oh well. Plenty of work hours to distract myself in tomorrow, I suppose.

Land of the scarecrow, home of the hungry

This morning was clearly a time for the emaciated to be out and about. They were all walking down my street. I've never seen so many people who look like the either have an eating disorder, or a terminal illness. Not since I last accidentally tuned into America's Next Top Model on TV, anyway.

At first it was just one person. There was a woman walking the other way with a friend. Her collarbones stood out proudly against the loose folds of a vintage dress that ought to have fitted snugly around an hour glass figure. She was hollow cheeked, but rosy in spite of it, happy enough as she chatted away to her friend about something in a language I didn't pay enough attention to recognise, other than to note that it wasn't English.

A little further on my walk to the tube I caught up to a middle aged couple out for a leisurely stroll that was in stark contrast to my usual morning bolt against the clock. She was roughly average height and build, with a kind of relaxed look to her. He looked like he ought to have been at home in bed, or rushed to hospital having just been released from months of captivity. He was shrivelled and shrunken, but only horizontally because he was well over 6' tall. His trackies flapped around his ankles, accentuating both his height and his extreme scrawniness. Adding to the bizarre effect was a pair of shoes that were obviously far too large for him. Or at least they looked that way. The two sauntered along arm in arm, though, happy enough pointing out the flowers in gardens to each other. He might have looked like he hadn't seen sun for a year - more pale and sallow than anyone I'd seen before - but he seemed to have an appreciation for nature that argued otherwise.

Thinking I'd seen more than enough skeletal frames for one ten minute stretch, I was surprised to find two more getting off the bus, entirely separate. They were the fashionable types you see sometimes, not travelling together, not even knowing each other, but coincidentally stepping through a door at the same moment. It looked like there should have been a wind blowing somewhere, a photographer directing their movements as he snapped away for Vogue, Bazaar, or something similar. They were that kind of edgy fashion that you know costs a lot of time, effort and money to achieve. They were also that kind of look that makes you think their expensive clothes would look better on a coat hanger than it does on them. The coat hanger has fewer sharp angles than an emaciated woman, after all.

All of these people before I'd even reached the end of my street. Feeling grossly inadequate with my horrible urge to eat, resolving to climb off the dieting bandwagon before I ever got to that point - as if it was something I needed to seriously worry about - I headed over to Tesco's where I was being forced to buy my lunch by the horrific combination of my usual morning tardiness and the end-of-the-month-looming lack of cash. Sure, I had enough bulk that I probably could have made all four of the scrawny brigade look healthy, and still not reached their point of dead-for-a-month hollowness. But at least I'm not in any danger of snapping in two, or being blown away by a strong wind. And although I'm having a fat day (well, a fat life, really, let's be honest), I'm happy enough with that for now. That and the knowledge that if I worked really hard at not eating, I could probably look like them. Yes, I too could look sour-faced and miserable on a beautifully sunny morning instead of my usual angry glare at my watch when it tells me I'm late again. But why would I want to do that?

A day in the life

I'm about to spend yet another Saturday night camped out at home, one flatmate down with what appears to be swine flu - she's nice enough to hole up in her room rather than share the germs - the other having trotted off in a shower of complaints to a barbecue. I was invited to the barbie but declined, having a fairly large dislike of the host who has insulted meat least once every time I've seen him. I don't accept the apology of "That's just the way he is with everyone". Rudeness is still rudeness, even if it's unthinking. Sure, I gave as good, if not better, than I got on each occasion, but I'm not going to head along to his place and ask for it. Especially not when he passes comment on my lack of funds in the invite, then demands that we bring along food. Having compared notes with other invitees, it appears that he is merely responsible for the venue and the guest list. So I'm here, instead, a sad sack with a packet of chocolate coated raisins that I'm not allowed to eat any more of, and yet another bottle of full-sugar coke beside me and fading resolutions to eat healthily.

It's been a busy day. There was the conversation with Mum and Dad that took about an hour and a half. There was the trip to get some Norwegian money for my trip next weekend - unproductive, as it happened, but it was fun watching the girl in the booth take fifteen minutes to realise that with 3 $10 notes, 4 $5 notes and a collection of $1 she wasn't going to be able to make up the US$75 that someone was asking for. There was the bit where I gave up all hope of rain falling and saving Australia in the Ashes and started contemplating what sort of ear plugs I'd use to drown out the sound of the crowd on Monday, if it makes it that far. The incredibly satisfying moment when I found out that L and I would be getting the full bond back on our last flat, following my angry email which was so effective that the landlady emailed me, and called Liz rather than speak to me directly. The momentous decision to dye my hair a new and different colour - described on the box as hazelnut - and the wish that I'd been a little more brave and gone a little darker. And now we've reached this, Saturday night, and I'm here blogging.

So much for adventure.

One of those days

Considering that it's a Friday and I've got the entire weekend stretching in front of me, today has been one of the worse days I've sat through this week. Sure, I wasn't tired when I woke up. It was 6:30, though, a full half hour before I was due to wake up for my first alarm (so I've got three set at 15 minute intervals...I wake up dead, OK? It takes a few tries) and I wasn't able to get back to sleep. I eventually got up and struggled to get anything right for the rest of the day. It's almost like the mozzies I was swatting last night put some sort of curse on me as they died. Or maybe they were just the start of the curse? Who knows...

There was public transport dramas, having already been made later than planned by the discovery of an unexplained cut on my foot right where my shoe touched. Naturally, I had no band aids to put on it, and Tesco had a woman doing her weekly shop in the express store. One of those Murphy moments. The English cricket supporters were out in force as I went past the pub at a time closer to 10 than the 9:30 start time I'm supposed to make it for. They were fairly quiet for the morning, though, thanks to a reasonable start by the Australian cricket team. A decent start that collapsed at the first hint of rain - a downpour that coincided with me leaving the building at lunchtime, incidentally, and only lasting the duration of my lunch break, down to the second. But I wasn't paying too much attention to the abysmal batting performance of my national team, in spite of the increasingly loud cheers coming from the stands at the Oval, because I was researching things other than work.

It has been noted that I've been angry lately. It's a fair observation. I've been more prickly than a porcupine, to tell the truth, and I have to admire my housemates for putting up with the lashing of nastiness I've been dishing out when not holed up in my room so I don't lacerate them with my tongue. So what made my former landlord decide that now, after weeks of promising our bond would be returned for our old flat, was the time to tell us they were withholding money for a professional clean that we think was unnecessary, and doubt if it ever happened anyway. So I've been searching for precedence. And it seems that they're supposed to return the bond within 10 days of our request. Or at least let us know they're holding some back, and why, so we can argue our case. They mistakenly gave me a target for unleashing a little justified vitriol. I'm wishing I'd had as much angry eloquence - not to mention so many experts to refer to in support of my arguments - when I was dealing with Virgin screw ups last year. Whatever, my landlord and the agent are both in receipt of an email that will hopefully shake loose the entirety of our deposit.

Which is more than can be said for the poor unfortunate client I was supposed to be issuing a door schedule for this afternoon. I was so fired up with my righteous anger that I lost track of the limited hours available to me for work. So I was forced to call up the project architect and admit my failure after he'd gone in to bat for me and given me a glowing review that helped me to keep my job earlier this month. I hate letting him down, because it seems to happen with disturbing regularity, but he's such a nice guy he actually consoles me before he goes to beard the lion (client) in his den every time I miss a deadline.

And that's the thing with a Jonah day like today. It's not just me that's affected by the run of outs, until I concede defeat and go hole up in my room out of the way of other people. Doesn't mean I'm not still clutching my Deposit Protection Certificate and muttering phrases like 'alternative dispute resolution' or 'notification of a deposit complaint' or, most shockingly, 'small claims court'. Seriously, having a crack at the deranged angry woman who's already having a bad day, week, month? Might as well just start poking a bear in the butt with a stick. You're less likely to get your head ripped off, as far as I can tell.

Not your average

As part of my healthy eating program, I've been trying to stay away from all things fattening. Sadly, most snacks come under that heading, so I've been rediscovering the joys of dried fruit - the snack you're kind of forced to eat in moderation, or risk suffering very unpleasant side effects. Overindulging in sultanas is the kind of thing you only really do once.

My current fruit of choice is the apricot, so tonight I had a packet beside me for grazing opportunities while I was finishing a sewing job (I've been taken on as a charity case by Flatmate L's workmates. They rummage around for all their sewing needs, then pay me good rates to do them. I can't complain, although it does feel a little work-for-the-dole-ish). As I was putting them away afterwards, I noticed something a little odd about the packaging. I've had this brand before and never noticed it, but then again, I've never looked too far beyond the bit that says ' Dried Apricots', so maybe it's been there all along and I just didn't notice. Because apparently - brace yourself for the shock - this particular packet of dried fruit is suitable for vegetarians. Curious, I looked a little closer.

I'm never looking at food labels again after this though. I always just chose a random brand, I don't think it was even based on price, more that the packet was the first one that came to hand when I remembered that I wanted to buy dried apricots. Except that these aren't just dried apricots. They also include acidity regulators, sulphur dioxide and preservatives. So if they have to advertise that this packet of fruit is suitable for vegetarians, does that mean that somewhere out there is at least one packet with so much other stuff added to it that it isn't? And what about vegans? Don't get me wrong, I think that particular diet system is deeply flawed (did anyone ever see a vegan and think, "That person looks truly happy, and has such a healthy glow about them"? No. It's more along the lines of, "Wow, that person has an eating disorder and needs to get more sunlight, not to mention anti-depressants"). But maybe there are vegans out there who are feeling the unnatural high of chemical additives, and not understanding that it is caused by some animal derivative that was added to their dried fruit in order to increase its shelf life. And if the real fruit in that snack section is only occasionally suitable for vegetarians, what the hell sort of situation is the processed fruit in? No wonder little kiddies get hyperactive at the thought of a fruit bar. Hmm, I wonder if they work into the diet plan? I could use some red food colouring right now...

Back in the day

Flatmate C has been going on a lot of internet dates lately. Around two a week seems to be her average, some good, some average, none truly appalling yet. She's trying to convince me to get involved, telling me that it's fun. It offered a good excuse for some shopping on the weekend - I didn't have any date clothes before, but I do now. All I need is to find the date.

Part of her argument was a discussion about how impossible it is to meet a guy these days. We sounded just like our parents must have sounded when we first started going out to pubs, clubs and bars, saying that it was no way to meet someone. I conveniently ignored my friends who met their now husbands in just that way. But the nostalgia did get me going as I remembered what it was like when I had just turned 18, in the days before you could slip a mobile phone in your pocket, and when you had to pay cash at the bar or go thirsty.

Back in the dark ages - the late nineties, at any rate - I owned a mobile phone, but it was too big to fit into the tiny bags we all carried. And the outfits we wore out to the local bar, involving a short skirt, strappy shoes and a nice t-shirt, didn't exactly allow for stashing anything in pockets. A big night out with the girls was the only time I ever carried a bag, though. And not once did I ever pile it on top of my friends bags as we danced around it. In fact, I have vivid memories of laughing at the people who did that; they were old, they had to be almost thirty, what were they doing still going out? Now, of course, I understand more.

It was pretty much a given that by the end of the night, at least one of us would have caught the eye of some eligible hottie (in pub lighting, on a dance floor or propped ever-so-coolly against the bar, they all looked hot). And so a ritual would commence. After chatting for a while, friends would decide it was time to go and numbers would be exchanged. It was far more involved then, of course. We couldn't just whip out mobile phones and dial each other's number. We could give false numbers without fear of caller ID dobbing us in. But in order to do the deed at all, we required pen and paper. Somewhere at home there is a box of torn off scraps of paper, coasters, any available writing surface, with a boy's name scrawled above a number. Some of them don't even start with the '0' of a mobile number. And if he was hassling you, or you decided you didn't want to see him again, the number you wrote down for him was a digit or two off what your real number was. Or, like Elaine from Seinfeld, you spelled out things. Elaine's spelt "no Elaine" - I always wanted something like that, but the best I could come up with was switching the zeroes for sixes, and changing my name. Somewhere out there are some guys who think they met a girl called Katie. A few more think they met Anna.

It was a simpler time, in some ways, but I wouldn't be without caller ID or my mobile phone, or even email, for all that. The ability to screen is too precious!

Just keeps on giving

Although it doesn't in any way compare with last night, this week has managed to come up with another winner - a night that starts out OK, and ends up not quite so OK. It all started with a tripped fuse at about 6:30 tonight. I was sitting downstairs, happily playing with my laptop when I heard Flatmate C cursing upstairs. The loss of the radio had passed me by. I checked and re-set all the fuses, but still no joy. Not a lot I could do though, because I was off to see The Proposal - good movie, by the way, and don't let anyone, least of all a hoity-toity proto-feminist critic tell you different. Left instructions for C on how to approach the problem, she having never had Flatmate L's and my history of run-ins with things utilities related. That was my first mistake. Or rather my second, as it turns out.

So I trotted off to the movie, enjoyed myself reasonably well once I stopped either seething about the seating arrangements (dinner took longer than expected, so in spite of having our tickets 45 minutes in advance, we were in the very front row, with rowdy teenagers behind us), or getting a bit weepy over the emotional grandmother scenes, I enjoyed myself quite a lot. Rather unseemly, perhaps, but there you have it. Light hearted rom-com was just what the doctor ordered. Then I arrived home to find C sitting virtually in the dark, strumming her guitar, having been unable to get any help from the power company. Perhaps it would have helped if she'd been calling the right power company. It also would have helped if she was about a foot taller, and could see if the meters were ticking over or not. As it happens, though, none of the above happened. So, a couple of phone calls later, L having climbed on a chair to check the meters, and we were waiting for the lovely men from the energy company to come and fix our problems.

It was fairly good fun, for a while. C played her guitar, L and I sang along. All we needed were some marshmallows to roast over either our candles, or the gas jets in the kitchen. Eventually, L drifted off to sleep on the floor, it now being well after midnight, and C and I lit more candles to be able to read. In the spirit of the Blitz, true London style, we soldiered on in the face of adversity, refusing to be daunted. And trying desperately not to fall asleep. When the electricians eventually arrived, however, we were in for another story. The reality check of being 3 women in the face to 2 tradesmen, automatically reduced to "Girlie" status, and doomed to be patronised.

Which we duly were, when he took one look in the fuse box and said, "Oh God." The mains switch was in the "Off" position. So we got talked through Fuse Boxes 101, the do's and don't's, and why it was off. He flicked the switch and, miracle of miracles, everything came back on. We were back in the twenty first century while he made various checks to ensure that there was nothing seriously wrong, talking down to us the whole while. Or at least he was, until everything went unexpectedly black again and we were vindicated. It seems there is a fault with our wiring. The fact that I am able to be on the internet should tell you that we have some power again. Just not on the upstairs lighting is all. And somewhere in Walthamstowe, East London, around about now there's a person being patronised by a rather rotund electrician and his aging apprentice for whatever problem they've had to cause an electrical fire. I hope they too are vindicated.

Vale

I don't want to blog this, but I have to do something other than what I'm up to, which is crying and reminiscing about someone that almost nobody in the UK has ever met or heard of. I had a call from my mother - a not unexpected call, but sad all the same - to tell me that Grandma, her mother, had passed away during the night in Australia. And now I'm both swamped with memories of the strong, quiet woman who my imp of a grandfather referred to as "my Genie" - always in the I Dream of sense, even as she told him off for teaching his grandchildren dirty jokes.

I remember the woman who, following what must have been a long and boring night of music recitals by school children, presented a much smaller me with a box of embroidered handkerchiefs that I was too young and stupid to appreciate, if only for the formal but kind thought behind the gesture. The way she would always refer to our family dog, Boofa, as Woofer, stubbornly refusing to hear the 'B' for years, then continuing out of habit. The sudden burst of her laughter, not heard for a long time.

I said that it was not a surprise to get the phone call. No, this should be seen more as a release from the pain and indignity of her life for the past few years. But it still hard to say goodbye. It is perhaps made more so by the fact that I can't do it properly. I'm here in London. I can't get back to Melbourne. Even if I could get away from work, I don't have the cash to pay for a flight. I'm not even sure I can justify taking a day off work to deal with the grieving process. What would I do with the day? Sit and mope? I learnt that lesson once before. As different as this is from what happened almost three years back with my friend Joel, it's still difficult. I'm in a dilemma. I would love to bring forward my trip home. I fly out in just over a month. But my ticket cannot be changed, and I don't even know when the funeral will be. Would I even make it in time? I'm stuck here, and I don't know what to do about it. How do you grieve for someone when you can barely comprehend the loss?

Jean Mary Hayes
b February 2, 1918
d August 12, 2009

Britney moment

I can't believe it. I had a brilliant post written. I was slating Stephenie Meyer, of Twilight fame, for being a plagiarist, implying, with brilliantly subtle writing and literary insights*, that she knocked off Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse novels when she was coming up with her series. I cited evidence of plot similarities. I even worked in post-modernism and feminism. It was worthy of a literary journal, assuming I could persuade one of those lofty publications to lower their standards by printing something about lowly popular fiction, and sci-fi fantasy popular fiction at that.


Now I know I have my moments on here, usually when I'm at work, and I claim that Pulitzer prize winning posts have been lost through the genius of web filtering. That was not the case this time. I have nobody to blame except myself, I suppose. Myself and my inability to double check my own work. Because there was a fault on the posting page. Thinking I knew how to save the day, I quickly copied the text I had in the box. Or at least I thought I had. What I found when I pasted it into the refreshed page, however, was less than half of what I'd typed in the first place. So my moment of brilliance is lost, just like so many other posts of mine. Or so I thought. Because I had a flash of brilliance that exceeded all my other flashes. I spotted the "Save Now" button. I had a back up.

Which is more than I can say for my life outside of blogging. I've just survived another round of redundancies at work. My margin for error has all but vanished now though. My salary is a fraction of what it was a year ago. My colleagues have dwindled. In fact, of the team of ten that I was working with this time last year, I'm the only one left. As of next month, there will be three people sitting in the same room as me. At it's peak, there were about 15 there. The things that made the company great are disappearing and I'm left with an even greater realisation that I live without a safety net. If the axe falls on my job, as it threatens to every couple of months, my back up position is a retreat back to my parents. Much as I love them, I can't cope with living with them permanently again. So, rather than dwell in misery for whatever time as an employed person remains to me - and surely it can't be long given that there are no new projects in the office once the current crop cycle down - I will be Marie Antoinette. I will eat cake. Just like I did tonight in celebration. Well, apple pie and ice cream, anyway. You have to love flatmates who are glad they don't need to find a new person to fill your room. It makes for a far better celebration when everyone has a reason to be happy.

*For anyone who read the post before this one, Monkey See..., I'm sure this was not the post I wrote. The one I had was far more intelligent and didn't involve any references to checking out men. Honest.

Monkey see...

I've been indulging in a little relaxation lately, which might have been seen by the subjects I've been blogging about. This will be no exception. My current fascination has moved on from crappy sequels (although I have discovered that Princess Diaries 2 will be on TV next week and was tempted to mark it in my diary). Now I'm onto vampire-related television. The current fang-fest of choice for many is True Blood, based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels. I figured it was time I checked out what all the fuss was about after seeing an advertising poster on the Northern line platform at Waterloo station every morning for the past couple of weeks.



Getting past the point that the lead character is called Sookie - I'm still expecting some childish voice to call out, "Sookie, sookie, la la" (trust me, if you're Australian, you will have been called this at some point when you were being a 'fraidy cat or a whiner) when she gets scared of everything - there are good points to be observed in the show, for anyone who is a fan of B-grade slasher films especially. It has all the hallmarks. Loads of fairly explicit sex, for a mainstream television program. Plenty of blood and guts. A brooding anti-hero or two. A virginal blond. Oh, and of course, a former Home and Away actor. But something seemed familiar beyond that.



Let me see...a pretty innocent girl meets and falls for a brooding vampire who, against public perceptions of his kind, is a nice if slightly dark guy. She alone is not scared of him. A main character is telepathic, but can't read the mind of his/her romantic interest, something that they find fascinating. Her friend is also in love with her; at crucial moment friend turns out to be a shape shifter who takes the form of a dog. Girl's life is placed in danger because of her relationship with vampire. There's a fight, she just survives, and all seems happily ever after until the next rock looms on the horizon. So far so familiar. So, where have I heard these things before? Oh, that's right. The Twilight series.



Thinking that someone was cashing in on Stephenie Meyer's popular books, and a little annoyed that people could play with my expectations that way, I did a little googling about the books True Blood is based on. Thie first of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series was first published in 2001, some 4 years before Meyer released Twilight, the first of her novels about the teenage Bella and vampire Edward. A little further investigation (yes, I typed some more words into Google) revealed that I wasn't the only one to have drawn the comparison. Sure the target audience is different - Bella is 17, Sookie 25 - but the overlap in narrative can't be written off as a mistake. Even more worrying is that Meyer has reportedly been sued by an author other than Harris over plagiarism in the fourth and final title of the series, while a third person has claimed that the initial idea for Twlight came from a short story written at university where she was Meyer's room mate.



So what constitutes plagiarism? There are no shortage of vampire tales out there, many of them borrowing from and distorting each other. Let's face it, it's not the world's most original theme. The modern take usually seems to derail many of the themes of earlier Dracula-style tales where women are often portrayed as temptresses and harlots preying upon the men folk. University study of literature did me no favours when it pointed out the many analogies used in horror fiction and the way they denigrated women. More recent incarnations show a strong woman who falls at the feet of a vampire - Buffy included in this interpretation, given that even the Slayer fell for not just one vamp, but 2.



Guessing I'm going to come across as a big fan of vampirism from this post. It's not entirely true. Sure, I watched Buffy. I could argue that it was for the post modern irony of the dialogue, the feminist themes, the cutting edge of sarcasm not often found in American television. I'd be lying. I watched it because it was great to see a tiny girl kicking the collective butt of both the establishment - who could forget the evil head master at Sunnydale High? - and of various insanely ugly looking monsters. That and the hot men who seemed to line up for a chance to be smashed to a pulp on a weekly basis. And yes, I've read the Twilight books in my own time and marvelled that something so badly written - and this from a fan of chick lit - could be so un-put-downable. But that's about the limit of my exposure. I don't count checking out Brad Pitt and Christian Slater in Interview with a Vampire, and I only saw Keanu Reeves in Dracula when I had to study it for university. So I'm not an afficionado. But even I could spot the similarities. How has Stephenie Meyer not been openly called to account yet? Well, perhaps because not enough people really give a damn that she ripped off someone else's plot line and re-fashioned it into her own multi-million dollar empire. Or perhaps they're all too busy drooling over Robert Pattinson and the various picturesque men from True Blood to really give a toss what the plot line is, let alone where it came from in the first place.

A sprig of wattle in my hand

As thoughts drift to the passing of yet another English summer with a whimper that pretended it was hot weather, I cast my eyes north to Leeds and Headingly, where the fourth test in the Ashes series is about to unfold. Yes, cricket. It wouldn't be summer without it, as far as I'm concerned, so given that this is my first summer in the UK with a team I care about doing the rounds, perhaps that's why it seems that it's also the first season I could even vaguely recognise as "summer".

Cricket brings with it all manner of associations, for me. Most of them are not appropriate over here. There won't be any sitting around watching the commentary of Richie Benaud and co - in their wisdom, the broadcasters over here have decided to air the Ashes tests on pay TV, not free-to-air. There won't be an MCG, SCG, Gabba or WACA, not to mention the Adelaide Oval. And that means that there's no Yobs Hill, Bay 13 (or what used to be a single bay, but now seems to extend to the whole lower deck of the Great Southern Stand). There's no VB-swilling blokes in Chesty Bond singlets. What I see instead, from my vantage points of living near Lords and working right by the Oval, are men in suits. Men in England shirts. Men on corporate days out that start in the pub at 9am and don't finish until 7pm. In between, they flood into every available lunch spot in a way that is unknown to visitors at the MCG. Drinking in Australian venues is tightly controlled, in an attempt to encourage a family environment. In the UK, it seems to be encouraged, with every patron at Lords allowed to take in their own bottle of wine and then top up with purchased bevies inside.

It is, undoubtedly, a strange sport. It takes 5 days to get through a match, in it's purest form, and at the end of that there may still be no result because they've run out of time. During those 5 days, the teams take it in turns to stand around in the field. The Australians are often criticised for their ungentlemanly approach to the game (being masters of the art of sledging, if nothing else) and, in my experience, there are few things more satisfying than being able to boast a clean sweep in the five test series against the English. Few things can be more annoying - to me, anyway - than the gloating that happens when the Australians lose, especially when it's as spectacular as the lose that let England take a 1-0 lead in the series. So as I type this, I have one eye resting on the scoreboard, hoping for another English wicket or four to drop, ideally before the home side makes it to a lead that...Oh, dreams do come true, another wicket tumbles.
Instead of eying off the scoreboard, I might just begin some sort of anti-rain dance - a sun dance.

Or maybe just a run dance. Because I have a theory that it's the unrecognisable summer weather that has the Australians so off balance so far in this series. Sure, after so long I'm used to overcast humidity and downpours, where the sun's position - or existence - can only be guessed at. But the Ashes rookies brought over in the Australian squad aren't at all used to it. Oh, hang it all, I'm really just hoping for at the least a tied series. Because I don't think I could stand to sit at my desk and hear the roars of a victorious England crowd. Come on Aussie, come on...

Take 2

For some reason unknown to mankind, I've been going through a movie phase. Not just sitting down to watch more movies than usual - although that's kind of true too - but rather a sitting down to watch a particular type of movie. The crappy sequel to a crappy movie. There is much enjoyment to be found in these films, but I think most of it comes from things that the move makers weren't entirely anticipating.

Heard of a movie called The Prince and Me? The original has Julia Stiles and Luke Mably essentially re-enacting an American version of the courtship between Australian commoner Mary Donaldson and Danish Crown Prince Frederick. Sure, they change details - lawyer Mary from Tasmania becomes pre-med university student Paige from Wisconsin, while Prince Frederick becomes Eddie, Prince and soon to be King - but the essential story remains the same. It wasn't intended to be a happy-ever-after chick flick, originally. The ending was altered after audience testing showed people preferred the happy version. The franchise has since produced two further films to create a series. The catch is that Mably was the only one they could convince to come back for the second one, and even he fell by the wayside with the third. The revised Paige was so different from Stiles's character that she was almost unrecognisable. It wasn't just her looks - although going from dress-down casual brunette to glossy glamour blond was a stretch - it was the loss of her sassy edge and drive. The story got the full Disney treatment, complete with the introduction of bad guys plotting against the fairy tale couple. It became predictable and cliched. And funny - but only where the acting was so atrocious. Light hearted fluff as the first film was, it still had something to offer. The sequels had...well, they were good to look at, for the most part.

What about Centrestage, the tale of a wanna-be ballerina who enrols at a prestigious school, only to find herself struggling to make the grade? Not the greatest plot line in history, and hardly original, but still entertaining enough and, if you're into dancing, featuring some good sequences, especially in the knowledge that some of the actors have since gone on to become principals in major dance troupes. They would be the ones who didn't return for the sequel. Given the school setting, however, it was to be expected that there would be a turn over of students, so the premise was good enough to hook people in. But there were differences. The first movie focuses on the ballet, with outside influences only coming in to allow the students to blow off steam. The personal rivalries, sacrifices and jealousies drive what plot there is. The second film, telling the story of a gifted but technically lacking self-taught dancer is almost entirely outside the school, due to the failure of school directors to recognise her talent. The acting was not up there with the first film - which, given how many of the cast were dancers rather than actors is a fairly harsh criticism - but the dancing was certainly thereabouts to the lay person like myself. There was less ballet and more street styles, like break dancing, hip hop, the works. Characters expressed their emotions through the dancing, we are led to believe. A final competition has a predictable outcome, but it's satisfying to see.

Set in different countries, different communities and with supposedly different characters, the sequels all seem to have something in common. Their basic plot lines are the same - outsider coming in, makes a friend but there is someone undermining them that only they can see. Outsider makes good and bad guy is exposed to the world in all their ugliness. As a formula, it works, sure. But it's predictable. So why do I like watching them so much?

I'm known by my flatmates and certain friends for my liking of crap movies. It's no secret that I'm into what many people supposedly in the know would call the lowest forms of pop culture, whether it is books, music, movies or art. I even have a term for the stuff that is crap but enjoyable - quality crap. It's low stress, light on story line, but still entertaining as hell. It's this band that too many sequels fall into. But when, as above, the original movie falls into this category, where does the sequel land? Somewhere below that level, sure, but does that mean it's less worth me checking out? Sometimes, yes. But generally? They may be dull, boring, uninspired or derivative...but I can't look away, all the same.

This post ended up a whole lot more serious than I intended it to. Maybe, much like the writers of sequels, the entertaining side of my brain took a holiday today. Or maybe the vaguely essay-like quality that seems to have come out to play today is a reminder that I ought to be studying. Oh well...More sequels to watch instead!

Oh the shame of it...

A friend described some of my recent posts as sounding like I was ready to wield an axe. Point taken. I've been a little - or rather a whole lot - moody of late. And I think I've finally identified the source of the spite that had taken control of my keyboard. See, I've been on a health kick for the past few weeks. And part of that health kick involved dropping things like Coke from my diet. And with that went my primary source of not only sugar, but caffeine as well. I'm one of the strange people who drink neither tea or coffee. Coke and chocolate were my vices, and I've cut them almost completely.

And there we have the problem. It was resolved yesterday when the tiredness just got to be too much and I caved in. When the caffeine started coursing through my veins once again, suddenly I was a much happier person. Not more alert, necessarily, but happier. Not quite as likely to send people running away from me in tears. It was only when I had another hit this morning that I became alert enough to put the two together. Because I've fallen off the wagon properly now.

My Coke addiction goes back to the final days of high school, when year 12s were allowed to leave the school grounds at lunchtime, provided we signed out. Queue the race to the local strip of shops, home to such delicacies as Brumbies bakery, an IGA supermarket, an optometrist and a hand bag shop that was a favourite with my grandmother. I always had a packed lunch, so the food option was out, but there was always a way to spend my bus money that didn't involve eating - Coca Cola. Cheap enough that I could still pull my profit making fare evasion on the way home from school (I had a 10 trip bus ticket that lasted me for 4 years...all I had to do was sweeten the deal for the driver by slipping him the princely sum of 50 cents), but cool enough that I did it once a week. And then I went to university.

I was not the most diligent of students, shall we say. I struggled to get through. Part of that struggle was spending my days hanging out with friends in any one of the 60-odd pubs within a kilometre of the architecture building. So I needed to find ways of staying awake at night. And I discovered the wonderful combination of Coke and Mars bars. By the time I was putting together my final folio (2 weeks, 10 hours of sleep, 5 minutes of presentation, one very near accident on the drive home afterwards that made me have to pull over and cry, and three weeks of arguing that I should be allowed to pass after they screwed up my paperwork requesting special consideration) I was on a litre a day habit. I'd kicked the chocolate, but the caffeine had me firmly in it's grasp.

Since then, I've gone cold turkey many times, but it always lures me back. I go for months without having any of it. Then someone will say let's go for a drink, and hand me something harsh, softened with Coke. The backsliding will begin. I'll have a Coke zero a week, a can only. It's OK if it's only a can. But I'll gradually work my way back to the hard stuff - the bottles of full sugar, full caffeine that will end up causing me all sorts of pain if I don't stop it properly, I'm sure.
Right now, I'm teetering on the brink. I know I'm more pleasant to be around when I'm drinking the stuff, but after a few weeks off, it's back to tasting slightly vile in my mouth. I don't want to rot my stomach, my teeth, my brain. I want to be healthy. But I also want to be happy. I don't want withdrawal. So I'm stuck in catch 22. Damned if I do and damned if I don't. There's a nicotine patch out there for people with smoking addictions. There are programs for alcoholics, treatment for food addicts. But where is the help for the caffeine buzzed among us? It isn't even accepted as a serious problem. When you say you've got a Coke habit, the dark liquid gold isn't usually the first thing that springs to mind as an addictive substance, even to those who share the dirty, shameful secret.

So, in the interests of promoting honesty and healing - how many steps are there, and how many of them are appropriate to someone who is far from loving organised religion? - onto my second confession in as many days.

Hi, my name is Killi, and I'm addicted to Coca Cola. It's been 3 hours since my last drink.

You know you're a geek when...

Let me set the scene. It's a Tuesday night. It's been a long day. The dishes are done, the washing is folded, the rubbish is out. Now, it's 11:30, and there's just a couple more things to do before turning out the lights for the night. One of them is checking in to see what you've missed on Twitter while you've been busily talking to your mother to find out the best way to attach curtain tape to curtains (desperate times, desperate measures; cash in hand employment is always welcome!). Another involves plugging in your various techno toys so they're all charged up and ready to go in the morning; this takes at least 3 power cords every night. And finally, you update your blog, because you check your visitor stats and suddenly there's a spike that's threatening to enter double figures and you're worried that if you don't capitalise on the traffic that's being fed to you from your friend's far more popular site (check it out, by the way... http://www.treadonme.co.uk/. Well worth the look), you'll miss out on the chance of ever building an audience. And then it hits you.

You're a geek. A certified, paid up member of the chess club. You may not have spent your lunchtimes getting your head flushed in the toilets - after all, refined girls schools don't go in for that sort of thing - but somewhere along the line you became a card carrying nerd.

How, you ask yourself. How did this happen to me? I don't generally require glasses - only when I'm really tired! I work in design, for crying out loud, and only own 2 cardigans - the uber trendy ones that ... Uber trendy? Cardigan? Designer? Oh dear god. The light clicks on in a spark of inspiration. You know when it started. Back at that school for refined young ladies, the geeks were among the first to discover the true use of the internet. Way back in 1995, it was the chat room, the place where you would chat away to people all over the world, blissfully unaware of the fact that they were potentially priming you for something potentially illegal. Then it was ICQ, where the sexual innuendo was a little less innuendo and a little more in your face instead, but you could still chat away to people quite merrily without necessarily knowing who the hell they were in the real world. MSN, Facebook, Twitter, blogs. Things you're familiar with even if you don't know how to write programming code (you're a geek yes, but you're not yet one of the kings of geeks. You leave that to your friends. By the way, Jones, can you show me how to do the whole click-a-word-link thing? Ta...)

Somewhere along the way, you became hooked. Back when your school friend would talk to her computer, threatening it with all sorts of dire threats if it didn't speed up to its full 28.8kbps potential ("if you don't hurry up I'll tell you how much I love Stephen") you and your friends slid sideways into the world of geek. You became Eugene from Grease, instead of the Rizzo that you always thought you could have been. And you know you're a geek when your knowledge of your friends lives comes not from hearing their voices tell you, or seeing it with your own eyes, but from reading tweets and status updates.

Hi everyone. My name is Killi, and I'm a geek. It has been around 24 hours since my last tweet.

If you don't mind

I made a trip to the doctor this morning, in an effort to find out why I'm getting exhausted just from walking up the stairs from my bedroom to the kitchen lately. I know I'm unfit, but it's reached the point of ridiculous. So off I trotted, only to discover that there are certain thoughts a doctor should hide behind a better mask than the one my GP was sporting this morning.

When I walked in, sat down, and waited for him to go over my case notes (surely something he should have done before calling me in? Just for form sake?), I tried not to think about how many visits I have had there for seemingly meaningless things in the past six months. There was the bit where I was getting dizzy all the time - no result, but it seemed to pass. The eczema that was driving me crazy - prescription, steroids; cure, moisturiser. The constant headaches and migraines that are the bane of my existence - no cure offered, just told not to take too many paracetamol, which I already knew. So I was fairly certain that I wasn't going to get a result this morning either. But you can't blame me for trying.

After answering all the questions a male doctor seems to feel the need to race through at the start of any consultation in the UK (How's your period? When was your last smear test? Are you on the pill?) like they're the source of all illness in women, he took my blood pressure and, when that came out normal, lined me up for a blood test. He's testing me for everything, you see, but it was obvious that he thought he knew what was causing my exhaustion.

"We've got to eliminate all the serious things, and then we can look at the mental causes." Yes, that's right, my doctor thinks I'm a hypochondriac. He also seems to think that I'm obese. Alright, I'm overweight, no denials there, that's why I've been dieting. But the word obese conjures images of John Candy, of Mimi from The Drew Carey Show, of my year 12 maths teacher who we christened Barney (as in the dinosaur...she had an unfortunate liking for purple in a woman her size and shape. What can I say? Teenage girls are cruel). I explained the diet situation, and suddenly, he was my best friend, offering me all sorts of help in my quest to lose weight. The help was of the pill variety, the ones that are advertised everywhere at the moment as the dieter's best friend - provided the dieter in question sticks to a carefully controlled diet and doesn't mind being what I'd call a bit of a guinea pig for new technology. Thanks, but no.

So basically, what my doctor revealed to me this morning is that he thinks I have two problems causing my exhaustion. The reason why standing over the stove cooking my dinner tonight left me a quivering, jelly-like mess feeling like I had just done a marathon is because I'm a fat arsed nut job. I'm so glad I went to consult a health care professional for that particular carefully unconcealed opinion. If I go back to him, I'll no doubt need therapy. God only knows what they'd say to me.

Damocles be damned

I'm yet again under threat of losing my job. Nothing really new there, I guess, given that I'm pretty much up for review every two months anyway and have been for the past year and a bit, but I'm looking for something new now. Losing a third of my pay cheque in about six months has hit me fairly hard. Even worse, it's knocked a fairly large hole in my plans for the next year. Hell, I might not be able to keep up my plans of a trip a month, after September. In fact, September, with my flight home, may just be a one way trip if things don't improve soon.

I know, I gripe about this a lot. Well, not just about this. But with the cheerful whistling coming from C's room next door as she strums her guitar, it occurs to me that not only is this constant fear of losing only the second job I've had for more than two years not healthy, it ought not to be necessary. I'm fairly sure that a teacher with a similar level of professional confidence and competence to me would not be having anxiety attacks because of fear that they won't be able to afford rent if things keep up. I'm also pretty certain that when they try to take matters in hand and head for the job ads, they don't get told by every single one that there are no jobs out there for a person of their experience, when they've got about five years post-grad experience under their belts. How many people can say that they've spent seven years at university to come out without being fully qualified, and not having failed a subject? Mind you, how many then go straight back for part time study because they didn't exactly enjoy those seven years?

I feel like I'm in an old Billy Joel song I remember hearing once. The graduation does hang on the wall, sort of, but if anything, it's made me unemployable for anything else. I even got an email rejecting me from a job as a PA in an architects office, because they didn't want someone in the role who would be looking to move to anything else. Another rejection told me I wouldn't be considered because my experience was all wrong. It was a secretarial/admin role, both sides of which I can and do perform on a daily basis. But the four degrees in the qualifications heading seem to make people think I'd be too bored to stick to a job like that. What they fail to understand is that I spend half my working life bored to tears anyway; have you ever done research on the technical specifications of an aluminium panel? Ever read a building regulation? It's not all glamour in the world of architecture, let me tell you. Clearly, people either don't read the bit on my CV where I explain what my jobs have involved, or they don't believe me when I mention the mundane, daily tasks.

Maybe it's more like a Bruce Springsteen song than a Billy Joel. After all, Billy Joel's hero was always looking for something better, an up-town girl; he was wondering why Allentown was dying. Springsteen's don't look forward. They look back to the glory days, the times when they were running free and the point where it all went wrong. They reminisce about the times when they didn't have a dull, boring fate hanging above their heads. I remember a time when going to university was going to get me a better life than my grandparents, none of whom finished high school, could have dreamt of. Where did going to university and getting myself a decent qualification go so bloody wrong?

There's a Greek legend about Damocles, a courtier who swaps places with his king, Dionysus, for a night, to enjoy the power of his position. It's only as he is sitting in the place of honour at the banquet that he notices the great sword hanging over his head by a single horse hair. Well, I swapped places with an educated person for a night. Now I've got to deal with the enormous bloody sword hanging over my job. Well personally, given the choice, I know what I'd tell Dionysus to do with his sword, and it isn't to hang it by a hair.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous

Sometimes there is something undeniably, inexplicably satisfying in being just a teensy bit nasty. I'm not sure what it is. According to a conversation I had with Flatmate, it's this enjoyment of being rude that makes me scary sometimes. It gives an edge to my tongue, apparently, that makes people a little wary of getting on my wrong side. I don't see that myself, of course. As far as I'm concerned, I'm a pussy cat with occasional bouts of temper. Unless there's something a little bit nasty going on.

I know I'm not alone in this, so why I'm any more terrifying than the next person I wouldn't know. For instance, when it was discovered that the annoying girl on my Scotland tour, conveniently called Caroline, hated the Neil Diamond song 'Sweet Caroline', I was far from being the only person joining in on the bah bah bah's while the girl herself seethed. I also stopped after the second chorus, more than can be said for many others. But somehow, I'm the one with the reputation.

It has to be more than a verbal thing, as well. When I was in something of a mood the other day walking - OK, hurrying - through the tube tunnels against the flow of traffic, there was obviously something going on when, without me saying a word, or even looking directly at them, people would move out of my path in a hurry. In fact, one person had such a look of terror on her face that we were laughing about it for a good ten minutes after she scurried out of my way like someone dodging a car on the footpath in a b-grade movie. I know I'm tall, and that I have a look of death that has made grown men almost cry (true...he was wearing black acid wash jeans, a black AC/DC t-shirt, and had just spilled beer down my leg. He couldn't apologise fast enough), but seriously, what can be so bad? And why is it so much fun to know that out there somewhere are people who have been genuinely terrified of me? And why can I never produce it on command?

I'm yet to be able to get rid of the people who hang around me on a daily basis, so clearly I can't be too scary. From the genuine innit geezer at work who comes to visit my team several times a day, to the succession of friends-of-friends who just don't take a hint (how many months of being hung up on does it take for some people to realise I'm-just-looking-for-friends was the clue I'm not interested???), I have quite a few people I would love to be able to terrify. For now though, I just have to live with the satisfaction of being snide and sarcastic. It's just as well I enjoy it so much then, really.