Sunday, October 23, 2011

The male of the species

There have been a few run-ins with men over the past few days. Perhaps I'd better run them in chronological order...

I was on my way to training on Thursday morning when the first one happened. I know. It's strange. Me, heading to training. Not only that, me being out of the house before 7:30 in order to exercise. But it's true. I've been going ever since the second major incident of the back, and so far it seems to be helping. Except when it's making it worse, but that's a whole other story.

I wandered past a couple of workmen by their truck on the way there. They were the forerunners of a whole crew of workmen who would spend at least 20 minutes trying to work out the logistics of closing off part of a street in a one-way system of roads, that included a train station car park with one entrance before the closure and one after. It was apparently baffling, and had them standing in the middle of the road and scratching their heads as cars were forced to reverse into driveways to get back on track. When the rubbish truck arrived to empty the bins of the houses along the street, things got more confusing still.

But the intelligence or otherwise of these, ahem, fine physical specimens is not why I'm mentioning them. No doubt there were road crews across the city who were facing similar mentally taxing challenges. No, I'm mentioning them because of what was happening as I was walking past the first two of them to arrive. The older of the two was wandering, looking a little aimless, and fishing through his pockets for a cigarette. So far, so normal. The younger, however, was standing close to the side of the truck with his head down. As I got closer, I realised. He wasn't just standing there. He was peeing. On the side of the road. On his work truck. At 7:30 on a Thursday, right next door to a busy suburban train station. He didn't even have the grace to look shamefaced as I walked by him, even though I was smirking fit to burst.

My other run-in happened on Saturday night. I got a last minute request to play wing-man for a friend who, after much backwards and forwards, had lined up an outing with a dating prospect. The catch was, he had been spending the day with a friend and would only go out if the friend could come along. So I would be there to distract the friend, keep him occupied and entertained. I never realised I could be such a good friend. If I'd known going in just how good a friend I was going to be by agreeing, I would have said no.

I should have known when the tag along friend was at the bar and the date described him as "just like Alan from The Hangover". I should have known again when he was being encouraged to trot out his knowledge of geography in a Rainman like display of regurgitated facts. Or perhaps when we were encouraged to subtly get him onto the subject of Spain, only to see his bored expression vanish and his head fly up, to hear him speaking random Spanish phrases to demonstrate his fluency. But I didn't know, and neither did the friend I was accompanying.

I really started to pick up on it at the second venue, when I was dragged up to dance. And I mean dragged. I finally agreed to go, because it would have seemed churlish not to, and it gave my friend some alone time with the date. His dance style could best be described as original; if I'd seen other people pulling his moves, I would have thought they were joking. He wasn't. When he pulled me in closer to dance, alarms started going off. They should have gone off earlier, when he'd had his leg brushing mine quite a bit, but I'd just put it down to him being drunk. But there was no escaping his meaning on the dance floor.

He should have known I wasn't interested. I pulled away at every possible opportunity after the dancing. In fact, not even after the dancing. During. I walked a fine line between good friend (keeping him occupied) and self-preservation (keeping him at a distance). It was a knife edge balancing act, and I must have toppled off the wrong side, because when we went back to the friend's place to escape the noise of the bar (ie, for friend and date to come up with excuses for alone time), he still hadn't realised that I wasn't interested.

The date engineered a flimsy excuse for me to show him something about the house - he was a tradie, and my friend had been talking about a maintenance issue, so even if everybody else in the room failed to spot it for what it was, I picked up on the hint and took him upstairs to show him the problem. I should have seen it coming. The part where he turned around and launched himself at me for a kiss. His mouth was half open, his bloodshot eyes half closed as he put his hands on my shoulders and tried to pull me in. I should have seen it coming, but really, I didn't. Or at least I did, but only in time to turn him aside and tell him, "Ah, no," rather than in time to stop his lunge and grab. It was the first hint of actual humanity in him all night, as he got all embarrassed and pretended he was just looking at my necklace.

It was an awkward hour or so that we were left with. The happy couple disappeared not long after we got back into the room and left us perched uncomfortably at opposite ends of the couch, too embarrassed to speak. Rainman disappeared to the loo and I texted my friend.

"You have no idea how much you owe me."

Her phone was still downstairs in her handbag.

He returned from the loo and I went. I didn't know it at the time, but he called the date's phone while I was out of the room.

After half an hour or so of increasingly stilted conversation, he called the date again.

"You about ready? Yeah, it's Awkwardsville down here."

There was some relief at hand, finally.

"He said four minutes. I'm timing him."

With the end in sight, I began packing up, content in the knowledge that my run-ins with men could only improve. At least, after public pee-ing and unwanted kiss attacks, I certainly hope so, or I may be at risk of losing my faith in men all together. Not that there was much to start with...

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Quaking

I've just done something. I'm hoping it was the right thing, but somehow doubting that anything will come of it.

For all my bitching and moaning a couple of months back, I have not left my job. I'm still there and I'm still miserable, most of the time. But tonight, in spite of the fact that I only got home at about 10, I have taken a step in what I hope is the direction of the door. I've actually gotten around to listing some vintage-related things for sale. And oh, god, I hope they sell. Because not only do I need the money, I need the out.

I've been clinging to a version of this particular dream for a little while now, and have taken a few steps along the path to realising it, without getting too bored. That's unusual for me, I have to be honest. For all the dreams I've had along the way, I've never really wanted to see any of them through. Not properly. It might be that my sister-in-law-of-sorts is also treading down a similar path with me this time that is driving it. Or maybe it's just that I'm finally finding something that I feel passionate enough about. Who can tell? And who on earth would have thought that it would have anything to do with clothing, if it is? That the sartorial failure would want to build a career around this?

But there again, it's not fashions for the now - it's fashion for way back then. So I guess it works for me, given that I'm something of a history nerd.

So here's crossing fingers, toes, eyes, ankles, knees, anything else I can manage to get across something else, that there are people out there who are interested in what I'm selling, and that they actually buy it. Because I want out.

Monday, October 17, 2011

A pocketful of happy

The weather here has finally taken a turn for the better. A false start a few weeks back was followed by some of the more miserable weather Melbourne has to offer. Howling winds, spring thunderstorms, hail, rain, and cold. Perhaps not London cold, but enough that I was back in my winter wardrobe after a brief flirtation with spring.

But last week saw the mercury rise a little. Not soar, no, but hover in a pleasant range. The winds died and the sun put in cameo appearances. It was time for the spring clothes to emerge once more. And I, for one, am extremely glad of it, but not for the reasons you might think.

Yes, I enjoy the warmer months of the year, although generally not spring. I think it's safe to say that no hay fever sufferer will endure a Melbourne spring voluntarily without contemplating a move somewhere else during the brief moments when they are free from the haze inducing allergies that hold them prisoner for three months of the year. But summer, sure. I'm only human. I prefer to be warm rather than cold. But it wasn't climate that had me smiling one afternoon last week as I shrugged into my lightweight linen jacket, just before heading out of work for the day.

It wasn't even that daylight saving has arrived, bringing with it the joyous moment of changing from work clothes into pyjamas during daylight hours (what can I say, I'm a slob, and not ashamed to admit it).

The moment of pure bliss came when I fished into the jacket pocket for my car key. I'd dropped it in there that morning, one less thing to carry as I juggled office keys, handbag, lunch bag and laptop from the car to the office. The steps I have to negotiate to get into the fish bowl are not steep, but they carry hidden puddles for the unwary in open shoes. Getting the keys out to drive up the road for lunch, I noticed that there was something else in the pocket. I didn't remember putting anything else in there, so I was naturally curious. I find all sorts of things hidden in the pockets of clothes, sometimes before they go in the washing machine, sometimes after. Feeling the paper-ish crinkle of this, I assumed it was a receipt and twisted it from the pocket fully intending to just throw it in the bin. I'm so glad I looked at it first, though.

It was $50.

There is nothing more welcome than an injection of funds in the week before pay day. I wasn't down to brass tacks but I could certainly see the last farthing on the horizon, and it was coming up with a rush. A fifty made me feel rich, like winning the lottery - or rather like winning one of the smaller prizes in the lottery. It was a brilliant warmth in my stomach, a buzzing lightheaded sensation. It was bliss. And yes, I'm fully aware of just how pathetic it seems to be so overjoyed by the appearance of a note that can be withdrawn from an ATM, assuming you have the cash in your account in the first place. And therein lies the reason for my excitement. I had no cash available to me. My lunch run was going to be to the supermarket, because all I had available was a denomination too small to be removed at an ATM. Like I said, the week before pay week. It's almost always a diet of baked beans that week, even when it's not a month where I've moved house, booked flights for a Christmas trip, and paid off my car rego. No wonder fifty dollars seemed like finding the welcome stranger.

I spent the rest of the afternoon merrily plotting not only how to spend it (anything that wasn't sensible, really), but thinking on where it could have come from. I wasn't sure when I'd last worn the jacket. I knew it had been some time this year, but I couldn't say if I'd ever put my hands in the pockets. Some good fairy, evening out the karma stakes a little? Making up for the torrent of crap that rains over my desk at work every single day? Or perhaps a visit from a leprechaun who had been through the currency exchange on his way into the country? A parting gift from the old flatmate, as a reward for being "the best flatmate ever", for simply being clean, not hogging the bathroom, and not being smelly?

It was almost the end of the day when my reverie was brought to a mundane end. I remembered when I'd last worn the jacket, and where the money had come from. Turns out, I'd worn it to Mum's birthday dinner, and the cash was the payment from my brother for his share of her present.

I think I prefer the karma fairy. But I can still hold out hope that she's out there somewhere, just trying to find her way through the crap.

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Hello Old Friends

The big move has happened, during a downpour, no less. The soaking I got while moving loads of stuff out of the old place and into the new has landed me with a cold. So once again, I'm sat at home with my trusty box of tissues, my collection of movies and books, and surrounded by half empty boxes, but with little enough idea of where the rest of my stuff is.

There's an added complication with the new place though. Because right now it's feeling like I'm not just sharing it with L. I've been home from work three days due to separation anxiety with my tissues. And of those 3 days, I've had unannounced visitors on 2. Because L made the horrendous mistake of giving her parents a spare key.

They mean well, I know they do. The first visit was to drop off L's surprise birthday present, a ladder that they left set up at the end of her bed. Today's is to make some adjustments to some dodgy plumbing in the back yard. So it's not like they're dropping in to have lunch in the house, or something. But as a person who is not related to them, and whose own parents would never dream of stopping by a shared house without giving some kind of heads up first, I find it strange. It's especially awkward given that I'm still in my pyjamas today. I mean, I could have been coming out of the shower, or anything.

It makes me a little concerned for the future of the sharing. Because I like my own space, and I like it to stay my own space. I find it a bit strange and off-putting that someone else's parents can - and will - just randomly drop by unannounced, even if we're not home. I'm not saying that they shouldn't visit, far from it. But I'm getting the feeling that sharing with L when her parents are half an hour away is going to be very different to sharing with L when they're half a world away. And I'm not entirely convinced that it's going to work.

Thank god she is planning on getting the keys back off them when our other old London flatmate C comes to visit at the end of the month. Maybe then it will feel more like it's my home, rather than having a sense that I'm just dossing.