Criminal Mastermind

I was having a conversation with my brother last week, and it came out that he was at a community function in Glenroy earlier that day. Glenroy, and neighbouring suburbs of Coolooroo an Jacana, have been in the news a lot lately thanks to a series of fire bombings and shootings. The Police had decided to try and get the community a bit settled down by hosting an afternoon tea in a local park. It seems that the smallest member of the police air wing stopped in to impress the kiddies, and my brother overheard an interesting conversation that I feel compelled to report.

A local wandered over to where the helicopter pilots were standing by their bird.

"Oh mate, she is fully sick, huh," he observed. Somehow the local accent doesn't come through when typing. The police smiled and nodded.

"So, you got the keys? We take her for a spin?" The pilot laughed.

"Nah, mate, this one doesn't start with keys. It's a button."

The eyes of the local light up.

"So she would be easy to steal, then, huh."

As the title says: criminal mastermind.

Two strikes

It's been one of those days. It started with allergies, cleared up in the middle, and is ending with some sort of nightmarish sequence of stupid events and unhealthy levels of failure at anger management. Perhaps I should just start with some of the good bits, and let it progress from there.

Today is my sister-in-law's birthday, an occasion that my mother used as an excuse to test the waters of my brothers' new tolerance for each other. It's a long time since they would be able to be in the same room with each other, let alone the slight thawing of their demeanour which has seen them both participating in the same conversation - although still not talking directly to each other. Between them cracking jokes at either end of the table, and my two year old whirlwind of a niece playing up for her audience, the night was going pretty well. Some quiet chat with Mum and Dad afterwards - yes, I know, it's sad, but when you're single and broke you have to make the most of all interaction, not to mention the free food that comes with one of Mum's cooking spectaculars - and I was ready to head home and throw my phone on the charge. A bit of light reading before bed while I got some juice back into the batteries, to make sure it would last the night and wake me up in the morning. It just flashed at me with a battery warning light when I tried to make it do something. Note to self: leaving the MSN app running in the background all day chews through batteries like nothing else.

So I packed my many bags of goodies and headed homewards, feeling pretty safe in the knowledge that the flatmate would have arrived home before me and, if not warmed the flat, at least put the bins out. Sadly, no. As I parked my car, I drove past both of the bins which should have been on the nature strip. A quick check of the letterbox revealed that it was also not as it should have been. Thinking flatmate mustn't be home yet, I trudged up the stairs and rummaged in my bag for my keys.

Not there.

A vision came to me of throwing them on my desk at work, and another, later vision, of them being under a pile of papers. Still. And my phone was dead. But when I reached the top of the stairs, thinking to have another good rummage in my Tardis of a handbag, I noticed that the security door was ajar. Flatmate must be home, thank god, I thought, willing to overlook transgressions of bin and letterbox maintenance in return for being let in. I pushed the button for the doorbell, and waited.

Fine, I thought, when two more pushes had failed to yield a flatmate. She's probably in her room - where else would she be, actually? - so I'll just knock. Now I have a truly fearsome rap when I'm trying to get in somewhere. Not only has it terrified schoolies into quietude in beachside hotels, it has brought the rowdiest of neighbours to turn down their stereos. It's a knock worthy of the old ladies who live downstairs and sit in judgement on the goings on of the flats. A truly fantastic weapon to have in your arsenal when you're locked out and your apparently partially deaf flatmate is inside. Make that completely deaf. She didn't come to the door. OK, I told myself. It's 10:30, she might just be security conscious. I called out. Nothing. I thought I could hear running water inside, so I waited for it to stop and then tried again. Nada.

By this point I was fuming. Not only had she not put out the bins, but she was leaving me locked out on a bloody cold night. And this following hard on the heels of the Great Cooking Mess of 2011. Not going well at all, here. I knew what I had to do, but I was dreading doing it. Finally getting angry enough, I stormed downstairs and back to my car, bag of leftovers over my wrist. Throwing the car into gear and speeding onto the roads, I headed back to Mum and Dad's to pick up my spare keys, just hoping that they hadn't gone to bed yet, and that a knock on the door at 10:45 wouldn't give them heart failure.

An angry rant and a serious risk of speeding fines later, and my spare keys let me into the flat. The only sign that flatmate had been home, other than the unlocked wire door, was the firmly closed bedroom door, as opposed to the slightly ajar state that it gets left in when she's not home.

Banging and clattering around for a bit to get my own back, I decided to open the mail. One of the letters was a warning about an outstanding amount of rent, which I had tried without success to chase up before. This time it was different, and I felt like screaming. The amount listed as the rent we should be paying is $4 a month more than the weekly calculation suggests it should be. That's the difference in the rent that they are chasing. If they really want the extra 84 cents a week, the bastards can fight for it. I'm in no mood to be trifled with, and, based on the mounting headache, it's a mood that will linger through until morning. That this is the second time they've attempted to extract the cash from me has made me think that, as much as I love the flat, I may be moving on come September when the lease is up. Heaven help them if they fight back against the logical arguments I will attempt to make. Because I sure as hell won't.

Domestic Bliss

It's a few months now since the decision to get a flatmate. She moved in, and nothing has really been quite the same since. You'd hope I meant that in a good way, but really, no. It's not that we hate each other, or bicker, or anything drastic, really. But there is a chronic incompatibility looming on the horizon, and I don't think she's even noticed it.

She's a nice enough person, I suppose. Quite friendly, not hugely annoying, and keeps very much to herself. In fact most of the time, I'm not entirely sure if she's home or not. I have to peek through cracks or look for light shining under doors to get a sense of whether I'm alone or potentially have company. The general consensus is that it's an odd relationship in the flat. And that was before she started eating all of her meals in her room, as well spending the rest of her time holed up in there. In some respects, I guess she's the perfect flatmate. She pays bills on time, she's quiet, and she never hogs the couch or forces me to watch TV shows I don't like. But although I'm never sure of her current presence or absence, I can usually tell when she's been around.

Now I'm not the greatest with all things housekeeping. I vacuum the carpets once a month if I'm lucky, and do the shower once a quarter. Dishes are washed only when the pile on the sink gets too precarious, or there's a danger of being so many that need washing that they won't fit on the dish drainer. If I remember to change my sheets regularly, and actually have them washed by the time it occurs to me to change them again, I'm doing pretty well. But there are some things that I figure it's only fair to keep on top of when you're sharing. I think it would have been even more important if that sharing involved the use of someone else's things. But no, apparently not.

When I moved into this flat, everything I owned was new. Except my couch. And my kitchen table. And the antique bits and pieces. But you get the picture. The plates had never been eaten off. The sheets had never been slept on. The towels had never been used. The saucepans had never cooked anything. It was all still in quite good shape when she moved in. That can no longer be said about some things. It's to the point where, after helping me out while I was laid up with my back, my mother has been forced to offer me advice on how to get the saucepans back into something like a good condition, after months of things being cooked onto the sides. You can pick which pans she uses most often; they're the ones which are the most filthy outside, to the point that I can't get them clean even with steel wool, and have a soap scum residue inside them. You're supposed to wash pans AFTER cooking, not before.

And I could write it off if it was just pans, even if my pointed scrubbing of pans I haven't used has failed to have an effect (passive aggressive behaviour? perhaps, but direct suggestions for a cleaning roster have failed to have any impact). But being flat out with back pain and seeing your flatmate take the vacuum out for the first time ever, only to do her own room, having never cleaned the shower, never mopped any of the floors, it's getting a little much. I think the final straw came this weekend.

I haven't been using the cooktop much recently, at least partly because of the depressing state of my pans. But it drove me to the point of action on Saturday. I tried to clean the cooktop, because it was beginning to look like a bio-hazard; baked on sauce, overspill, actual chunks of food. But it wouldn't just wipe down. It required an actual cleaning product. I've never had to use a product to clean a cooktop before, I've always been able to manage it along the way. When I picked up the metal grate that covers the jets and found it was sticky and coated in a thick layer of baked on sludge, I was fuming. It drove me mad, to the point where I actually finished a cleaning job and looked for more - an unheard of phenomenon. I vacuumed. I spot cleaned the carpet. I swept. I mopped. By the time my sister-in-law popped in for a visit, the place was worthy of my mother's stamp of approval. I even changed the tea towels on the kitchen rail - yet another something that seems to fall into my area of responsibility. The flat was gleaming. The stove looked brand new. It was pristine. Then I headed out for dinner.

I was out again tonight. When I got home, there were once again unwashed saucepan lids on the stove. There was also cooked on sauce and a chunk of unidentifiable vegetable. There was also a load of washing that had been sitting in the washing machine all afternoon. Too bad if I needed to use it.

Individually, most of the problems I'm having with this girl aren't major. But the whole package, from the way she acts like she is responsible for inspiring any physical activity I take up - hello, woman, I have 2 prolapsed discs, you think I'm going to be taking up marathon running right now? But you're the only reason I might decide to start an activity? Or wait, you're the one who "inspired" me to take regular walks all summer until my back got screwed up, even though you didn't move in until February? Genius - to her complete inability to realise that you need to clean the kitchen floor when you spill stuff on it, or that pasta sauce will stain white cupboards if you leave it caked on dribbling down the front of them for a week or more, it all adds up and it's all driving me completely insane right now. And I'm at a loss for how to approach the problem in a way that won't blow up in my face, because clearly just leaving it until she notices have absolutely no impact at all.

How do you tell someone that you think they're a slob and that if they don't pull their finger out you're not going to be letting them use your stuff anymore? How do you suggest to a flatmate that the experiment isn't working, and that they should find somewhere else to live when the lease is up for renewal? And how do you bitch and moan to a friend who is about to buy a 4 bedroom house, without any intention of accepting the invitation to share that house?

Because L is about to take the plunge into the real estate market. She wants someone to share her mini-mansion, and I fit the bill quite nicely. She knows I'm fed up with my current living arrangement, she knows we rub along well enough as flat mates - or at least she knows she can put up with my more annoying habits, and that I won't kill her for hers. But I don't think I'm ready to go and live in her house, and that's another conversation that I don't know how to have. That said, I think I have more clues on that one than I do on how to kick out my current flat mate. If I could re-negotiate my rent, I'd be happy enough to stay here on my own. But dear god, something better change soon.

After a fashion

There's something about a good costume drama that sucks me in every time. I'm currently fathoms deep in love with Downton Abbey, and the love affair is showing no signs of easing. Whether it's the ability to sit and gloat as Lady Mary gets thrown at any man with a suitable fortune and/or title, safe in the knowledge that I do not have to worry about such things, or the poor footman, William, being subjected to the sort of workplace bullying and victimisation that we have laws to stop these days, or from some deeper enjoyment of watching things which recreate a by-gone age - supposedly more innocent, but really just different - I don't know.

Actually, I do have some idea what part of it is. It's the costumes. I'd love to have an excuse for wearing something like the gorgeous gowns they showcase - although perhaps not the corsets required to achieve the tiny waistlines. God knows I have enough problems at the moment without adding a tendency to faint due to lack of oxygen because I've been laced too tight. Instead, I've been trying to figure out ways of updating the look, getting some of it into my own wardrobe, at least my work wardrobe, which has become surprisingly ladylike for a girl who didn't own a skirt or dress that wasn't a uniform from the age of 15 through to 19.

I hate the expression ladylike, though. Or I should, as a believer in women's rights and equality. But somehow even though I don't want to live my life in a ladylike fashion - all staying at home and looking after the children, being subservient and second class, swooning at the drop of an embroidered handkerchief - I love the concepts associated with it. My favourite periods are almost all those where women wore "ladylike" clothes, yet still managed to show that they were up to whatever task was thrown at them. The suffragettes, the flappers, Rosie riveters, they all had awesome fashion. And dear god, what does it say about me that I've reduced some of the women who pushed the boundaries of society to the dresses they wore? Ah well, tis sad but true. We are what we eat, but we're also what we wear. And what fabulous things they were.

Life in the fast lane

Just when I thought things were looking up, I figured I was safe to go out of the house heading somewhere other than work this weekend. So I spent the better part of yesterday doing the rounds of various fabric outlets, spending far more than I should have on some beautiful materials which will someday be turned into something equally beautiful. As if lugging a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff around wasn't enough to test my back out, I decided to really push my luck and play with my niece.

She's two, but she's about the size of the average four year old, a mini giant who will one day be a seriously tall one. Imagine a slightly less coherent but far more opinionated Dora the Explorer, and you're getting pretty close to the hyperactive bundle of energy that my brother helped bring into this world. Ever the optimist, I thought I'd be able to manage some of our usual games - the catch and spin, the whizzy dizzy, the throw over the shoulder, the threaten to throw in the bin. It was only the last one that made me certain it probably wasn't one of my better ideas. But there's no easy way out when your arms are full of squirming, shrieking little girl and you're standing on concrete. Not like the moment when you first began to doubt your own wisdom and simply made it more fun by dropping her on the conveniently located bed.

Not content with that, I headed out and about today, driving to various locations around town. The true lightening bolt moment of the day came as I was driving on the Ring Road, along one of the three lane stretches. Driving down the left lane, I noticed signs telling me to merge right. Checking the mirrors, I waited for a speeding car to pass me, then moved over at about the same time as the car in front of me pulled in front of the speeder. Funny, it was kind of like it happens in the movies - slow motion, obvious what the next step would be at every stage. Rather than braking, the speeder began to shift into the right lane. They didn't check their mirrors, or look out their window, even, and didn't see the car that was already in that lane until it was almost too late. With bare millimetres between the two cars, they both suddenly became aware of what was going on. The car already in the right lane swerved a little away, but the speeder, as they had done all along, completely over reacted. Braking hard and wrenching left, the driver lost control of their car. Smoke was screaming from the locked wheels as they skidded and spun across my lane and the left lane which had not yet ended. By the time they reached the emergency lane, they were facing the wrong way and started to cross back into the left lane before coming to a stop, at last.

You can imagine what braking from 100 in a hurry did to my back. Even the adrenaline kick from being so close to potential serious danger didn't stop it hurting as I watched the speeder once again getting back up to and then beyond the speed limit. The few things that I had to get at the supermarket were almost the end of me, or that's how it felt. I've been back in the horizontal position on the couch again since I got home. The pinging sensation that I felt when I got up earlier tonight make me think I'm still going to be sore tomorrow. The cars avoided damage, but I apparently did not. The car that had sparked all the drama in the first place probably hadn't even noticed what was going on, disappearing around a bend before the speeder had even finished spinning.

Baby steps

It seems that my entrepreneurial side has taken over while my mobility has been limited. Yes, that's right, the threatened back seizure happened, and I've had a week of enforced inactivity. And during that time - particularly during the long weekend that fell in that period - I've had plenty of time to mull over various things. Funny how much the mind works when the rest of you doesn't, when you need to call for help to get out of bed without almost passing out in agony - and I wish I was exaggerating that particular detail, but my mother can confirm that slightly panicked phone call that went out last Friday morning, before the lovely pain killers kicked in, before my 2 year old niece kissed me better.

During that time, I was fussing and fuming about the lost sewing time I had planned for the three day weekend. And some wheels began to turn. Slowly, yes, but then again, and avalanche starts with a trickle. It picked up a little speed tonight, though. After last night's effort on eBay buying up vintage patterns to add to what is already an extensive collection, today I registered a business name and a domain name in preparation for being able to sell the products of my efforts.

Things are really kicking off around here. I'm planning not only to make, sell and - eventually - design clothes, but I'm also plotting ways of funding travel through this. Think of it - Killi's London Blitz, a tour for fans of the wartime period in London...stopping off in Paris and Amsterdam for a couple of days as well. Now I just need to get some product to sell, some research into the whole travel issue, a website up and running, and, well, any kind of clue how to turn this into something that I don't get bored with. Hmm...But the first steps have been taken, anyway. And now I'm kind of vertical again (although not right now, thanks to heading back to work before I was really ready), I can get on with the realities of what is required. Fabric shopping this weekend. I can hardly wait to watch my hard earned flow through my fingers...

15 minutes

It's funny the things that can get you annoyed. Sometimes it's big things - outrage at social injustice, laws that allow on the spot fines for swearing, stripping the powers from the equal opportunities commission, arguing against a carbon tax that could help slow environmental degradation. Sometimes it's pettiness - that newspapers and magazines feel compelled to devote so many column inches to people who just happen to have won the genetic lottery. Today, apparently, it's the completely insignificant that is getting my goat.

I'm on the final stretch of the assignment run. The last one is due tomorrow, and I'm within sight of the finish line. It's so close that I allowed myself a break to watch some TV - Winners and Losers an amusing little comedy/drama about the lives of four women who win the lottery. It was supposed to start at 9, an annoying enough time to start a show in a land where hourly shows start on the half hour or thereabouts, but manageable. Or it is when Channel 7 don't run so far over time that the show is 15 minutes late. And all because of Australia's Got Talent. Australia apparently has so much talent that it can't be edited to a reasonable time slot. It's not like the show is live, folks. They're quite happy to edit other programs so they can cram in more and more ads, but this one they stretch out to make sure there is enough time to repeat the bloody phone numbers for voting lines over and over again.

So here I am, sitting on the couch again (it's a common theme lately, and clearly I've been doing it too much because my back is feeling like it's about to give up again) and silently building up an impotent rage. Because what can I do about that fact that a TV network decides not to follow it's own programming guide? And then it hits me just how pointless the whole thing is anyway, given that it doesn't affect anyone in a life and death way, and I get angry at myself for being too caught up in something so insignificant, and the cycle repeats ad nauseum until my head explodes, or I find my way onto my blog to blow off steam. I think I might just be sufficiently calm to get back to writing about teaching humanities in secondary schools...Although it's on Channel 7's head if something along these lines creeps into the section on civics and citizenship, because Australia may have talent, but Channel 7's programming department is lacking severely in the clock department.

Only the Lonely

The universe is conspiring against me at the moment. My study reading has me looking into the concept of emotional intelligence, the pressures to conform to societal norms. I'm tired, I'm emotional. And I'm listening to 'Gotta be Somebody' by Nickelback and feeling the urge to hit the repeat button and get a little teary at the thought that perhaps there may not be somebody out there for me. All of this follows a conversation with a friend on the way home from my birthday drinks about what would happen if I never found 'The One'. What if I stay single? What if Nana was right when she was telling my mother - at my birthday dinner with my family, no less; now I remember why I usually spend them overseas - that the four years I spent overseas had ruined my life. I was going to be just like a woman she had known when she was younger, who had left behind a fiance to go travelling for two years on the grand tour, only to return and find her fiance had found someone else, and she would remain a spinster for the rest of her life.

I never set much store by that story. I've heard it before, and it's only ever made me angry, that Nana was so narrow minded she thought it would be better to be married to a man who was obviously not in love with her enough to wait than to have had the wonderful, amazing, enriching experiences Mabel had while she was travelling. Nana never mentions if Mabel regrets missing 'her chance'. For all I know she led a perfectly happy and fulfilling life. The only part of it that I ever hear about is that she never married and ruined her life by travelling for so long. Just like I have done. Mind you, earlier that same night, she had only just held back from insulting me to my face. "You don't eat much, do you. You shouldn't be so --" Happy birthday to me.

And to top off the emotional fiesta that is my night, I had an email from the Talker today, just wanting clarification on what I meant by saying we should 'cool things' and offering to be friends in whatever way I was up for, whether that was just hanging out, or dating or whatever. And the mood I'm in right now, I'm tempted by it. Because even Chatty McStepford seems more appealing than spending another day, week, year, eternity sitting on this bloody couch alone.

Best in class

I've been working on my main skill base over the past few days, focusing on the areas where I'm strongest. The result? I have confirmed that I am even better at procrastination than I thought. But on the plus side, I'm also going to be a little better organised and stronger out of this particular bout. Because I've not only tidied my sewing table enough to mean only a couple of things have to be moved if the urge to create comes upon me (and during a procrastination binge, that has been known to happen), I've also re-arranged the furniture in my bedroom so that things kind of work better, apart from one awkward corner (far better than the whole wall of awkward that I had before). I've purged my wardrobe, my chest of drawers, I've sorted my vintage pattern collection, I've gone to a vintage fair, I've attempted - unsuccessfully - to see The Hangover 2, and successfully wandered to my brother's for a refresher viewing of the first one.

About the only thing I haven't yet managed is the dishes (that's my next task) and the actual study I'm supposed to be doing. I think I've finally reached professional levels in my procrastination. I've hit my peak, and I'm debating upping the ante again, by deferring next semester while I re-evaluate how much I want to study for at least 2 years more to go and spend my days somewhere that may or may not suit me. How enthused I am at using my entire allowance of annual leave for the next three years on practical experience rounds. Or whether I should just take the advice of my brother's girlfriend and get into the clothing thing a little further, since, as she observed, I'm clearly quite passionate about it.

Yes, that's right, I'm apparently passionate about something other than books. So perhaps I'm studying the wrong thing. Perhaps I don't actually need to study at all, and have all the skills I need. But whatever I decide, I have about 5 hours to pull together my next assignment for submission if I fancy keeping my options open about this particular path. And I can't face it. So instead, I'm off to clean the pan I used to make pancakes earlier today (yes, I'm studying, so all semblance of a healthy diet has gone out the window, even if I haven't achieved any actual study).

So, that's another 20 minutes wasted. Clearly, I excel at this whole thing. If only I had something that would lead me to study as procrastination...

The lesser of two evils

I've just let the Talker know that it's unlikely that there'll be any more dates. And I feel like a complete heel for doing it. Because on the whole, he's a pretty decent guy, it's just there were too many niggling doubts in my mind for me to continue with it. I spent too much of the time during our dates (the parts before alcohol befuddled my mind, anyway) trying to convince myself that he was right for me. I'm not generally into self-delusion, so I've decided that it was best for everyone if I just ended it.

Maybe part of the reason I'm sensing a distinct odour coming from my own behaviour is that I did it by text. At 10pm. In response to a text from him saying that he was feeling really good all day on Saturday after our Friday night date. And I used a slightly more wordy version of "it's not you, it's me". Yep. World-class shit, sitting right here at the keyboard.

But why is that? Sure, my timing sucked, but isn't it better that I told him up front than going the ignore route that I would have taken had he not been such a decent guy? Or that I took the time and trouble to come up with an explanation for my reasoning, that gave him some clarity for why it was happening, and an idea that it wasn't because he was a crap date? Yes, my method of delivery was cowardly and pathetic, but we'd been on three dates. It's not like we were living together or anything. And this was they guy who told me he wasn't looking for anything serious (I may have used that against him in the "we have to talk" text...but it's kind of true). So what did I really owe him? I've been on the receiving end of the fade out after a third date, and it wasn't hurtful. I did consider doing that with this one, but thought it required a more definite response. So for being a responsible adult, I get to feel like crap.

I swear, if dating doesn't get easier, I'm asking my parents to take over and arrange a marriage for me...At least then they'd have to handle the break-up.

In my home town

At the risk of seeming self centred (hello, I've been blogging about my life for almost five years now, and still stamp my foot a little when I realise just how few people have come back more than once in that time. What, my ramblings aren't worthy? But I digress. Hmm, perhaps that's the problem?), I'm about to blog my personal life again. Yes, that's right, folks, welcome to another world of the completely insecure embarking on a dating exercise.

The boy I've now seen twice - let's dub him the Talker, for his ability to talk the leg off a table - has suggested meeting up this weekend. But he hasn't suggested any locations, obviously assuming that with my many years living in Melbourne I'll be able to suggest somewhere suitable. I knew it was a mistake to come across all "oh yeah, you have to try this place" on the first date. So I've just spent almost an hour googling ideas. And you know what I've come up with? A sleazy, vile pool hall; ten pin bowling. Then I hit the joys of suburb-based streets; Brunswick St, Fitzroy; Fitzroy St, St Kilda. Really? I lived in this city for most of my life, and that's the best I can come up with as suggestions for what to do? Where are the cosy venues with great food and cheap drinks? Where is the quirky back-alley basement bar? Because the truth is, when planning a night out in my home town, I'm a dead loss.

Meanwhile, you guessed it, it's coming to the end of semester. I'm in full procrastination mode. And that might be why I'm planning on doing a whole lot of research into suitable date venues over the next few days. Procrastination task at the ready? Students, stop your engines...

Wanted: Forward impetus

I'm not sure what it is about me that makes me so restless, but I'm currently having a serious bout of career blues. I'm bored senseless at work most of the time, and sick of spending my nights studying to try and get somewhere else. I think it might really just be the onset of a Melbourne winter, and it being just on a year now since I left London. I think I'm entitled to a little angst, to be honest.

So, anyone who isn't prepared for a bit of self-pitying moaning, look away now. I promise that the next post will be more upbeat. Probably.

Everyone who hears about my current study plan gives such a negative response that I've started to believe them. What started out seeming like a great career move for me - get to read kids books without anyone looking at me strangely, get 10 weeks holiday a year, don't need to have the greatest attention to detail - is becoming more and more like something that I will end up hating. Sounds like a familiar tale, to tell the truth. So what do I do about it all? Do I keep studying, in hopes that it works out OK in the long run? Or do I call it quits now and find whatever it is that I'm really supposed to do? Knuckle down, rent a cottage somewhere with no distractions, and actually finish writing any one of the four or so books that I have in various stages of completion so that I can attempt to get them published? Chuck everything in and just work as a temp until I find myself a career that fits? Switch out of my current job into something similar that at least pays better? Or find myself a rich man and live a life of ease and luxury on someone else's dollar? Perhaps hold off and attempt to score myself a job in academia?

That's always been the problem with me and careers, though. There's always been too many choices on the table, and not enough will to narrow it down. Too much dreaming, not enough reality. Not to mention not enough specificity in my skill base. Jack of all trades, master of none. The only thing I know for sure is that I need to make some kind of change. My current work is driving me to distraction with the lack of challenge, and that's without factoring in the monumental levels of stupidity in the people I deal with on a daily basis, from the co-worker who is unable to shut the fridge door (and then unable to hear the annoying beep it makes when she does this), to the nut job residents of the estate, or the lazy arse council workers who take three months to act on something, but still manage an appropriately surprised voice every time you talk to them.

I have to find myself a grown up mature job sometime soon, though. It's too early for a mid-life crisis, and too late for me to be still in kidulthood. I'm a thirty-something. Surely I should be settled in some area of my life by now, rather than in an eternal state of limbo. But no. I'm still in exactly the same position I was in six years ago. And three years before that. And god knows how many years before that. Dear god, I need momentum. Someone give me a shove, please...

Better the devil you know?

I've known L for quite a few years now. We first met in a dance class back in 2002, I think it was. I shared a flat with her in London. She's an occasional reader of this blog - very occasional - and a regular contributor of inspiration for content. Today's post will be no exception, although she might be surprised to read descriptions of her self that are bound to follow. Because as good a friend as I consider her, there are a few things about her that I would dearly love to change, and I don't just mean her obsession with the idea that she is fat because she doesn't neatly fit what she has come to believe is the perfect body shape. There are reasons why we very rarely discuss politics, and one of those reasons reared it's head today.

In many respects, we have similar backgrounds. Our father's both trained as teachers, although mine left the profession when I was still in primary school. We both went to the local state school before moving on to private secondary schools and then to university. We both know what it's like to be in a family that has to scrimp and save, that there's a difference between something you really want and something you really need. And as long as we avoid certain no-go areas of conversation (religion and politics, the twin minefields of most conversational gambits), we get along like a house on fire. But in those areas, our views are such polarised opposites that conflict is bound to arise, and I find myself compelled to challenge her on how and why she can come from where she has, yet still hold the ideas that she does. At the same time, I'm rational enough to think that there's no doubt she has similar queries about my views.

Anyone who has read this blog more than once over the many years I have been writing it now (I think there's one of you out there...) would know that my own leanings are so far to the left that I'm a virtual socialist. I get fired up about the big issues of social inequality, by prejudice, by ignorance. I admit, ironically, I'm not terribly tolerant of people who don't agree with me on these points. Luckily, L and I were friends long before I discovered her inbuilt prejudices against what she today described as "total scum".

Now don't get me wrong here. There are people in the world who would merit that description a million times over. People who lie, cheat, steal, and plenty more. But I don't think that you deserve the epithet simply for being poor and, if you're lucky, working class. Last time I checked, there wasn't a means test on the right to consider yourself a decent human being. Nor was there any reason to think that because there are people of "reduced means" living in an area, people who get their hands dirty for a living, who may not have had the same chances as you or may not have had the same inclinations as you, that it must be unworthy of your attention. Poverty certainly is no justification for being branded scum. Yet L, an otherwise rational person, is so blinded by her prejudice - and acknowledges it - that she would not consider living in an area where there were such people. Nor would she look at an area that was home to many migrants, a large gay population, or any of a wide ranging variety of groups she is prejudiced against in the abstract sense. She is capable of suspending her judgement when faced with an individual case - I think it comes more from an innate politeness that stops her from giving offence - until she actually knows a person and then is more likely to consider them on their merits. Her judgement is so irrational and arbitrary that her definitions are flexible; the English, for example, are not migrants.

Bearing in mind that this is an intelligent, well-brought up woman living in the twenty-first century. You'd be forgiven for thinking that her views were those of a ninety year old woman back in 1952. Although progressive in some ways, she holds firmly entrenched views that cannot be swayed by any logic, views that, until recently when Tony Abbot's political aspirations saw the culmination of a slow drift to the right in Australian politics, most would be wary of expressing for fear of being considered as almost a fascist. I'm not calling her a fascist - I want to make that perfectly clear - just saying that, as much as I verge on socialism, she verges on fascism, the opposite ends of the political spectrum. I might lightly banter with her on the subject of her prejudices, but I sometimes want to hit her over the head about them, until she sees how far to the right she occasionally gets. I'm sure she feels that same feeling about my leftist, pinkish politics. So we avoid the topic when we're thinking clearly. When we're not, we manage to steer into safer waters soon enough to avoid a storm. But I wonder, sometimes, if that's the right thing to do. Because my understanding is that prejudices should be challenged, especially where they appear illogical. Where people who see the world differently sit quietly by while others grow in bigotry, trouble can brew. Sure, she's my friend, but if I can't challenge my friend, what do I do when I see the same bias in a stranger? Where does it end?

On that entirely too serious note, I should probably explain the context of the statement. She has been looking to buy a house, so we were doing the rounds of the open houses today and found ourselves in an area that she was probably less familiar than she might have been. "I guess it's not likely that complete scum live around here, is it," she observed, leaving the rest of us spluttering. No, we assured her. The ones poor enough to fit her definition of scum would not be able to afford to live in the area. They, like her blogger friend, would be forced to rent something a little further out of the city, on the wrong side of the upside down river that messily divides Melbourne's suburbs from each other.

I don't think she'll be buying the house in question, but no doubt she'll end up with something in a similar area. And I can't help but think that the cafes that line the streets where she will live will be filled with a certain type of person, someone who goes out on the weekend to sit with a chai latte and read the newspaper, smugly congratulating themselves on being able to afford to boost property prices to the point where a person earning an above average wage can't get a loan to buy a vacant block of land on the fringes of the city, let alone afford to build a house on it. Patting themselves on the back because they have been fortunate to escape the "scum" of the city, even though the parts of Melbourne where they live were for decades the slums where the scum thrived. And I wonder at the vagaries of a world where two people who have so much in common can find themselves on opposite sides of a fence, staring across a yawning divide that neither one is prepared to cross; the Yarra river of ethical and political debate, and I wonder if I find myself on the right or the wrong side, and if there is any way to make her see that the world is a richer place on this side.

Just one of those days

Some days, you wonder why you bother. The days when you don't want to get out of bed. When you don't want to leave the house. You don't want to spend two hours standing talking in circles with one of the world's most persistently annoying people, while his wife is in tears beside him protesting that you don't know what she's going through. Actually, you know in excruciating detail what she's going through, because you've heard it for the past two hours. And that's just on this one day, in this one meeting. When he husband called you four times the day before, you heard it again then. And when he comes back into the office later that afternoon for another crack, you know exactly what he's going to say. Because part of his persistent annoyance is his ability to say exactly the say thing, over and over again, without even varying the wording.

This particular man is one of those people who is a shade of grey. Not even a shade with an exotic of impressive name, like French Grey. He's just grey. You get the feeling that he repeats himself so often, because experience has shown him that nobody really listens to him the first time around. He's one of life's victims, the sort of person that nothing ever goes right for. I have to wonder if it's a chicken or the egg situation though; which came first, him being a boring, anal retentive, leech, or his inability to get people on-side? Scratch the wondering, I think I know.

So, it was one of those days. The kind where you work hard all day, even if it's just prying lose the tick of a purchaser who has burrowed into your skin and is slowly poisoning you, but don't actually achieve anything - not even getting rid of the tick, or any of the others like him who have filled your voicemail box while you've been dealing with him. A day where you get home and want to have a drink to get rid of the day, only to find that there is nothing in the house to drink, not even the dregs of a month old bottle of wine in the fridge that was saved for cooking.

It's the kind of day that can make you start looking for a new job, only to realise that your references are all out of date, and you don't think putting your current boss down would do the trick. Where you find quite a few jobs that seem pretty well paid that you think you're qualified for, but you also don't think you should apply for them because you know you're studying and that you're going to need to take some time off soon to deal with the practical rounds of teaching that will be coming up soon - something that new employers won't like at all.

Yep. It's just one of those days.

The Dating Game

It was a second date. The first had gone well, really only ending because we both knew we had to work the next day, finishing up with a walk to the tram stop and a polite kiss on the cheek. I'd put it down to him being a gentleman in the old-fashioned sense. On the way home he'd texted to say that he'd had fun, and that we should do it again soon.

So there we were, a little over a week later, meeting up once more. Somehow he brings out other sides of me. I'm normally pretty punctual to anything afternoon or evening (the morning is a whole other story); two dates, two late arrivals. We wended our way to a little Italian restaurant down a lane way, over a bar, and, in light that I later realised was entirely too harsh for anyone trying to impress but feeling a little insecure, we proceeded to discuss the joys of old-fashioned comfort food, the mysteries of public transport, exactly what constituted a hipster and why we would never be one (I disagree, I think he does have a little of the hipster about him, but nothing full-blown, or I never would have agreed to a second date), and various other topics before agreeing to move on to drinks.

Our second venue was the polar opposite of the restaurant we'd eaten in. The restaurant hasn't changed since 1978 when diners were held hostage at gunpoint - maybe earlier, I'm not sure. It was cheap and cheerful at its best. The bar - sorry, cocktail lounge - was an entirely different story. We climbed the stairs in hopes of a table with a view but found ourselves instead with a view only of a canoodling couple, and an epic drinks list. So we talked on, getting through, somehow, a bit of philosophy, gender roles, cultural reinforcement of tradition and suddenly I was on the receiving end of a completely unexpected question.

"So, I'm not sure how to say this," as alarm bells began to ding in my head, "but what are you hoping to get out of this?" Talk about a question without notice. I was left scrambling, trying to assemble an answer that wouldn't scare either of us, something suitably non-committal either way. To buy myself a little more time, I asked for clarification. Out of what? "The whole RSVP process, I guess."

That was a little easier, gave me a little more wriggle room at least. I still wasn't sure how to answer it, but I felt comfortably able to come up with something nice and evasive. "That all depends what I find," I told him, a bit of a giggle attached to break any ice that might have been forming. Time for revenge. "What about you?" I asked, watching him squirm. And squirm he did, attempting to duck and weave, and finally acknowledging that it was a ridiculously awkward question to have asked. But not before dropping something on me that I can't shift from my mind. My evasion was obvious. His was not so much evasion as partial truth, I think, although the lack of certainty has left me over-thinking things ever since.

Because he's not looking for anything serious, he was careful to make clear to me. To the point where he implied that he was just looking for friendship. I wasn't pleased, but I was OK with that. We get along well, I don't have many male friends, and we venture to places that I've never made it to before, by virtue of his touristing (he's not from Melbourne originally.) Sure, there are a few things about him that I'm not sure of (his take on gender roles, for a start, followed closely by his inherent snobbery) but it's nothing that I haven't been exposed to before from friends, and certainly not deal breakers. So although things paused and struggled awkwardly after his question, we stayed put and worked through it. It probably helped that we moved onto another bar soon after.

Several hours later, we were saying our goodbyes. Bearing in mind what he'd said earlier in the night, I wasn't expecting much. My tram was coming and it was close to the last tram of the night, as far as I knew, so a long goodbye was far from my mind. Yet the kiss goodnight was not the friendly, polite kiss on the cheek that I'd half been expecting. It was a little different. The look on his face, and the goodbye as I ran off to board my tram (rather, bus replacement service, but that's a whole other story), suggested that he was surprised I was leaving so quickly. I snuggled down into my seat as the bus pulled out, and, ipod in place, settled in for half an hour of reliving and examining. I still couldn't get to an answer that suited me.

My confusion grew when I was walking into my flat and my phone buzzed with a text. "How is it I didn't kiss you sooner? And why rush off so quickly? Would have quite liked if you'd stayed a little longer." OK, I thought to myself. Nothing serious, but a little bit of fun, potentially to be had. I can see how that might happen, without thinking too much yet about whether I wanted that for myself. Closer consideration would have me saying no, I think. Confusion grew more this afternoon. I somehow found myself in my messages archive on RSVP. His profile has become inactive. I'm pretty sure it was active when I looked in the same place the other day. So somewhere along the line, he's decided to go another way. I just have no idea which way that is, or whether I would want to go the same way.

Why does it all have to be such a muddle? It was all so much more simple before he blurted out that question, when it was just a question of liking each other. Now, with the element of potential commitment also introduced, I'm a long way out of my comfort zone and not entirely sure of the rules of the game. But then, I never really knew the rules of dating in the first place...

Upwardly mobile

I've been cruising real estate websites while I've been off work (the back injury is healing...so is the throat infection that I got from hanging out in doctor's waiting rooms too much). Part of this was looking for a friend who is genuinely in the market for a new house. The other part was me wondering if there was anywhere in Melbourne I could afford to buy a place. Turns out that the answer is no.

Drives me a little crazy to know that although searching all of Melbourne in my price bracket returns 8 pages of hits, not one of them is suitable. I don't qualify to live in student only developments - and my God, there are a hell of a lot of them, fully furnished one room and a toilet style - nor am I in the market for a car parking space in the city. So I started looking a little further afield. And then I found it.

I found a nice looking block of land on the Melbourne side of Bendigo. Or was it Ballarat? I can't remember now, and it's not vital. Either way, it's about an hour from where I live and work now. A little more research, and I found that I can build on the block for about my price limit. And building in a regional area, I could even get a bigger grant from the government. So there you have it. About an hour out of Melbourne, I can afford a house. Hell, I could maybe even save a little, based on what the mortgage repayments would most likely be, assuming I was earning the same as I am now.

But there's the rub.

There are next to no jobs listed in the country that I qualify for. Nor are there people that I know. Sure, I have ideas on how to meet people when moving to another place now. But do I really want to do it, just so I can have my own place? Surely there is a better solution out there...Trouble is, I have no idea what the hell it is. As a single person who doesn't work in a well-paid industry (or at least for a generous employer), and someone who hasn't managed to save due to a debilitating travel habit, I have no deposit saved. Property prices in Melbourne have risen over 100% in the past decade and, although the market has slowed, are still continuing to go up. So where does that leave me? Renting, that's where it leaves me. Until I decide that the country life is for me. Then? Well, we'll see...

The best advice

I'm going slightly stir crazy at the moment. My back is still not all it should be, so I'm hemmed into my flat quite efficiently. And everybody wishing me well and offering help is actually driving me to distraction.

One of the things I've been learning while I've been if not laid up then at least slowed down, is that back pain is one of those things that everybody either has a cure for, or can recommend someone who does. So much of it is contradictory that it's of next to now use, but people feel obliged to offer up their kernels of knowledge, and I have to accept all of them like a grateful beggar on the street. I might be drawing things in a fairly harsh light here, but I've had so many recommendations of good chiropractors, osteopaths, physiotherapists, doctors, acupuncturists and masseurs that if I took them all up not only would I not be able to move even as much as I can now, I'd be getting shuttled around like a tennis ball, shunted from end to end, as I ran to all the appointments.

It's not that I'm not ungrateful. I do understand that it was concern that drove my grandmother to offer to call my aunt if there was anything wrong with me (although why I wouldn't just solve all the problems by calling my mother, who is not only a damn site closer, but able to drive, I have yet to figure. At the very least, surely I'd just call the aunt directly, if needed?). But folks, really, there's a limit to how much of this I can take, and I've about reached it. Thank god I've been a little more mobile today, even if it was just a grandmotherly shuffle. There's a light shining at the end of the tunnel. And best of all, it's not offering me any bloody advice.

The thing

I have discovered some of the words that you would never really think about, but don't want to hear from your doctor. Don't jump to conclusions, it's not anything deadly. Just not what you want to hear.

I might have mentioned that I've messed up my back. It's still not better. And I took a day off work yesterday to go and see a doctor about it. When I described what was going on, his first words, before he'd examined me, were "how much sick leave do you have?" Not reassuring in the slightest. He then proceeded to cause more pain in my back than anyone has any right to do just by poking someone, and getting paid for the privilege.

But there you have it. I'm now standing, with my computer propped on my sewing box, instead of resting on the desk, and trying to avoid twisting. I'm off work until at least tomorrow, and I'm promised another bout with Doctor Bedside-Manner tomorrow. Meanwhile, my mother, who has back problems of her own, is worried silly, largely because of my grandmother hinting that my bad back is the result of a genetic mutation inherited from my mother, and offering to do everything from my grocery shopping to my dishes. As tempting as it is to let her do the lot, I realise that any inches given will be taken, run with, and multiplied until she is "just popping in" all the time. Thanks, but no.

So I'm trying not to let it stop me from doing too much. For instance, tonight, I'm off to a comedy show. I'm just planning on getting an aisle seat so I can stand up as necessary, that's all. I'm hoping laughter is the antidote for the words you don't want to hear when you think you're just going to be given some exercises to strengthen your back, because sick leave should never be used when you're actually sick. Such a waste...

The Art of Distraction

I've stuffed my back again. I must be getting old, it's happening more often than it used to. Now, something as simple as sleeping can have pain shooting down the back of my legs and radiating up to my shoulders. I've been using it as an excuse to avoid doing dishes (although interestingly, the number of dishes used seems to have multiplied in inverse proportion with my will to clean them). That little half bend at the sink had me throwing in the towel, before it had wiped a single plate. Tonight, I felt that I ought to bite the bullet and get on with it, before I ran out of tea spoons. Funny how they're always the first things to go.

Of course, my will to do the dishes actually increased when I realised how much study I had waiting for me. Because I've taken the masochistic jump and enrolled in that teacher training course I mentioned way back. Part time, I should be able to teach in three years or less, depending on how soon I get myself to a point where I can quit work and study full time. So in around 5 years I should be standing in front of my own class, then. Pfft. Like it will ever happen...But either way, it inspired me to wash the dishes. And now the spasm that caused in my back has me propped carefully on the couch with a comfy cushion squashed in just the right spot while I recover once again.

Of course, all of this is not just a distraction from the lock on my spine. It's to distract me from the fact that, once again, I'm waiting for a seemingly nice boy to get in touch with me so we can meet up and see if we're as nice in person as we seem via email. I'm sweating on my inbox like I never did over results for study, even though I know the boy - let's call him Ernie - is pulling midnighters at work for a week or two and is therefore unlikely to contact me. Either that, or he's miffed about certain parallels with Ray Martin that I jokingly pointed out. Actually, thinking about it, I probably shouldn't have done that. Just like I shouldn't have started writing about him, because now I'm going to get all paranoid that I've done something stupid, yet again. I need a "Quick! Look over there!" distraction. But when you're in your own head, it's a little hard. So I think I might have to get back into some of the things I've been putting off. I think I have some movement in my back again, and an airer full of clothes is calling me. And my new flatmate (did I mention that I have a flatmate now? All part of the trying to get to a position to fund full time study plan...as an added bonus, she's hardly ever here and when she is, she keeps to her room. The perfect flatmate, in many respects) gets back from a holiday on Thursday, so best not have my underpants on display in the living room. I don't think we know each other well enough for that yet.

Right. Arse off couch. Here we go.

Bugger.

Oh well, was worth a shot.

My Kitchen Rules - or at least my scones do

Today is cold and miserable, in spite of the extra hour gained thanks to the end of daylight saving. So what better day to do some baking, I figured. Being without the classic baker's kitchen that my mother possesses (pantry always stocked with rations in case of siege; she could survive for a month on tinned food alone, without cooking a thing), I decided that scones were the order of the day, but they were a little bland for my taste. I figured I'd hit up my trusty friend google for some inspiration on variations, other than the usual cheesy scone, and boy did I open a minefield.

Turns out that the simple scone recipe I've been using since child hood (self raising flour, butter and milk - it doesn't get any easier) is not to be found anywhere online. Instead, there was a website boasting that it had an egg-free recipe - since when were eggs involved? - another with baking powder, eggs and cream, not to mention countless other twists. And that was just for the basic scone itself. I'd heard of a mix using plain flour and lemonade before (always looked down upon by my otherwise easygoing mother and grand mother, but favoured by the cooking-hater Nana), but never had I considered that there could possibly be so many ways to bake a scone. The humble scone, typically served with jam and cream, delicious any way you look at it (although not usually described as light and fluffy, as one American website had it...light and fluffy is no suitable vehicle for jam and cream, methinks, or at least in the proportions that I enjoy it).

So here I am...looking down the barrel of not finding a suitable variation on a classic because I got bogged down in the mire of what exactly is involved in the basic recipe. Who dared to mess with a classic, I ask you? Not me. I've got my milk, I've got my butter, I've got my flour. In about 20 minutes, I will also have my scones. Somewhat longer than that, and I might even fill in the pitiful few readers out there with an update on exactly what has kept me offline for about a month. But let's not be too rash. After all, baking waits for no man. Or woman. Or blog.