Withholding

The person I've been closest to for the best part of my life happens to be my cousin. We've gone through varying degrees of closeness since we we up and right now we seem to be inching our way back towards something like it was when we were still at uni and in constant contact with each other. It's a funny relationship in many ways, though. The politics of the family mean that there are some things we just don't talk about. Largely our own fault, of course. The best way to deflect quests about your own life is to volunteer information about the life of someone else, and who else's life did we know so intimately growing up? The number of times the family grape vine worked against the pair of us and our tattling ways is beyond counting. The upshot is that while we are close and consider each other almost as sisters, there are enormous gaping holes in our knowledge of each other now. I've been trying to bridge this lately, feeling the need of a confidant who knows the whole back story, who I can use short hand to fill in. Someone that I know will be a sympathetic ear for all that we are hugely different people. But I'm stuck with the knowledge that there's a good chance anything I tell her will go to her mother, our grandmother, and then my mother, by which stage it will have been garbled and blown out of all proportn. But I need to talk to someone, some girl friend, and right now L is caught up in her own world of longing so she's off the list, and I don't have that many others who can offer the same support. The penalty for letting go of all of my university friends almost as soon as I left uni, I guess, having already jettisoned all bar one of my school friends. But I want to talk to someone about my life, and where it is headed. About hopes, dreams, longings, and unfulfilled planning. I want to vent the frustrations of being stubbornly single, to have a shoulder to lean on, someone who has seen me emotional, and someone who brings a different perspective to the table. As a married mother, Cuz certainly does that. We are very different, the pair of us, but there is a strong bond there all the same. We seem to have switched roles over the years. Where once I was the loud, confident one, she now plays that part while I'm the quieter of the two. We can stil make each other cry with laughter, though, can raise a giggle with just a look, and have a long list of short hand jokes, triggered by anything from a nod, to a phrase, to a raised eyebrow. I admit I let the friendship drift when she got married and had a baby. I was insanely jealous of her for having the things that I always wanted, always felt entitled to. Ad I want to talk to her now at I'm starting to consider the idea that I might have neither in my future. It's a selfish need, I know, but I also know that she needs adult company, stuck at home all day with a baby not yet one and a husband who works all hours and comes home exhausted. Right now, we need each other as much as ever. If only we knew that we could trust the silence of the other...

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.

White nights

I've got insomnia at the moment. Even though I'm ridiculously tired, my brain refuses to shut down for the night. The off switch is broken, even though the gears are moving slower. Or they're moving slower until I put my head on the pillow, at any rate. So what better way to while away the wee-sma's than blogging about it, and thereby sharing the pain with the blogosphere?

Have you ever noticed that you can't complain about being tired without someone in the room assuring you that it's nothing, compared to how exhausted they are/have been/were five years ago? Or is it just because of the people I work with that I'm thinking that? There's the middle aged Greek woman, who manages to complain about being happy, and the middle aged plastic surgery fan who is the stereotypical sales woman, right down to being in the process of trading her sports car for a four wheel drive that is unlikely to ever venture off road. She says it's to drive her dad and his friend around now that they can't do it for themselves. Anyone who has seen the elderly attempt to climb stairs will realise just how bad an idea is it to have a car they have to climb into. But I digress...

Not surprising, really. Lack of sleep does that to me. I should be happy and content at the moment. I've finally received the results of my thesis, and I passed. I weighed myself today, and have actually managed to lose a little weight - I could put it in percentage of my goal, but I won't, because that's a little depressing. I have had an almost moron free day at work, and have money in the bank (it was pay day on Tuesday). But it was also Valentine's Day on Monday, and the few morons who came in were spectacular (yes, I'm talking to you, Mr there-are-no-white-lines-on-my-street-why-are-we-so-left-out). While I should be thrilled with my thesis mark - it's a distinction, for anyone who cares, something I would have been thrilled to get in my architecture studies - I was a little disappointed; I have no right to be, when I submitted it knowing there were huge holes in both my arguments and my research, but there you have it. I think I know what I want to be when I grow up, and it involves more study, and I'm not sure I'm ready for it. But I've applied anyway, and now I'm trying to work out the logistics of maintaining a job while I study, getting through the study in as short a time as possible, and figuring out how the hell you can keep a full time job AND fit in the practical experience component of a teacher training course. Because that's where I want to get to. Teacher training. Only I'm not there. Nowhere near. And I haven't heard any confirmation about my application. And it's freaking me out. In fact, pretty much everything is freaking me out right now.

I spent some time looking into how much money I would need to buy my own property, and how much the banks are likely to loan me. And it turns out that I would actually need to have more money saved than I plan on borrowing from the bank if I'm to get my hands on anything halfway to what I want.

Out of curiosity - I was bored, the thought popped into my head, and my laptop was both there and on - I looked into going back to the UK. I find myself missing the crispness of a cold morning. I blame the humidity. Except that it turns out that they have put a stop to the visa that I had before, so I'd need sponsorship. And the only industry I'm trained for has gone down the toilet, so even if I did decide that I wanted to, I couldn't go back. And it peeves me no end. Except I wonder if I could...because I do have a letter...but then again, my visa expired, and...it's all so complicated and its so late, and...

It's the middle of the night and I'm lying in bed blogging. It seems the sky is falling in tonight. Except it's not. Oh, and I just found out on Sunday that not only is my sister-in-law pregnant, but so is another person I know. I'm not supposed to tell because she's only 7 weeks gone. But there you have it. That's another thing I have no idea how to get to.

I really shouldn't blog when the weight of the world is bringing me down. The sky isn't really falling. It's just another Melbourne thunderstorm in a summer that has already seen more natural disasters befall the world than I can ever remember coming so close together. Perhaps it's time to try and sleep again. I'm sure the world will look better tomorrow. It has to - it would be hard to look worse, right now.

The art of visiting

I've been playing host to a house guest for the past week. I like to think I've been a pretty good host - provided spare keys so they can come and go as they please, directions at any time of day, suggestions for what to do, and three days of escorted touring that has added about 600km to the mileage on my almost-new car - at hefty cost in fuel considering that it's Christmas. Most important of all, I have taken her along to my family Christmas, making sure that she wasn't orphaned for the day. I have taken her to my friends' Christmas, including buying a Kris Kringle present for her so that she didn't feel left out. I have cooked for her on no less than three occasions, two of them after having been at work all day.

In return, I have had the pleasure of her company, received a bottle of booze, and had my dishes washed twice (although apparently, finding the place where everything goes was a little too much work). I have had my shower clogged with her hair, I have had my bathroom sprayed with water, my tap twisted out of alignment, my spare bedroom made into a bigger sty than I ever managed, every power point touched left switched on, every light in the flat on at various times, a hissy fit chucked when I dared to suggest that on Boxing Day perhaps I might see some of MY friends that I haven't caught up with for Christmas instead of trekking all the way down to the frigging Mornington Peninsula for her to see some friends of her aunt's who she met when she was 20. You'll notice, the one thing I haven't received - any sign of thanks.

I know I won't comment, but I have almost ripped her head off on several occasions, the best one being when she insisted that she knew my mother MUST have a particular cleaning product in the house, in spite of me knowing that she never used the stuff. My knowledge of my mother's house cleaning habits was, of course, inferior, because she dived under the sink and came out with the product in question, and a very smug look on her face (turns out that kitchen benches must be cleaned with disinfectant before dishes can be stacked on them - wiping them with a damp cloth simply won't do). Not sure she noticed it later when Mum picked up the bottle of cleaner and asked where that had come from, because she didn't know she had it. I'm also incapable of even folding my own laundry. A trip to the loo before sorting things into a state that she considered appropriate for them was too big a delay for her. I came out to find her folding my underpants, and not listening when I did everything short of swear at her to get her to bugger off and leave my clothes alone. If I'd wanted to move them, I would have done it myself, as soon as I was out of the loo. We've been mates for a while, but we're hardly at the point where it's fine to fold each other's undies.

Earlier today, when someone cut in front of me as they got on the freeway, and I benefited from the wonderful joy of her driving instruction, about how she would have acted. Me having my foot on the brake was not enough of a response, apparently. I should have changed lanes. I should have done this, I should have done that, because this delightful guest of mine is always in the right, and can never concede that she might be wrong - although she has proven to be so quite a few times. I should know all of this. In fact, I did know it before she arrived, but it had never been brought home quite so strongly to me before. Or maybe it had, during some of the weeks that we spent working together on hotels in the UK. I remember seething with resentment quite often, but knowing that me venting any of it could very well lead to a stand-up fight, so I always swallowed the bile that rushed to spill out of my mouth. And I've done it again this time, biting back the words that I want to say, the times when I can feel the steam about to blow the top of my head off. Or more likely, the top of her head. I'm not known among my closest friends and family for my subtlety, but I'm not close enough to this one that I will blow my top openly. So I seethe and plot revenge, instead.

But if she thinks I won't repay the favour of being the world's most annoying house guest by visiting her in Brisbane in 2011, she can have another think. Of course, I can't chuck a tanty when she doesn't dessert friends and family during the holiday season to chauffeur me around town - her family is still back in South Africa - but I can make life difficult for her. I can run up her power bills, her water bills, I can be messy, I can sit around and watch her prepare dinner after a day at work. I can give her advice on how she should be doing things, I can correct her every thought, wilfully misunderstanding her, and never giving an inch in an argument even when the people involved are talking about completely separate issues. I can do all of this.

The question is, can I do all of that and still keep the friend? I think not, on the whole. And the annoying part is, when she's not being the world's biggest know-it-all, she's great fun. It's just that at close quarters, the fun gets buried in the pedantic crap that she also spews, and the fact that you realise she doesn't know half as much as she thinks she does. I can't see the friendship lasting long-term, in all honesty. But I'll be damned if I give it up before I get a weeks free room, board and transportation in Brisbane.

Bill me

Somewhere out there, some companies have put together a list. On this list is the name of every person that those companies feel can be over-charged on their bills, without anybody noticing. Somehow, my name seems to have ended up on that list.

First there was Lumos, a power and gas company, who keep trying to charge me for power and gas. Two problems. Firstly, they aren't my provider, I go through a different company, which I have told them several times over. They still keep sending me bills. But the biggest reason why I know I don't owe them any money, apart from the fact that my name isn't on the actual bill? It's because at least some of the charges go back before I'd even signed the lease on my flat.

Then the phone company tried it on, adding a ridiculous amount to a bill, but deleting it as soon as I queried it, telling me that if I hadn't been informed about the charge when I signed up, then I didn't have to pay it. The ease with which I got them to take it off makes me think it's a "hit-'em-up-and-hope-they-pay-it" kind of charge. Well, nobody gets one over on this little black duck, let me tell you. Especially not to the tune of $80 a month. It all adds up.

This month, it was City Link who had a crack. I use the toll roads they administer for work, on the rare occasions that I have to head into head office, and even more rarely when I'm heading into town for a night out. It doesn't happen often. So getting a $140 bill for a month came as something of a surprise, especially given that the last month had been a zero balance. I shouldn't have been totally surprised. I'd had a warning shot fired over my bow last week, when they sent me a text saying that my account was being suspended. I couldn't work out why, but didn't get around to finding out why, because I wasn't planning on using it in the near future. But now I want to use it, and I can't. The strangest part is that nobody can actually tell me why my account has been suspended. All the bills that have been issued before have been paid. This one is in dispute, and only arrived in the mail today. The kicker, though, is that the account was suspended 2 days before the statement was even issued.

I have to say, I hate that the roads are tolled in the first place. The most commonly used stretch for me is a road that was built when my mother was still at school. I begrudge having to pay to use it. Before I moved away, I refused point blank to drive on it, out of principle. Notice, time in London has eroded my principles in favour of ease of use. Because it does make my life a whole lot easier, halving my travel time to and from head office. But if the price of convenience is a 25 minute phone call with someone who couldn't actually resolve my query, and could barely enter my problem into the system because there wasn't an automated option, then I'll go back to taking my time to get places. And if they argue that it was my car, I can call in character witnesses to help defend me, because anyone who knows me at all would agree, there's no way in hell that I was passing under one of the City Link gantries at 06:50.

So I'm issuing a warning. I've had enough. Any company that thinks it's OK to over charge me, or add false charges to my bills, don't say you weren't warned. Just ask Virgin in the UK. I am capable of prolonged phone calls where I am able to maintain anger and coherence, all at the same time. It might have taken me a while to get Virgin to do what they were supposed to, but I know how to do it now. And I don't have the cash to throw away on the whims of some accounts department screw up. If you see my name on that list, cross it out. Because one way or another, I'm not paying and you'll regret sending me a bill for something that I didn't use.

Dial M for...

I was away from my desk when my mobile rang. I didn't hear it - nobody would, since it's switched to silent during work hours. The only sign of any activity, when I got back to my desk - was the flashing light at the centre of the keypad and a little arrow showing on the screen. There's something about a missed call. Until the caller details come up on the screen, it could be anybody. It's a frisson of excitement in an otherwise mundane and boring day. But not today. Today, the caller details simply say 'Private'. There is no symbol in the top right of the screen to suggest that they, whoever they may have been, left a message. Excitement turns quickly to frustration, annoyance.

Why call at all, if they will not leave a message?

I assume it is a friend whose office number always comes up as private, then go back to work as I wait for a reply to my email asking what she wanted. But when it comes half an hour later, 30 minutes of distraction and futile attempts to keep working, to not pick up my phone and play with the buttons in hopes of finding out who it was, it is a denial; she didn't call me.

I log into various webmail accounts, hoping against hope that whoever it was has simply decided to email me instead. But no. There is no email waiting in either gmail account, nor is hotmail showing any news. Whoever it is, they have not left me a message anywhere.

Which means that it is not the publishing company I applied to for a job last week. It is not somebody wanting my services as a seamstress, giving me the cash to survive this month in a little more comfort. Nobody was actually desperate to contact me. And suddenly, I feel unloved instead of anxious. Melancholy.

It's cold and grey outside today. Meteorologists are forecasting fog overnight. And I'm surrounded by the over-warm fug of central heating, struggling to stay awake. I wish the call had come a few minutes earlier, a few minutes later, when I was sitting beside the phone. Anything to relieve the dull routine, the frustration of unsatisfied curiosity.

Update: I have identified my mystery caller. It was no mystery. It was the mobile phone carrier that I left earlier this year, attempting to win my custom back. They called again this afternoon, having called twice yesterday as well. I almost wish I'd never found out.