catch28

I don’t care if you walk around with your religion on your sleve. It’s when its splashed on the light poles, and the buses, and the train stations, and the television, and the newspapers, and the parks, and pretty much damn everywhere that it starts to get to me. And its starting to get to me. WYD has been slowly filling me with rage for the past few months now, damn fucking catholics, taking over our city, getting all sorts of special benefits just cuz there’s a lot of them. its pisses me right off. And now there’s people to go with all the damn advertising. They’re really not even trying to pretend that it not just a big money spinner for the catholics are they. Can’t wait til its over, wish they’d all just fuck off now.

It’s been almost a week since I fled the psycho housemate, and gosh, being west is just so much not fun. One has to get up much earlier and travel much further in much more unpleasent conditions, just to get to the same spot that a sunny stroll down tree lined streets used to get me to. Oh well. Re-adjusting to public transport is trying at best.

Muchly thanks goes out to friends who’ve let me know of possible share housing options. It’s totally appreciated, but me thinks I’m wedded to the idea of my own place for a while at least. I’ve got two likely places coming up at the end of the month, one down in marrickville, which seems kind of the grown-up option, but is far away, another in stanmore, which is much closer to work/newtown/life, but more expensive. Neither is available til the end of the month, and things the way they are I’ll probably miss out on both, but its nice to know there are options even in this rental market. Of course, there is always the option of moving to other parts of sydney, such as the east…

This housing thing is just a huge issue at the moment. I’ve almost escaped the place I’ve been living at, in that I’m fully packed and waiting for the movers on saturday, meanwhile i’m living out of a backpack at my parents house. I’ve culled everything I own down to one suitcase and another packback to live out off while I’m here for the next few weeks, and everything else is in boxes. I’m probably the most prepared that i’ve ever been for the actual process of moving, all I have left to pack is my groceries, and my half a bottle of honey flavoured 42 below vodka (mmm… vodka…). I must not leave the vodka behind.

Now begins the gruelling process of finding a new place to live. Which will involve a) early saturday mornings, and b) not spending any money. Which is gonna suck muchly, cuz it seems after the relative lack of things on in June, everything is happening in July, and I’m not just talking that week we’ll spend making balloon animals out of condoms for the catholics when they come for that world pregnancy festival (maybe it was only in my area, but I went to a catholic highschool, and girls always got pregnant at the catholic youth group camp in the middle of the year. Do they really think sending thousands of catholic kids halfway round the world to spend a week without parental supervision wont result in a few immaculate conceptions? "No mum, it wasn’t billy, it was god!" Umm, surely the catholics know that catholics breed like catholics, you’d think!). But anyway, back to my point, much happening in July, and me able to spend very little money, and having to be up early on saturdays. It makes for a not very happy camper.

But, some good stuff is happening. I moved desks at work today, and now I’m next to a window, with heaps of natural light. It may not sound like much, but i’m one of those people whose moods get seriously affected by the amount of sun they get, or lack of it. So I spent today all bouncy and happy, which was a welcome relief. Helps me think I can get through all  this housing crap without resorting to going all emo, dying my hair black and listening to my chemical romance while drawing scars on my wrists with sharpie ink (god love emo kids).  Oh, and I’m getting a pay rise. Which is my second pay rise in the three months I’ve been working in my new job. Which, combined with the new tax cuts, makes me think I might be able to afford the horrendous amount of rent I’ll have to pay in order to not live with a psycho flatmate. Now if only I could find someplace…

My crappy housing situation is continuing to suck no end. So much so that I left this morning at 7.15am, and did not come home til 11pm, all in an effort to avoid the psycho housemate. But a brilliant plan has occured to me! Well, only brilliant compared to the plan of staying here. And that’s to move my essentials out on wednesday, and not come back til saturday when I’ve scheduled the moving van. You see, I booked the van a few weeks ago, and then was planning to take friday off work to pack everything up. But my team is having yum cha for lunch on friday, and I’m meeting a friend for lunch on thursday, and I’ve got my team meeting tomorrow and we’re having mudcake, so the only day I can take off is wednesday, and even then I’m missing the office wide end of financial year meeting with supplied snacks. But I can pack up everything on wednesday, and then not come back til saturday, when I move everything else.

 

I’ve got a week and a half to go before moving out of my current place, and it’s proving to be incredibly painful. I spend hours and hours out of the house each day, because the thought of coming back here is too depressing. And I came home tonight to discover my housemate had been in my room again! and left the door to my balcony unlocked again! Each night I walk home, and as I approach my place I start going over and over in my head everything I would say to her, "you’re a control freak, you’re patronising, you’ve got appaling communication skills, you’re a liar, you don’t fucking look after your cats, etc etc etc" and I have to calm myself down and remind myself its not much longer, it’ll be over soon, better to bite my tongue and not cause problems cuz it’ll be over soon. And then I remember that after this, I’ll be back out west at my parents for a few weeks till I have enough money together for bond and such. And the time stretches out til all this will be over and it’s never gonna fucking stop raining.

At work yesterday, during a training session for my new job, I was told that even if I found the job boring, I could console myself with the knowledge that I’m working to preserve a fundamental human right. Which is nice and all, but my first thought after thinking that its more a social right we bestow upone ourselves in the belief we’re somewhat civilised rather than anything fundamental to being human, was that the annoying thing about working in such a job, especially when you’ve done all sorts of social activism, is that it lets you clearly see how restricted it is, how damaged it was by the political process, how many exemptions there are because some group or other still wanted to be able to discriminate and fuck people over. Which is kind of a depressing thought after just four days on the job. Oh well, at least I’ve already built up an hour of flex.

It’s mostly over, the hard bits anyway. I’ve moved into my new place, and I’ve moved some stuff back to my parents house. Moving this time has absolutely sucked, but I’m feeling much better about it now that it’s almost over. We’ve still got to clean the old place, but that’s sooooo much easier to do now that its mostly empty. Not sure how I’ll go in the new place, but it seems okay. Its worked out that my conservative estimate about how much it would cost was pretty accurate, which is good cuz I was thinking it coulda been much more expensive, but still sucky cuz I can’t afford to go to mardi gras.

Anyway, tentative housewarming date is second weekend after mardi gras. 

I think this is my favourite website ever:

http://www.stevegjones.com/fearofescalatorshypnosisCDMP3.htm 

I love how it says I can overcome my fear of escalators without prescription! 

Actually, this whole escalator thing is a bit of a problem for me. I can go down them okay, although the longer ones are a bit scary. But going up an escalator anything higher than 1 level is damn near terrifying. And at my new place of work, to get from street level to lobby level requires I go up a very long escalator. Thus, a problem. Internet accounts recommend hypnotherapy, but I’m sure I’d rather go to an actual hypnotherapist than buy hypnotherapy online. 

So, second day, new job.

Pros: half the commuting time as my old job, shiney new building, queers!!!, convenient places to get lunch, interesting new work, no more hearing about colleagues children/marriage plans/family holidays.

Cons: Crowded summer trains and no going against the flow, earlier starts, new job is dealing with money, expensive places to get lunch, bad coffee!!?!, so much to learn and no formal training, hearing about new colleagues’ pets.

I’m not exactly thrilled with the new job. It’s a little daunting. Reports from the parra office were that the sydney office was a bit more hard-core, a bit more old guard, and it’s true, so it’s more pressure, and no more of the goofing off I’ve consistantly been doing since may last year. And while the sydney office is actually new, it is sparsely populated compared to parra. It feels like I’m working in a library. No mucking around here, although a lot more swearing. My new teams leaders read like a bad sitcom from a queer cable tv network. He’s a cat-loving poof, she’s a dog-loving dyke, it’s a classic mis-match comedy tonight on bravo. But real actual true to life queers, rather than the suburban gays at my old workplace. Although they did spend twenty minutes on my first day telling us how much they talk about thier pets. Not actually telling us about thier pets, but telling us about telling us about their pets.

And I’ve tried four coffee places so far, and each one has been offensively insipid. I’m thinking of taking instant in so I don’t have to go through the truama of buying bad espresso each day. Isn’t the city supposed to have good coffee? maybe it’s only the money end of town that does, like between the quay and the park, cuz south of the park is trashy as. I feel like I should be dressing in neon to fit in with the shops. 

ahh, the new job is okay, I’m sure I’ll get used to it all once I’ve settled in. And I don’t miss parra at all, just the peeps I was hanging out with. I’m hoping it gets better though.

 

’tis the 5th of January, and I’ve nary had a blog post for the new year yet. Mostly this has been cuz I’ve been in lismore, where its been hella raining for two weeks now, and since getting back I’ve been playing with my new nintendo ds, which is totes cool. Trip to lismore was weird this year. Beautiful special moments interspered with feeling horribly lonely and distant from previous years travelling companions (them on farm, me in caravan park, and they never visited). And having to deal with household bills while on holiday put me in a bad mood for a long time (ah, if only things had been organised before holidays!). But thems the breaks. The worst was the rain, the endless sodden rain.

But still, beautiful special moments maketh the memories. Hanging with miss J miss Y was awesome, and getting to know miss E better was way cool too. And spending 12 hours in a car with miss L was delightful. Filling the local water hole with queers as miss A and miss J and I promised ourselves we would two years ago is definately up there. And meeting mr J, upon whom I developed a dreadful crush, was great and unexpected and frustrating all at the same time. And the parties were beautiful love-ins. And having the caravan park inundated with tiny green tree frogs was wonderful (having them find thier way inside the cabin slightly less wonderful).

But the rain was horrible, and left me feeling cut off from everyone. I hated it. and the universe providing me with the perfect size umbrella for my new bag on goes only part way to making up for it. I learned today that the caravan park I was staying at has since been evacuated because of flooding. If this had happened while I was there it would have at least made being stuck in the rain interesting. But no, it just sucked. If this is the best climate change can give me, I want off at the next stop.

So anyway, I was reading miss Y’s blog, and saw she had this list of questions to sum up 2007, so I’m totally copying.

 

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
Constructed my own fetish gear/party wear.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Nope, no souffle for me, and nothing occured to me on the night so no resolutions for 08.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yep! I’m an uncle. and my best friend from highschool now has spawn too.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Not very close, but my cousin did, but it was kind of expected.

5. What countries did you visit? None.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? (I’m stealling this one from Miss Y) - Bravery

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? June, cuz it was horrible, for the rain and the moving house and people dying, but bookended by Mr J.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Getting out of the call centre at work! staying of ADs for a whole year (there were some shakey moments there).

9. What was your biggest failure? droping out of my law degree.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Yep. hurt my wrist, and my feet.

11. What was the best thing you bought? dunno, 07 wasn’t big on the aquisition of material goods.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Miss J for coming back.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? The bears of sydney, damn cliquey bunch. That crazy woman who punched me on the street.

14. Where did most of your money go? I’d say an even split between life (food, going out, friends etc), and work (ie, non-life).

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Holiday to Brisbane, new house, Mr J,Mr C, Mr B, and other Mr J.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007? Boys of Melody by the hidden cameras, and Ice cream by Muscles.

17.a) happier or sadder? Happier overall, but sadder right now.
b) thinner or fatter? ’bout the same
c) richer or poorer? technically richer, since I’m getting paid more.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Meeting boys, dancing, getting out of the house.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Nights in, worrying about work.

20. How will you be spending Christmas? Did it with the family as usual.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007? A few times, but nothing caught.

22. How many one-night stands? more tham some but less than a lot.

23. What was your favorite TV program? the librarians

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No, I actually hate less people.

25. What was the best book you read? I’m gonna go with Nightwatch by Sergei Lucyenenko, not really the best, but one of my favourite ones this year.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? Fbi radio!!!!

27. What did you want and get? New job!!!

28. What did you want and not get? more tatts.

29. What was your favourite film of this year? Will have to say the simpsons movie cuz its the only one I remember going to see at the movies.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? turned 29, went out dancing with friends, which is pretty much all I ever want.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? more connections with amazing people.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? Refusing to be less casual, and badges!

33. What kept you sane? downtime at home, dancing with friends.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I think I had a thing for Tom Lenk earlier in the year. But nerdy gay boys who produce music always get me.

35. What political issue stirred you the most? Those elections thingys, public transport.

36. Who did you miss? I miss miss A a lot.

37. Who was the best new person you met? there’s a few, but I reckon Mr C scrapes ahead by an inch, with honourable mentions to Mr J, Miss E, Miss N, other Mr J, Mr D.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007: sometimes you can win the struggle.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: can I do two?

and i dont know how to react
or if i should fight back

(ice cream is gonna save the day)

i dont need a number
i just wanna dance with my shirt off
and i dont want no other
i just wanna dance              Icecream by Muslces

 

Out on the coast
we’ll sit and boast
that "it’s all we need"

Wade through the sand
and find the romance
that we know we need

Boys of melody
And they’ll follow me
And I’ll sing harmony

And it’s all we need
The boys are here with me
We’re happy                 Boys of Melody by the hidden cameras