Christmas Day

Today was a bit of a mix of good and bad. Just for a change, my family with all attendant (or is that relevant) uncles and aunties etc went to have yumcha at a place called TopOne. Personally I keep thinking of TopDeck instead- mmm. Back to the story, I sat next to my mum, and also my cousin Keely, a little girl at that bittersweet age of 17. I say bittersweet because she's just like me, and just like my other cousin Hoki when we were younger. Her parents act just like ours did too. A stir-fried combination of fuckups on both sides have led to all three of us being ungrateful our parents' hardwork and we've all ended up as spoilt brats. This time however, it's a bit out there. She told me her highschool exit score (OP) and it was terrible. I was flabbergasted to hear what she got. There was a bit of recrimination on how her parents had never supported her in anything that she did in school, and I can see that she has fallen into the same trap that I did when I was in her position. Neither of us, had the ability to look at the big picture. Our behaviour was linked too much to our perceptions of our parents' behaviours and it created a nasty feedback loop that resulted in both of us vastly underachieving.
To give you an idea of how spoilt Keely is.. At one stage she had three different mobile phones because she'd convinced her parents that it was cheaper to buy three of them outright and then buy three simcards to use freechat time on it. Yikes.. Twisted.. It seems that all three of us are products of what I call the Gilded-Cage Syndrome. We've been fattened up so much inside it that once we're let out- we don't fly, but flop and fumble. :S
The funny thing is, that I talked to Hoki about it, and she also said that she sees a lot of herself in Keely. Hopefully, the three of us can reverse our fortunes and become the people that we want to be- rather than living a life of a kneejerk reaction.

On the first day before Christmas..

I was supposed to go to a Christian sponsored BBQ, where everyone gets together and celebrates Christmas. I had also been invited by my friend in the hope that she could get someone else to help convert me. Now this sounds quite paradoxical, but the last thing I want to be on Christmas is a Christian. The last thing I really want, is to have some random debate over it while I am trying to eat. Selfish, for sure.
Personally, I have never felt altogether comfortable with the following aspects of Christian Mass: asking forgiveness for our sins, the implication that we are weak because God makes us strong, and praying for XYZ to occur. Being Christian, or Catholic in my case, seems to be an open admission that we are all a bunch of failures. In some areas, yes I am. We all are. But what I cannot do is pass this all onto an external entity to solve my problems. All of it.. the ups and downs, are mine to deal with. I have friends and family to share them with, and if I need a change in my surrounds, then I must do something to change it. So from a functional perspective, Christianity does nothing for me. I think that everyone would be in agreeance that working stuff out yourself makes you more mature.. Anyways, I avoided the party, as a doubter. I too a trip down to the Gold Coast to stay with my mum later on in the afternoon, after spending most of the morning in a daze.
It was a bit of an uneventful ride down- and I was met by mum at the train station and we legged it to a Malaysian restaurant. Rather than eat really Malaysian flavoured foods, we ended up eating Malaysian Chinese food which was pretty good, but not all that good considering the rave reviews that she was giving it. A bit of chit chat on what the current popular figures in the peanut gallery were doing, and the next thing I know we've eaten through almost 100 dollars worth of Malaysian food. Wtf.. Anyway, we headed home and for the first time in a long time, I enjoyed airconditioned comfort and a nice, bright, clean, new home. Nothing like the dive I live in up here. Needless to say, it was good to be back. :)

It's been a while..

Time to make this page feel less neglected :D

23rd Dec.

I had finished work around midday, and I gotta say it was a bit of a weird ending to the year. A new workmate, and we're both so different and yet so similar on other things. Quite a few clashes on many small things, but hopefully the new year and a refreshed outlook will make it all better. The past few months haven't been easy, I think mostly due to the heat frying my brain. Lately I've lacked some higher executive functions :S After work I went up to some of my favourite customers offices and said thankyou. It was the least that I could do because they have been trusting me every morning by showing up- and I've tried to reciprocate as much as possible by doing my best for them.
With one of my customer-friends, we hung around and had a few beers talking about the stuff that he'd been through with his new kid and what his future was going to be. It's been a bit of a strange run this year. Maybe it's something I am doing to the coffee, there are about 6 or more pregnancies or births have occurred amongst my customers in the past 8 months.. yikes. Back on track, that one beer turned to about half a dozen, then my mate was back to work and I was back home. I also attended a christmas party for my second job. The company was fantastic, and food equally so. However it wasn't very filling and the cumulative damage and dehydration meant tha I was just about legs up by 7pm. I missed out on going to a 21st birthday party for another customer friend. I haven't even called to apologise.. I'm so bad :(

Daahling, I think you're a homophobe

Friday night-

I finish work and I am pumped. I'm gonna go out, drink a lot of alcohol, talk a lot of bullshit and hopefully talk to some very interesting people. First up, a small function. I get there, and I just don't know what to expect- oh, there's a band. niiice. Oh, it's upstairs and it's outside with a view of the harbour- niiiice. There's a bunch of lawyers here- hey they're a fairly eclectic bunch- sweeet. I'm working with Jo, a guy who looks like the Rock's younger brother with a french louisiana accent to boot- funny guy too. Awesome. Booked for 47 people, small and easy.
With 15min past the starting time, we have what... 16 people. WTF.. 3 floor staff and the chef serving 16 people. You've got to be kidding. Omfg, they're drinking ORANGE JUICE AND LIGHT BEER?! The wine, the sparkles, the beer- what are they doing.. :S Jo's asleep at the bar. I'm trying to forcefeed my guests.. more oj, more food? The band has set up inside and everyone has moved to the open area. So they have to move. I've been giving Jo shit for a week after the aids function he worked where all the prettyboys there were flirting with him- I get the most horrible of looks from all three of the bandmembers. Oh, if I looked closer, yeah, one of them is a flamboyantly feminine type of male. woops. They don't know the calamity that occurs when you have 4 attractive heterosexual males working a gay function. They just hear- aids, prettyboys, some other random stuff- Death stares, totally warranted. I really couldn't care, I'll just can the shit-talk. After a rivetting two hours and I'm drained and beg to be sent home, let me party >.< On getting home, I realise that my mind has been robbed of any capacity, and the body is following. Quick sleep. Let's forget that I was seen as nasty person that night.

Random Acts...

A little while ago-

I went to Coles to get some groceries. I had noticed that there was a special on beef mince (shelf price) but it wasn't listed anywhere on the item. I didn't want the cashier to think I was a liar about the prices so I took a photo and showed him later while asking for clarification on the pricing. About 2-3minutes in- someone from the meat department comes and she gets told about the situation. Then another 3minutes...then 5minutes...then 7minutes and I'm losing patience. Now some old meatpacker crank comes marching in and starts a verbal rat-tat-tat on what I should and shouldn't be doing. Very overbearing and extraodinarily aggressive. My response? Hi I'm sorry but you have misunderstood me and I was just trying to clarify the price. That would have been smart- but no, I come back with- "fuck off you stupid cunt don't come here talking to me like a piece of shit @#%$#$^" At this time, all 18 or so rows of cashiers and their numerous customers heard me and looked, but I couldn't give a shit. I persisted like a little deviant touring Tourrettes and gave him an earful. He backed down, and I got my beef lips and assholes for two dollars less. yay?

Two days after that, I was in a wanky part of town and a friend of mine was standing on one of those concrete blocks that are positioned in front of carparking bays so that cars can't go too far forward. So what does this fucker do? He drives his car up, and at the speed he's going the car is silent. He just brings it all the way up to where a normal person would park, then drives it a little further until he knocks my friend off the block with his car. Assault with a vehicle- awesome. The dude gets out, and says something akin to- watch where I'm parking you're in the way. I call him on his bullshit passive aggressiveness and he says, "yeah I'm fucking serious" and walks off. I'm sorry, but I just can't take any metrosexual guy who has his eyebrows waxed, facial/exfoliator etc seriously, and it's just too comical to even think of a person like that trying to throw a punch let alone a crowbar. We bump into him in the fruit market and he's picking at bananas and kiwi fruits so I followed him, talking about the hot sexy things he could do with bananas and he looks up at me, then left, right, down, and scurries away. I don't even know if that could be called a resolution but I liked it.. :}

..and that was my 'stupid week' in November.

A Mixed bag.

Last Friday just past my first job held its Christmas party on Brunswick Street. I'd heard all these rumours that it was a gaybar and that we were going to have vegetarian nibblies as well as it being a pay your own drinks thing. Hmmz. I walked in with more than a little trepidation cos I got so much shit about it from my blokey bloke friends. On seeing the vegetarian platters, I thanked the lucky stars that I ate a footlong sub before coming. I have been spoilt by my other function/catering job and for the past 9 weeks I've been eating the good stuff. I had a nervous moment when I was chatted up by the DJ. Some guy sitting at the bar by himself, probably mid 30's with a bit of muscle and immaculately groomed eyebrows and moisturised/pasteurised/homogenised face. Usually I'm fairly relaxed but for some reason I got a bit paranoid that night- I regressed.

The guy told me that he loved illy coffee and also aztec... yikes. I'm sorry but I have never had a great experience with illy. So any person who tries to chat me up saying they like Illy gets an immediate X against their name! Another one of those silly moments was that I saw these two guys standing at the bar and they were kinda oriented towards these two hot girls sitting by the window. They caught me checking the girls out as I walked past and when I sat down I told my friend that those guys were going to chat the girls up. Nope- totally off. They walked past the girls, hand in hand, out the door. So it wasn't the girls they were looking at hmmmmmz :P
Afterwards we split up to go to the next place and in my group there is a petite girl called Emma and at the age of 22 she can pass for anything from 12-16. We go through the crowd and she's getting looks from absolutely everyone because they think that she's a stacked preteen trying to go clubbing. I have never seen someone garner so much controversy hehe. Anyway, we ended up at a slightly pretentious meat market stocked with your garden variety Paris Hilton slutclones interspersed with a few very visible surfer boys with no fashion sense. Everyone was sussing each other out, jumping into some random stereotype and trying hard to make me dislike that whole scene even more. But it was really funny to watch in any case- if only I wasn't so tired :(

So anyway, I walked back home along brunswick street- a good 20minute walk back home just by myself cos I was tanking so early... and today, I find in the paper that someone got beaten to death on that same street on that very night. Lovely.. that coulda been me.

A grudge holder..

So, it's not NYE yet, but I already have a resolution-

To stop being such a grudge holder. >.<

This I think will be very very hard. It's very easy to write people off, and for me its been quite a good defense mechanism. That's how my emotional 'system' works- defense defense defense. There's only one path that this will lead to later in life- utter loneliness. A desolate emotional landscape where nothing lives. In that case I might as well be dead in the earth if I am already dead in the heart.

That ain't cool, that's not where I want to be.

Wakeup!

So on Saturday, Dominic gets a nice wakeup from his daughter at 5am. "DADDY DADDY MY DOG JUST DIED" followed by- "Can you please come and bury him?"

So a 50min drive up from the coast to Brisbane... then another 20minutes through traffic and shiz to her place, and another hour or so digging a big big hole for the dog in 30 degree heat. By this time doggy had started to 'ripen'. It was only after digging that Dom had thought to measure things- and luckily the grave was big enough for the dog. What a lucky girl she is to have him! :)

My parents are strangers..

and they always have been. But things are slowly changing for the better. I suck horribly at phone communication. I am extraodinarily super bad at it. My mum suffers because of this. I hardly get a chance to go down to the coast to see her, and in the times when I am free, I am not in the mood to sit on the phone without some type of visual feedback as to what's going on. So over the course of well, 25 years, I've given my mum the cold shoulder on the phone. Obviously, this transfers across to other areas and she always thinks that I just don't like talking to her and that I think she is boring.

This is far from the truth.

So on the Saturday just past, she managed to come up to Brisbane to visit for a day. She caught a ride with her partner Dominic (next post the dead dog story) and she had from 10am till 'whenever' to spend with me. After the first hour, she's like- hey if you need to go you can go. After the second hour, the same, and so on and so forth. We have breakfast at some inner city cafe that did some fairly nice eggs benedict, and had a midmorning beer with each other, then a cruise around the botanical gardens while we talked, and some sitting, as well as some window shopping... and I learnt a LOT about my family. wow- it's times like this when I think back on my childhood and think, what the hell I was such a spoilt brat, I thought I knew everything, I thought I was sooo much smarter than they were. Now I see it again in a totally new light, and I'm ashamed of myself for ever thinking that and for asking for so much from them when I was young. Anyway, we had some very nice korean food afterwards, and 6hours passed by at a fairly leisurely pace.

So last night I-

Almost fainted.. Maybe it was from the heat, or the lack of iron, or somehow I have smoked something that was so strong that I am still experiencing aftereffects 3 weeks after. Whatever it is, yay for white spots in my vision, yay for minor timeouts when my mind goes blank, yay for it being day2 after some fairly heavy exercise where I tanked after about 15min of bodyweight exercises. Still, it's better than nothing, and it's still a good start. I've gone back to doing a lot of walking- and my legs are feeling worse *cough* better already.

Apart from that, I went out to a sushi place, met up with Petra, Kerstin and the "canadian couple" who aren't really a couple. Poor Kerstin has been here for three months, but she is still struggling to understand English, and the flow of Australian conversation is usually so fast that she can't get a word in because she is still thinking in German. I think it takes a long time when you try to think in words, and it takes a doubly long time if you are presenting information via words. I'm all for venn diagrams, flow charts, 2d and 3d models and so on and so forth. I wish technology would move onto bladerunner style layered pictures or holograms that contain an infinite amount of detail. I would just love to be able to communicate by zapping mental pictures into people's brains. Sooner or later however, this would be my downfall because each day I experience walk-rage. I get pissed at people who don't follow walking 'road rules'. Maybe I could be charged with thought terrorism.

Humidity Wave

So in the past couple of days, it's been freakin hot AND humid. I'm standing behind a coffee machine, outside and there is absolutely no breeze. It's a mini sauna and nobody is invited but me. Yesterday I drank about 3L of water, and had a few dizzy spells, so to get myself together I had a beer before sleep. Today I drank about 7L of water and only experienced a few mild bouts of dizzyness. yay?