Freudian Slips

I've just gotten home from a remote suburb of Sydney and boy are my arms tired. Oh wait...

My work requires me to go to various workplaces in various far-flung locations for various reasons. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve hauled myself onto the train before 6AM, bleary-eyed and cursing the troubled individual who thought that working in a place so removed from metropolitan Sydney that there are goats in people’s backyards was a good idea.

No really, I’ve seen goats! Sometimes herds of them.

After such arduous trekking, it’s quite nice to be welcomed with open arms, which I am more often than not. I’m plied with tea, coffee and bottles of water, and sometimes even the one good swivel chair in the office. As I sit and rotate, people offer to adjust the air conditioning or close the blinds if I’m being troubled by all that nasty natural atmosphere being let in through the open window.

I’m still not used to such lavish treatment, and sometimes I have to check my business card to make sure my name really matches the one uttered by the receptionist when I arrive (NB. I don’t really have to do this). I’m sorry, you must be waiting for someone important, I’ll just get out of your way."

Now, before you assume that I'm just being self-effacing (as is my wont), let me just stress that what I do isn't actually that important. It's not as if I'm going out there to determine somebody's psychological fitness to look after their goat or any such thing. You could probably train a monkey to do what I do, as long as you gave it an appropriate list of questions (with appropriate Boolean operators - I was originally going to write "yes/no boxes to tick," but my brain just dislodged the word "Boolean" from the dark recesses that hang on to everything I learned in Year 10 Computer Studies, so I might add that here because it sounds good) and a tie to wear. And I'll bet the monkey would be offered tea and coffee as well. And then it would leave the building in its little suit and tie and get involved in a jewel heist or some such thing and G-rated hilarity would ensue.

Obviously the long day has done something to my brain, so I'm going to go. I will note, however, that I recently visited a cheese factory, and the ONE TIME I might have actually wanted something from them, I got zero. Cheap bastards.

You know what's really unsatisfying? Mentally prepping yourself to metaphorically eviscerate someone for cancelling their appointment with you five times, to the point where you just NEED TO SEE THEM and so you schedule the appointment for 6 o'clock on a cold dark night in an office far from your home so they can't squirm out of your grasp any further, and as you're sitting there waiting for the bastard to arrive because of course he's horrendously late you hear the cleaner finish mopping the toilets, turn off the hall lights and go home, and your fiery hate grows just a little more intense, and THEN your client turns up and he's completely adorable in every way and has an amusing accent and at the end of the session thanks you very sincerely for your "eternal patience" and "understanding in this matter."

It's mainly unsatisfying because he's so much better at this psychology malarkey than you'll ever be.

I walked eight kilometres before work this morning. My day was a rollercoaster ride of endoprhins, to say the least.

Right now I'm sitting on the couch, eyes closing for longer than a blink at a time, and wondering how I'll ever make the arduous trek from the lounge room to my bed. All before 8.30 on a Tuesday night. Because I'm hardcore like that.

I made a pledge to rid myself of non-essential material possessions, in addition to reducing my material possession intake, about a month ago.

Do pointless computer games count as material possessions? Especially the ones you just download? Because brother, let me tell you that Bookworm Adventures has pretty much eaten my life for the last ten days or so. For some reason, other people fail to become excited by this game when I sing its praises at great length, although my description of it as "Scrabble meets Dungeons and Dragons" probably isn't the most compelling I could come up with.

So far my best word is ANTIPODEAN. I am vaguely proud of this achievement, especially when you stop and think that I achieved this at approximately 11.30 on a Saturday night. Yeah, I'm cool.

My eggplant doesn't look well at all; the one little fruit that was developing dropped off the branch during the day. :( x 1000.

I'm obviously too traumatised by all of this to write more at this point in time. Please excuse me while I go and get myself a sense of perspective.

I have just spent my day playing "Little Brown Jug" and "Click Go The Shears" approximately three billion times each for various children of varying sizes and talent on the violin. I imagine that my fingers will be twitching while I sleep tonight.

I normally say that it's good to be playing the piano again but it's on days like this I have to wonder.

Friday! Hooray! I'm at work, typing reports and drinking beer, and if there is a better way to type reports then quite frankly I don't want to know about it.

I've just revealed my real age to the other people in the office. They all refused to believe me, to the point where I had to pull out my driver's licence (Learner only. In my case, "L" = "Loser") to prove to them that I'm as young as I say I am. This has been happening a lot recently.

I suppose I can grudgingly see why they might be surprised. I'm looking particularly beardy today, which I've been told time and time again "adds ten years" to my face, and I'm wearing my glasses. My ADD doctor, in addition to trying to pass influenza my way, diagnosed me with an astigmatism (or, more precisely, told me I "held my head funny" and then sat back with his arms crossed. Dr House/Sherlock Holmes, eat your heart out), and I have been wearing my glasses ever since. Much like when my dentist told me I was suffering from stress, I am suspicious of receiving a diagnosis well outside my GP's area of expertise (it's not like I go around diagnosing pancreatic cancer in my clients), but I will admit that since I have become a speccy four-eyes my vision seems to have straightened up and I haven't experienced any of the dull throbbing neck pain that had become part of my daily life. OMG IT'S A MIRACLE.

Maybe I can attribute some of the blame to my creased forehead as well; my typical facial expression throughout the day is one of empathic concern, so it's no wonder my brow has become furrowed before its time. Despite all the gifts of Japanese moisturiser from S, there appears to be little to no elasticity left up there and it's only a matter of time before I'm helped across the street by by thoughtful boy scouts. Also, I'll look permanently worried, which I imagine won't be terribly pretty.

Time to worry about that later though, because my beer is finished and I'm GOING HOME. Later, suckers.

Dear S,

It's pronounced "burger." Not "burg," not "bugger," not the billion other ways you somehow found to pronounce a word with six letters and two syllables, but "BURGER."

Love,
FS

We have a tiny balcony that becomes even more tiny with the addition of a barbecue, several clothes horses (boo to the electric drier! Let the harsh penetrative Australian sun do all the work for you!) and various debris from who knows where (wooden slats from an old, sad piece of furniture, water bottles and the like).

This does not leave much room to grow a thriving garden, which forces me to make do with a few very average-looking, very faux-terracotta pots. So far I've got eggplant, broccoli, cabbage and spinach. I had some cauliflower going for a while there but it was lacking in fortitude and died a very wimpy, curl-up-and-die sort of death.

Yes, I am now a man of the earth. My mother, who was up visiting a couple of weeks ago, said that she was "surprised" that this was the sort of thing I was into. I'm sort of surprised too, to be honest; my mother has been working in the garden for as long as I can remember and not once have I been tempted to don a pair of gloves and pull out weeds/avoid the funnelweb spiders. Now, however, I welcome the wildlife with open arms! Hello Mr Slug! Allow me to crush you beneath my manly, calloused thumb for having the audacity to sample the spinach leaves before they're ready for picking! Hello, Creepy Spider That I Can't Quite Identify! Let me throw up my arms and run away from you in a masculine fashion!

It's all been quite pleasant, actually.

Of course, nothing's grown big enough to actually EAT yet. The eggplant has so far produced a couple of little browny nubs that I assume will become bigger, glossier and purpler (I can't believe that's a word) over time, assuming the birds and suspected possum stay away from it. The cabbage is all big and leafy, but I'm not entirely sure how big it has to get before I'll be able to tell the difference between "foliage" and "vegetable." Ditto on the spinach. The broccoli...well, fuck knows what's happening there. It's...green? Boy, wouldn't it be embarrassing if I wrote an entry like this about how I totally LOVE having plants to nurture and delight in, and the little bastards refused to bear me anything worth consuming? Watch my love turn to resentful petulance in the space of minutes!

If these plants end up dying, it will be because they have been killed with kindness, possibly because of the eternal shadow I cast as I hover over them anxiously. I will keep you posted, which I'm sure is just what you all want to hear.

I don't know if anyone remembers me mentioning that heinous workplace magazine we get inflicted upon us once every two months, but THIS TIME I GOT A WHOLE ARTICLE TO MYSELF:

Unfortunately, that's the picture they decided to use. "OMG YOU MEAN I'M GOING TO BE IN THE LAME-O WORK NEWSLETTER? HOW TOTALLY AWESOME LOL!!!1! Also, I seem to have discovered the gift of flight."