Roxy Music

Hey there.

I don't really kn0w what I'm going to talk about, so we'll let my fingers do the walking and the talking and find out where it takes us. How does that sound? Kind of exciting? You think? I don't think so, I think that this is going to result in another pointless post about the mundane life I lead. I bet you can't wait.

Actually, this week is going pretty well. Although I have been a little bit confused as to what day it is, and Monday night found me stumbling around and vomiting and stuff, but still, it's been pretty good.

Yesterday I was planning on walking the dog with Ria in the afternoon, but some kid has kindly passed a cold onto me, so I decided that walking the dog wasn't in my best interest, so Reg missed out. I didn't though and had a lovely afternoon. In the evening Ria and I went out to dinner which was quite nice. At the table to our right there was a couple on what we surmised to be a first date and behind us there was a table of bogans celebrating a birthday. They were having a great night for a Tuesday by the looks of things. One dude really should have been wearing a belt with his pants. He was the self appointed photographer for the evening, and during his breaks from smoking around the corner he would come up and take a few pictures of the group. Every time he bent over to snap a shot I'd get a nice view of at least 4 inches of crack. There were a few stray hairs popping out too. It was gross.

One of the dudes I lived with in Canada is in Australia at the moment. He's coming up to Brisbane tomorrow and is going to be here for two nights. I'm going to try and get out of work for Friday so we can hang out. Friday night I think that we are going to get fucking pissed. It should be good. Anybody got any suggestions as to where I should take him? He's from Scotland and is a good guy.

Curry In A Hurry

You know, there are some things that I do, that even before I do them, that I know aren't going to end well. There was one thing that I was really dreading, but I knew that it was only a matter of time before it happened, because it's been happening in my head occasionally, and I knew that I only needed to be lulled into a sense of security and be a little bit tired before it came out. Whoops.

Who'd have thought calling a girl by the wrong name would be disastrous?

Oh, I thought so. Everyone knows that it is one of the big no noes. At the same time, I was powerless to stop it. It was out before I even realised, and I think that I was as shocked as she was. I figured that I had a few different options when it came to dealing with it.

Option 1: Pretend that it never happened and just keep on talking at a million miles an hour and not taking a breath so that she doesn't have an opportunity to call you up on your grievous error.

Option 2: Pretending that it never happened, and when questioned about it say that she must be mistaken, because how would it be possible for you to make such a grave mistake?

Option 3: Say a quick sorry, call her by her real name and continue on as though it didn't really happen.

Option 4: Make a heatfelt apology and promise to never do it again, and buy some flowers the next time you see her.

Option 5: Run.

I'm not going to tell you which one I went for, I'll let you try and guess. If I had my time again I think that I'd just go for Option 5. I'm a pretty fast runner, and her throwing arm isn't that great, so I reckon I could make it.

Still, it was a pretty low thing for me to do, and the only reason for it is laziness. I guess I just have a lazy brain, or one that needs regular maintenance or something. Doesn't it know that there's a new system in place now? Whoops.

Tonight I'm thinking of doing something else that I don't think will end well, but it's something that I've been thinking about doing for a while. The plan is already underway, and it's not really a very dangerous mission. I guess I'm just doing it because I can, just so I can say that I've done it. I've done some research, and there's no time like the present. There's not a whole lot going on on a Monday night.

Organisational Deviance

Okay, I really like going to the races. It's one of my favourite outings. Getting drunk before lunchtime. Beautiful girls. Chances to lose lots of money. It seems to have the lot. What went wrong today then? I mean, it had fucking Barnesy for fuck's sake.

Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps too many people actually like the screaming that Jimmy Barnes has been trying to pass off as music. I guess he's been doing it for thirty years now, so you'd hope for his sake that he'd at least a few people brainwashed, but to see so many of them in one place today was disappointing.

So, yeah, I went to the races. It was okay, but it wasn't as much fun as it usually is. I'm not too sure why. Maybe there were too many bogans. Maybe there were just too many boys, anyways, it was fun, but not as great as it has been in the past. There was still a little bit of randomness which was cool. Apparently I look like Axle Whitehead's twin brother, and apparently all of the staff in the back bar are not very nice people and purposefully don't fill your drink up to the top if you are rude to them. Who'd have thought?

I gave Richard a hand with his gear in the morning which was good fun. It's weird, but I still like moving furniture, I guess it just has to do with the amount that is needing to be moved.

It's now a quarter past six on a Saturday night. I am seriously considering just going to bed and passing out. I think that it's probably a good option, I've been up since before dawn today.

Every horse that I backed today ran a horrible race. I suck at the GG's.

It's My Jumper!

I tried to defy one of the lesser laws of the universe the other night, and failed miserably. This is the law that states Musgrave + Alcohol + Fire = Trouble . I was attempting to light the barbecue with Tim. I had been "guzzling" beer and was feeling pretty good about myself. Good enough that I didn't think that Tim needed to turn the gas off between attempts to light the burners with matches. Whoops!

We eventually got it alight, along with the hair on my right hand. Thankfully the flames didn't spread up my arm at too rapid a pace and I was able to smother them reasonably quickly. I managed to escape with only minor burns and a naked hand.

To tell you the truth, I don't mind how my hand looks without any hair on it. It's got a smooth look about it. You can see all of the tendons and muscles working beneath the skin. I'm not vain enough to shave or wax or use a depilatory creams on my hand, but I don't think that I'd be above occasionally letting the gas run too long before lighting the barbecue to achieve this hairless look. The only downside so far is that if I put my hand too close to my face I get a whiff of that delightful burnt hair smell. Mmmm.

Work has been busy these past few days, but I haven't minded too much. We had a bit of an incident with a parent yesterday. His boy was wrestling with another boy, and they both whacked each other. Later when the dad arrived he asked what his kid what he'd done that day and his boy told him how he'd been hit. The father stormed back in with his son and asked him which boy had hit him. When the other boy was pointed out to him, the father went up to this other boy and went beserk at him. Ridiculous. I don't understand what makes him think that he has the right to tell this other child off. He didn't even have the full story. It had already been dealt with and his input certainly wasn't required. Anyways, as I've said before it's not so much the kids who are the problem, it's the bonko parents.

We participated in the World's Biggest Morning Tea which is for a good cause, but unfortunately didn't have a whole lot of support. I did enjoy the kabana though.

Exposure

I think that Paniyiri is one of my favourite days of the year. It has everything I want, and then some. It's even a family event!

The entire afternoon was terrific. The only downside was getting a park, but in the end I got kind of lucky and wasn't too far away. Once I was in, it was heaven. Greek food, Greek music, Greek people, Greek girls. I ate a ridiculous amount of food and wasn't disappointed by any of it. I just wish that I could have put some more in. Souvlaki, kalamari, baby octopus, haloumi, honey puffs and coffee. Unfortunately they'd run out of Galactic Burritos by the time I was ready for them.

I can't stress what a good time I had. Just watching the people walk past could entertain me for hours. I really love seeing stereotypes in the flesh, it really brings a smile to my face.

I left Paniyiri feeling great about myself, my stomach, the world and particularly the Greek culture.

The past two days have also had the good vibes held over from Paniyiri. Work has been good, there was some cheesecake and not too many tough questions.

Today Stu came home from the UK so that's nice. It's his birthday today so I'm going to go and get drunk with him now. It was good to see the surprise on Mum's face. Apparently Stu's lost a bit of weight too.

By far the highlight of the past few days, including Paniyiri, was when Ria told me that she loved me enough to fuck me with a strap-on.

Choose Life

Yesterday was Saturday and I did quite a few things.

Some of these things were good, and some of these things were bad.

Let's see if I can remember what some of them were.

In the morning I had some breakfast with my family.

After breakfast I had some things that I needed to do at the shops.

In the afternoon I went and visited my friend Mikey at his place.

He has always been interesting, but now he's becoming a different kind of interesting.

While I was at his place I broke a plate bearing a picture of Jesus.

I also left my sunglasses there.

And was forced to watch a conspiracy DVD.

While I was in his apartment my car was towed.

My car was towed because I parked it illegally.

Getting your car towed sucks.

Big time.

After I busted my car out, I was stood up by my date for the night.

I made several frantic phone calls.

The issues were resolved.

I had an interesting discussion with a cab driver.

Why do all cab drivers want to talk about religion these days?

When I get into the cab do they see someone who seems lost?

Eddie Perfect put on a great performance.

I like girls.

I saw Jason from the Tivoli working in the Night Owl on Brunswick St.

He told me that he still loves drugs and cocks.

I had some very cold beers at the Brunswick Hotel.

I drank some not so cold beers at the Mad Chinaman.

I was again surprised by Dooley's.

It is a suburban pub in the Valley.

I need to stop picking on some people.

I ate a kebab on the way home.

It was awesome.

I'm going to Paniyiri.

Now.

Pretty Sure It's Infected

I managed to weasel my way out of work today. The only other time I've had off this year has been to go to funerals, so it was nice to not have to go to one of those again. Although I did have a job to do, which is why I got the day off. My job for the day was to finish up clearing out the unit down the coast. I figured it was something that I could put off until the afternoon, so I did.

My morning consisted of sleeping, making pancakes and not sleeping. I also had a cup of tea. I paid for a trip to New Zealand as well.

Last night I had some Fasta Pasta for dinner. It was actually quite tasty. Reasonably priced too, which is always good. Ria and I split a bottle of wine and a plate of the pasta, it was pretty good. John ate the whole plate himself, I was a little jealous.

This afternoon I headed down to the apartment. It was a little bit sad, heading in there for the last time. I had a final swim. A final cigarette and cup of tea on the balcony. It would have been good to head down the coast last night by myself for a final capricciosa pizza washed down by 12 beers, but it was not to be. That's for the best anyway. I cleared all of the Musgrave gear out of there and shut the door for the final time.

I really enjoyed the space that the apartment afforded me. It was great. I did a whole lot of thinking down there, which is what I needed. A bit of time alone, a place to escape to where I didn't need to interact with anybody if I didn't want to. I'm going to miss it.

After I'd removed all of our stuff I had to drop the keys off at the real estate office in Surfer's Paradise. I've never spent all that much time in Surfer's. Pretty much the only time I've been there for more than a couple of hours was at schoolies. That was fun in a less than wholesome way, I didn't realise that Surfer's is fucking seedy at the best of times. That place is really evil. Just walking around is disturbing. You're constantly in shadow because of the high rises. All of the people on the street just look fake and weird. No-one smiles. There are too many opportunities to deviate. From what? I'm not sure, but I know that just being there made me want to do some pretty unsavoury stuff. I guess that's what it thrives on. That air of no consequences. Actually, that's not what it is at all. Surfer's Paradise is what is wrong with the coast. Everything I don't like about it is right there and in full force. There's no escaping from it.

Err... I don't think that there's too much more to say. I don't like Surfer's Paradise, but I can't put into words why. I'm looking forward to the weekend, particularly Eddie Perfect and Paniyiri.

Everybody Runs

There have been kids puking everywhere at the centre over the last couple of days. And it's been awesome. Why? Because I haven't been anywhere near any of them when it's been happening. All I've seen is the uneasy faces of the staff after they've cleaned up the kid's puke, but while they are still fighting to keep their own stomach contents inside. I've been very lucky.

I guess that there has been a bit of a bug running through the centre. This one seems to come and go pretty rapidly. Generally the kid will puke 2-3 times and then be right as rain. When they do hurl though, it has been a large affair. We're getting the carpets cleaned a week early because a couple of them have been covered. Apparently it's been a good combination of liquid and chunks. Not so much projectile vomiting, but at the same time more violent than pure regurgitation where it falls down the front of your clothes.

The staff haven't really seen the lighter side of it, especially those that have been on the frontline. I can make light of it because it hasn't happened to any of my guys yet, and hopefully it won't. I don't think that I'm too bad at cleaning up spew. I know that I can handle cleaning up number twos. It's not pleasant, and I regularly have to get fresh air, but I always get there in the end, stomach intact. Some people refuse to go near it, but even though it's a dirty job, someone has to do it.

A job I don't think that I'd be able to accomplish, certainly a job I wouldn't smile much at, would be the person who replaces the sanitary napkin receptacles in female toilets. I think that that job would be one of the worst going. I really would not be down with that.


I've got tomorrow off which is exciting. The reason that I've got the day off isn't though. I'm heading down to the apartment for the final time and making sure that everything is gone. I think that I'm going to be a bit emotional, but it's something that's got to be done.

You know, when I first started writing this blog it was all about drunken madness. Now it's about kids puking. Where did I go wrong?

This Could Suck

Mother's Day was nice. I'd picked up some hand creams for my mum, and she likes them, so I guess you could say that I'd done my duty as a good son.

For lunch on Sunday the family headed over to my Grandmother's because she'd made a roast. It was a double header celebration. Mother's Day and my sister's birthday, although my sister's birthday wasn't until today, the 16th. We also had a couple of ring-ins, but they were good company. It's always nice when people help with the washing up.

The rest of Sunday was spent in bed. I wasn't sleeping the whole time, but I was reasonably tired. I had a capricciosa pizza. It was good, but I think that they forgot the olives. Whoops!

Monday morning I was late for work, well, later than usual. This meant that I was playing catch up for quite a while. When I'd just about made it I received a phone call from one of the mothers. She was saying how her son needed an extra day, and that he might need a bit of extra comfort. Then she started to sound really weird, and said something like he might need some extra comfor that day as her husband might have told him that they'd separated. I replied, "Oh yeah, okay, no worries, have a good day. Bye." It was about a minute later that I realised what she had said. And then what I had said.

I guess that's one of the traps when you say the same things over and over, when you are required to leave the script, you sometimes don't realise it. Plus, I was surpised that there had been a breakdown in her particular relationship. They both seem pretty sane, but I guess you never really know what goes on behind closed doors.

I felt really bad about saying what I said, and didn't want to appear callous so I tried to call her today. No dice. I did apologise in a note though.

Today I had an interesting couple come to inspect the centre. The reason that they were a little different was that they were both women. How do I know that they weren't just friends or sisters or something? They kept saying, "We're having a baby in August. We're looking for a centre for our child." They kept emphasising those words to make sure that I'd get the picture. I don't really care all that much.

When I first started working at the centre I thought that we had some parents that were both men. The dad I'd met, and he was pretty cool, but I thought that he may have been gay. Then I saw that his partner's name was Damon. I didn't know who Damon was, I just assumed it was another guy. I was wrong. Turns out that they were just another boring family. Although their son has a pretty cool name. I think that it's a character from a book.

Today is my sister's birthday. We had another roast. My dad ate too much and hurled in the bathroom sink. Sucks to be him!

My sister is twenty today, that's kind of scary. I remember the kinds of things that I was getting up to at that age, I don't think that my sister has that same self destructive streak that I did/do. Anyways, Happy Birthday Erin!

Trevor

That party I went to last night? Ace. It was really a very fun affair. I think I went through it yesterday, but I'll refresh your memory and mine too. The party was game based with an event every hour or so. Everyone was assigned to one of four teams, and the teams were all given inspiration as to what to wear for the evening. The different teams were cricket, 1981 Davis Cup, 1981 VFL Grand Final with Carlton and the Pies and finally Dance/Aerobics.

I've been to some dress up parties before, and usually quite a few people go to the effort, but there's always some that just wear their usual duds. Not last night. Absolutely everyone came dressed in the finest team clothing. It was awesome. There was a lot of bad hair, dodgy moustaches, tight shorts, short skirts, white shirts, high socks and spandex. Some of the outfits were downright disturbing. Men should not wear leotards. Hulk Hagan came as the coach of the VFL team and he brought a home phone so that he could keep in contact with the players down on the field. One of the cricketers came as a one of the Windies, black face and all. Later in the evening he stripped off down to a black g string. He'd covered all of his body with dark make up and then strapped a pink dildo to his leg. One of the girls in the aerobics team did the right thing and wore an extremely high cut g string leotard and leggings. She also volunteered for the twister competition.

It was a fantastic evening, at one stage the host handed out a ton of cigars and the backyard was enveloped in a cloud of smoke. There was also some dude there who kept on doing the splits which was kind of worrying. Apparently he's a diver, but that's no excuse. He passed out pretty early in the piece. The climax of the night was a slip and slide, after that it started to wind down.

This morning has been pretty cruisy. It's another beautiful day here in South East Queensland. My nanna has won another meat tray so I'm over there for lunch today. Plus it's Mother's Day and my sister has a birthday on Tuesday. I don't have a hang over either which is great news.

Day Long Hang Overs Are No Good

Where does the time go? I don't know what's been going on, but I'm exhausted. It feels as though I've got to be 4 places to be at any one time, and it's wearing me out. I guess I just have to suck it up and get on with it though. As my Dad so kindly said to me earlier in the week, "Welcome to the real world." Wanker.


So yeah, work has been hectic. New kids starting up, old ones swapping days, parents giving me grief. We also had a Mother's Day morning tea on Friday which took a bit of running around to get organised. We got there in the end and it actually turned out really well. We had something like 28 mothers, grandmothers and aunts all enjoying the tea and baked goods. It was nice. One family cleaned up in the raffle, with Mum winning first prize and Nanna winning third. I think that they may have rigged it.

The Thursday before the morning tea I didn't end up getting home til after 10, and I don't really know where I spent all of that time. I wish it was a drunken haze, but I think that the clock just kept on ticking without me noticing.

This is the final weekend for the unit down the coast. This has meant that I had to go down there last night to bring back all of our gear. I didn't think that there was a whole lot down there, but I guess over 6 months you can accumulate a lot of crap. I threw out a heap of junk today, lots of magazines, half eaten boxes of cereal, tv guides. The detritus of idle weekends. I didn't actually do as much as I was hoping to today, so I'll go back down one night this week. The reason I didn't do enough today is that I got drunk last night with Nigel and his girlfriend Elita.

I went up to Nigel's place in Southport and met his new dog. He's just bought a golden retriever pup that he's called Buddy. It's a cut dog, but it keeps shitting in the house. I woke this morning to find a fresh one next to my bed. It was pretty large, and I was surprised because he's still pretty small.

Nigel, Elita and I went to the Courthouse for dinner last night, I had the salt and pepper prawns which were okay. The pub was pretty quiet for a Friday night, I think that the reason for this was the appalling live entertainment. He was only one man, but he was a one man walking massacre. Every song he attempted he murdered. It was horrible.

The night went pretty well for the most part. The beers were going down very easily and I was even smoking which is never a good sign. Everything was rosy up til the very end when there was a bit of drama with Elita, I'm not really too sure what happened but we had to leave pretty soon. I think that someone called someone else a whore. Good times!

I woke this morning and I went home and didn't do much for the next 7 hours. I wasn't wearing pants for a good period. I'm going to miss that apartment.

Tonight I'm off to a birthday party. The night has been organised so that there are teams and we'll be competing in a range of games. Each team has a uniform. My team has to take use the 1981 Davis Cup team as inspiration. I've got some short shorts and I'm going to shave myself a moustache. It should be sweet!

The Ton

I wish that this post was full of bells and whistles. I wish that this post was going to be full of interesting content. I wish that this post was somehow special. But it's not. Not at this stage anyway. You never know, I could get really excited and turn it into a monster, but I doubt it. Why do I kind of wish that this was a post of note? Because it is post number one hundred.

What is it about post number one hundred that is getting me excited? Why wasn't it post number thirty six or, perhaps, post number eighty four? I suppose I could have even gotten excited at post number sixty nine and attempted to write something witty and dirty back then (it would have been a disappointment though). I guess the thing that is getting me excited about post number one hundred is the three digits. Don't they say good things come in threes? Well now my post number comes in threes too.

I could also be getting excited about the fact that I've managed to stick with this for a little while. It's been over six months which is very exciting. I've never written about myself so much. I know that I've never written so many bad jokes and puns before. Certainly never had to make up so many titles. It's lucky most of them don't have anything to do with the text below them. But yeah, it's been great. Good exercise for my fingers and even a little for that brain of mine. If only I could write something worthwhile.

Still, it's been good to have as a diary type thing. I've gone back over them once or twice, reading random entries. I've had some pretty wild times. Getting bitten twice in one night? I reckon that I would have forgotten about that if I hadn't written it down. Just random drinking stories. Sometimes I found that I alluded to things, and if I hadn't been there I would have had no clue as to what I was writing about, and even though I was there for all of them, it took a little while to remember what I was going on about once or twice. It's good to have a record of events, even if it is erratic at times.

When I was re-reading the blog, I found myself feeling that I was skirting around things a little. There's been some pretty big things happening around these parts recently. Some good, some not so good, but I rarely write about it. I just keep on going with the boring bullshit that makes up a life. I guess that's all I can do.

I guess that I will now write a little bit about what has happened these past couple of days.

Work has been good. The children have been their usual selves, constantly testing the limits, but that's what kids do. The staff have been their usual jovial selves. I've been busy trying to catch up on the work that I've neglected to do over the past month. It's been good.

We've got a student from TAFE down at the centre at the moment. She's all of 18 years old, and she seems okay. Her name is Robbie which weirded me out to start off with, but I'm getting used to it. I'd forgotten how the world can look through the eyes of an 18 year old, but it truly is a different place. This girl is getting ready to head back down to Adelaide at the end of the year. She considers it to be her home, even though she hasn't lived there in ten years. She's lived in Queensland for the past 6, going to high school here and continuing on to tertiary studies here, but all of her real friends are still in South Australia. I think that she may be a little bonkers. It could be the name.

After school care has been it's usual fun self. Yesterday was the birthday of a set of twins who come down. They are lovely girls, and their mother kindly baked some cakes for us to have today. The cakes were delicious, especially the icing. This afternoon we also heard a few jokes. These ones made me laugh:

Q. What is flat on both sides and scared of everything?
A. A chicken sandwich.


Q. What do you do if you see a bra on the ground?
A. Run! It could be a booby trap!

Those two brought me much mirth.

I took the dog for a walk last night, it's been a while. It was good to get out and get feel the cooler air on my face. The dog seemed to like it too. We went up a couple of big hills and I let him off the leash so he could do some investigating. I smoked.

I almost wrote that not too much has been happening, but that's a lie. There's plenty going on, but I'm selfish.

I went up to the hospital last night. My mum has had a haircut and got a new colour through it. It's kind of punk rock. Really spiky and purple. I like it. The lady next door had also had her hair done, I didn't like it as much though. While I was up there I managed to meet one of the other inmates. Her name is Maryanne, and she's in for breast cancer. She's had a mastectomy and lost all her hair. Her hair is starting to grow back, but her breast won't. The thing pissing Maryanne off though was the amount of custard they got with their apple crumbles. Fair point too, I mean who wants just apple crumble? It's too tart, sometimes you need a little somethin somethin to sweeten things up for you.

I guess you could almost say that that's a metaphor for the blog right there. Whoa.

Tonight I'm off to Ria's place for dinner. She's going to cook some Greek food apparently, so we'll see how she goes. I've assisted with the grating of cheese in the past, but apparently I won't be needed for that tonight. I might have to do something else for her.

Anyways, I think this relationship is going places. (that's the blog I'm talking about)

Peaches, No Cream

I've had a pretty good weekend, much better than my Friday anyways. Friday night I knocked over a bottle of wine and stumbled around Carindale listening to my iPod and smoking. Good times. When I finally made it home a read a little then crashed out.

I awoke Saturday morning feeling fresh and ready to take on the weekend. I had a plan and I was going to stick to it. This meant that I was straight into the jobs so I wouldn't have to worry about them later. I folded about a million shirts, I washed several loads of clothes, I stacked and unstacked the dishwasher, I threw out a whole heap of shit, I organised and redistributed things, I was a busy motherfucker. My room was now tidy as was all of downstairs. Dirty Dave helped with the downstairs which was good.

Once everything was done I jumped in the car and headed over to pick up Ria. We drove down to the coast and met my Dad. I had a cup of tea with him and then he headed home, and Ria and I went for Sushi Train. I've been eating that pretty regularly in the past month. It's like I've rediscovered it, so that's cool. Afterwards we had a bit of a lay down and whatever.

That night Ria and I headed up to Surfer's to meet some old friends of Ria's. They were fun people, with the girl 7 months pregnant. She still swore like a sailor, which is always fun. We had some trouble getting a bite to eat in Broadbeach but we ended up scoring some Italian type stuff. Broadbeach has changed a great deal in the last 3 years. And is continuing to change at a very rapid pace. There's a really interesting building going up at the moment. It's called The Wave and it's certainly different.

Much of the dinner was spent discussing babies and marriages and things. It was okay. I didn't freak. I held it together. Actually, it doesn't really worry me too much anymore, it's something that I figure will happen to me one day and that I shouldn't be too concerned about it. Not that I ever really was.

Today has been a lovely day. Even though it's May now the weather was still warm. We took a walk up the beach to Burleigh and after two venues telling us we were too late, managed to find some breakfast. I had some mushrooms which were fantastic. I've got a lot of time for mushrooms these days.

The rest of the day was pretty lazy. I'm trying to buy some new sunglasses, but with a head like mine it's kind of tough to find a pair that suits me. I'll get there in the end. Unfortunately the cross eyed girl wasn't working in the sunglass store today. She's a lovely girl, but talking to her can be slightly unnerving.

Dinner's Ready

Well, the party today wasn't really much of a party at all. There wasn't any music, there wasn't any drinking, there wasn't any nibblies, and a few of those we hoped would be there weren't there (Chaplain and Doctor No. 2 I'm looking at you!). I guess it was never really going to be.

The meeting today was to discuss as a family what's going on and what we can expect over the next few months. It was to give us an opportunity to talk to each other about how we are feeling and to ask any questions we felt we wanted to know the answers too. It was pretty full on. My lame jokes went down like a sack of shit.

It has made us all realise a few things though, and this is a good thing I guess. It enabled us to get some issues clear, and for Mum to say what she would like to happen. The doctor was also able to give us a bit of an idea as to what we can hope for, but he also outlined that it is a very serious issue. The opportunity was also made available to us of the support networks that are available, so handicap parking here I come! See, even lame jokes here aren't funny. The ones in the room weren't that grim though.

One thing that today has made me realise that although I am more than happy to talk about what is going on within the family and with my mother, I haven't really been talking about how it's been affecting me. I don't know, talking about feelings and shit? Sounds kinda gay to me. Not really, but it's not as easy as I thought that it would be. I've always thought that I was a reasonably open person, but some people have said things to me recently that make me think that perhaps I am more guarded with my emotions than I thought. Somebody even said to me the other day that I'm "big, bad Robb Musgrave, and I don't need anybody." I don't know if that's true.

I left the hospital today feeling lower than I have done in the past.


I was hoping to head down to the beach tonight with my Dad. I was going to come home, grab a bite to eat, clean my room a little, then head down. I didn't. I fell asleep for 4 hours and woke up at 6.

I just bought some new earphones. The last ones I had didn't last too long, so I'm hoping these ones will. I tried to buy 24 Hour Party People but they didn't have it in stock. I don't have much patience so I'm not going to wait for it.

How Do You Measure A Year?

Last night I managed to do quite a few things, and for that I am happy.

It wasn't an especially exciting night, but it was busy and I guess that counts for something. To begin with I visited my mother up in the Krankenhaus. She had a couple of other visitors up there at the time so I didn't hang about for too long. Plus I had a pressing engagement elsewhere.

I re-visited Kapila's cafe down on Hawken Drive. It's some lovely food, it's just a shame the lights are so bright. Last night I had the dhal which was really quite tasty. The meal didn't look especially large, but by the end I was more than satisfied. I wasn't excessively full, but it did feel good in my stomach. I decided on a rose lassi to help with the digestion.

Did I say that Ria was with me last night? Because she was. I had to help her down a rocky pathway after dinner. Then we jumped back into the brum brum drove around the corner to the Schonell theatre. The reason? Caron was performing in a production of Rent. So we watched that, it wasn't the greatest, but I'm putting that down to the fact that one of the leads really irritated me. Some of the singing was lovely, the dancing was terrific, some members of the ensemble were very leggy and there was a nice kiss between two men. The people in the row behind gasped when it happened.

That's about it really. I've got to go to work now. At lunch time I get to escape from work and go up to the Krankenhaus for a family meeting. Apparently there's going to be a psychologist, 2 doctors and a chaplain. Party on, Wayne!

Lazyitis

As much as I love a three day weekend, and as much as it pains me to say it, I'm glad that next week is just a regular week. Trying to cram the usual 5 days of work into only 4 is starting to suck, so it'll be nice to have a longer working week next week. I've just been running behind in all of the things that I've been needing to do. I've been running out of time.

So much of this past working week has consisted of running around trying to get everything done. The non working week has been pretty good though. I spent Friday and Saturday nights down the coast. On Friday night I got pretty drunk and made a nuisance of myself. I ate a whole pizza. Lots of those salty little fishies went down my throat, and I think that it made me extra thirsty. I eventually crashed out.

Saturday I went and had some breakfast with Nigel. He's still a little lonely, but he does have a beast of a car. It's a '76 Landcruiser. Purple, no roof, huge wheels, V8. When he stabs the accelerator it makes a sound that you can't help but smile at.

Saturday arvo I went for a walk up the beach and had some fish tacos. I looked at sunglasses and then came back. Once back at the apartment I finally finished GTA: San Andreas so that was a minor achievement I guess. I'm not too sure what I did for the rest of the night. I wasn't feeling one hundred per cent, so I didn't get drunk. I did watch a movie that was on SBS. The name of the film and the main antagonist was Simon. It was a film from the Netherlands and it was very interesting. It dealt with a few interesting issues, the major one being euthanasia. Very timely. It seems the Dutch have a pretty progressive society.

Later on I watched Duran Duran's Girls On Film on rage. I highly reccommend it. It was very interesting.

Sunday morning I awoke early and headed to my grandmothers for breakfast. She's won a meat tray. It was awesome. I took Ria with me and everyone was on eggshells around her, except, of course, Nanna. It was pretty fun. After that I wasted the beautiful weather we were having by staying in bed and reading a book.

That night was the Seafood Festival up at Caxton St. The heavens had opened up during the day so I thought that it wouldn't be very busy. I was wrong. I spent a couple of hours there getting drunk really quickly on champagne and beer. I missed all of the seafood. I missed Russel Crowe and The Ordinary Fear Of God. I did see a few familiar faces and so I spoke a bit of shit to them and then was escorted home.

This week has been pretty straightforward. I've been going up to the hospital. I ate some Vietnamese food. I'm off to see Rent tonight. I haven't been spending enough time at home I don't think, hence the lack of updates. Oh well.