Rain rain go away...

Lonsdale Street is flooded.

Umbrellas are turning inside-out.

Waterproof just means the water that gets inside can't get out again.

I modelled the "drowned rat" look at a job interview.

Well here I am! Established in a new apartment in Mentone, living with Aidan! How exciting! Needless to say it's been a busy week & weekend. I hate moving, but I love having moved!

ROXETTE - Vulnerable Lyrics

Everywhere I look I see her smile
Her absent-minded eyes
And she has kept me wondering for so long
How this thing could go wrong.

It seems to me that we are both the same
Playing the same game
But as darkness falls this true love falls apart
Into a riddle of her heart.

She's so vulnerable, like china in my hands
She's so vulnerable and I don't understand
I could never hurt the one I love
She's all I've got
But she's so vulnerable
Oh so vulnerable.

Days like these no one should be alone
No heart should hide away
Her touch is gently conquering my mind
There's nothing words can say.

She's coloured all the secrets of my soul
I've whispered all my dreams
But just as nighttime falls this vision falls apart
Into a riddle of her heart, yea.

She's so vulnerable, like china in my hands
She's so vulnerable and I don't understand
I could never hurt someone I love
She's all I've got
But she's so vulnerable
Oh so vulnerable.

Don't hide your eyes...

It was an emotional night, and I'm left feeling tired and confused. Apparently I've been demanding and pushy this week, and I've taken a dominant or masculine role in the relationship. This seems to be the direct result of this whole house-moving thing. I viewed the property, I got the application forms, I pushed for a sooner moving-in date, I connected the electricity and phone. I thought I was being helpful and efficient, I thought I was saving Aidan the bother of all that menial stuff. But apparently what I did was a Bad Thing. I feel like a scolded dog - Master threw a stick and I fetched it, how was I supposed to know it was dynamite? Yes, I've taken charge of this whole thing, but that's just how I am. I'm used to knowing that if I don't just go ahead and do something, it probably won't get done. I'm used to knowing that if I leave it up to somebody else, they'll fuck up, and if I wait to discuss things with someone it'll get done too late. Mostly I'm used to doing things myself. Now I've upset Aidan. He feels useless and pushed aside. Understandable. But I thought I was doing the right thing. So I cried a lot last night and I'm crying now and I'm confused and hurt and sad. His SMS this morning said "Forget it, I'm fine", but the words "forget it" always make it sound like things aren't ok, and when Aidan says "I'm fine" he generally isn't. So I'm probably going to go the opposite way when he gets home later: submissive, passive, and timid for fear of upsetting him again.

The things people expect...

Somehow every customer seems to think that all the information they could
ever possibly desire about Australia Post should be on our website. Do they not realise just how many products and services we provide? It's not as though we just deliver mail or only provide personal banking facilities. On our intranet site there is an ever-growing list of our products and services, I got bored today and counted them. Seventy-nine, that's 79, products and services, and that's an incomplete list. How are we meant to provide detailed information on each and every one of them on one website? Maybe
it's just me, but that seems awfully difficult. Especially given that no given person in this entire organisation knows everything about everything. Except maybe Carolyn. Possibly Allan. But nobody else!

Australia Post pays it's Customer Service Consultants more than retail staff or delivery staff. That is to say, the people who handle complaints are paid more than the people who cause them.

The news is: Aidan and I are moving in together on Friday! It basically all happened in the last three days. On Saturday I went to inspect the place and grab the application forms. Monday morning I faxed them through to the agent. Monday afternoon she called and said we'd been approved! So I'm excited. Even though I'm tired. I barely slept last night, I was restless for hours and I don't know why.

Today sucked.

It's funny how you get used to yourself. You're just You. It gets hard to step back and be objective about yourself. I'm covered with moles, all over my arms. My hands are the least elegant objects I've ever seen, with their roughly cut nails and chewed skin. There are dark circles under my eyes and a pimple right between them on my nose. I've got a bit of a pot-belly, like I never quite lost the puppy fat from childhood. My face is a funny mix of parents and relatives - dad's high forehead and nose, but somehow a grin like my uncle Patrick, and at the same time I'm unmistakably my mother's daughter. My bottom teeth are kind of crooked, because I didn't wear my plate as much as I should have after my braces came off. I'm pretty enough, in my way, but I don't turn heads. Except Aidan's, but I'm not sure that counts because he's in love with me. My thighs look fat and flabby when I sit down, but my calves (calfs?) are alright. They'd be nicer if I shaved them more often. As for my feet, the less said the better. Nobody's feet are attractive. Mine have more callouses than most, the product of a bush childhood and never listening to my mother's pleas to wear shoes.

I don't think I'm a feminist. I'd hate to sound like I was being feminist in this post. I'd just like to make that clear from the outset.

Today I was listening, through no choice of my own, to several rap songs - or maybe they're called, however inappropriately, R'n'B. Whatever. Anyway, the lyrics seemed to be all about getting "a piece of you" or wanting "somebody nasty" or how the singer "likes it tasty". In short, the lyrics speak of people, particularly women, like objects. It's disgusting. Very little offends me, I don't get upset or distressed at most things, but those songs do. They encourage men to think that way, and encourage women to believe they're no better than a sex object. It's more of the "I'm ugly unless I have big boobs and a nice bum" mentality, expressed constantly although less explicitly on television and in magazines. I, as well as thousands (maybe millions) of other women in the world, have a negative self-image. I certainly don't need myriads of songs, TV shows, magazines, and advertisements telling me yet again that I'm not pretty enough (forgive the unintentional Kasey Chambers reference), or that I must lose weight so I look like a twig with hair, or that if I don't use Clearasil the boys won't like me. I don't need to be told that all any man will want from me is my body, probably only for the night, before he moves on to the next girl who is probably prettier or sexier or has larger breasts than me. I don't need to be told that I have to put out to be accepted.

Anyway. Enough ranting. I'm over it.

Aidan's parents were meant to tape the Today/Tonight report on Australia Post... I'm currently going through this tape for the second time, I can't find it! Four hours worth of tape and it could be anywhere...

Went to Steven's 13th birthday last night, that's Aidan's cousin's son. Had a bunch of fun, although it seemed Steven kept finding excuses to hug me, and chose me to kiss when he hit the bottom cutting his cake! Sorry Steve, you're a bit young for me. Oh yeah, and I'm engaged to Aidan too. Well and truely off the market! But all in all, it was a great night. I'm glad I went. Craig and Kim are awesome people, I wish they were my family!

I've been somewhat slack with blogging lately. I just haven't had time! Tonight I am finally bored enough to open up good old Blogger. Although it's somewhat pointless because nothing's really happened of late to warrant a blog entry. I am working tomorrow, my first Saturday since starting at Post. Extra money will be nice. Other than that, life trundles along fairly normally. I got an engagement card from Geoff and Jeanette today, that was sweet of them.

I feel like such a boring person. Weeks go by and I can think of nothing worth telling anybody!

I went out with Wayne tonight, briefly. Saw Olivia and Gill too, and met some guy called Allan. Fun night, but Wayne and I left pretty early, around 7.30, due to the rather awful "entertainment" - a singer who couldn't sing and a guitarist who couldn't play the guitar.

untitled

I can't quite figure out what goes on in my mind. Either I have become
incapable of feeling hatred and irritation, or I feel them so constantly
that I no longer detect it.

Being sick always makes me feel depressed. And whilst I am a lot better physically... how shall I put this? I'm at home by myself, I'm tired and bored and have the remnants of a cold. It's not the most joyous of occasions.

Mum and dad came to the city today, I went and had "birthday lunch" with them in Lygon Stret. That was nice.

To cut a long story short: Publishing my blog on my own ISP's server sucks, because my ISP sucks and mostly doesn't accept my password. From now on, please see funnyoldworld.blogspot.com.

Ella Fitzgerald - Danke Shoen (from Ferris Bueller's Day Off)

Danke Shoen, Darling, Danke Shoen
Thank you for all the joy and pain
Picture shows
Second balcony was the place we'd meet
Second seat, Gold Dutch treat, you were sweet
Danke Shoen, darling, Danke Shoen
Save those lies, darling, dont explain
I recall central park in fall
How you tore your dress, what a mess
I confess thats not all
Danke Shoen, darling, Danke Shoen
Thank you for walks down lover's lane
I can see hearts carved on a tree
Letters intertwine for all time, yours and mine that was fine
Danke Shoen, darling, Danke Shoen
Thank you for seeing me again
Though we go on our seperate way
Still the memory stays for always
My heart says Danke Shoen
Danke Shoen, oh darling, Danke Shoen
I said thank you for mmm, seeing me again
Though we go on our seperate ways
Still the memory stays for always
my heart says Danke Shoen

I went to work today and they pretty much sent me home for being too sick. Dom, Louise, and Kim all told me I had to go home, then Ange jumped in and agreed... so here I am. Another day on my butt at home.

I turn 22 today!

It's been a... actually I can't think of a suitable word to describe the last few days. Aidan and I have both been sick, and he's been an absolute sweetheart. Despite his own illness, he's insisted on looking after me - bringing me soup, tea, noodles, not to mention hugs.

He doesn't realise it, but he's messed with my head. All romance and idealism aside, I've never really believed in Fate or that something may be "meant to be". But this morning, lying in bed with nothing to do but blow my nose at regular intervals, I've been thinking. I was thinking of all the times in our lives when our paths have crossed, and all the things that had to happen to bring us to where we are now. I can trace it as far back as VCE in highschool. If my marks had been higher, I wouldn't have ended up at the Student Village, where Aidan and I met, and where we both met Chantell. There's a clear chain of events, beginning when I got a phonecall from a woman at Melbourne University's Wesley College telling me that only University students were accepted for accommodation there, and I'd only made it into a TAFE course.

Then there's all the silly little obscure things that probably don't mean anything, but it's worth mentioning anyway. He, of course, grew up on the peninsula, and my family had a holiday house down there. He did VicSwim at the Rosebud pool - I can't count the number of times dad and I were turned away from that very pool because it was taken up by VicSwim. There's too much to count, but the more I think about it the harder it gets for me to think it wasn't meant to be.

I want to be a better person for him. I want him to keep thinking that I'm amazing and wonderful. I want to be there for him and support him and look after him. I want to feel more worthy. I want to believe all he says of me.