Inside Out

Miss Polly

2010-08-05T10:02:00.002+10:00

Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick,
So she called for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick.
The doctor came with his bag and his hat,
And he knocked on the door with a rat-a-tat-tat.

He looked at the dolly and he shook his head,
And he said "Miss Polly, put her straight to bed."
He wrote out a paper for a pill, pill, pill,
"I'll be back in the morning with the bill, bill, bill."

This is obviously a very old song. The 21st century version would be entirely different:

Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick
So she called for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick.
The bored-sounding receptionist who answered the phone informed Miss Polly with an air of derision that no doctor she was aware of in the area made house calls any more.
Besides, had she seen this doctor before? Because he wasn’t taking any new patients.
No? In that case, she could fit you in with Dr Suresh Amjad Majeed, who, somewhat suspiciously, had several appointments free.

Miss Polly made an appointment, and rushed her dolly into town to see Dr Amjad Majeed.
She was right on time for her appointment, and settled into the waiting room at the receptionist’s request.
Forty-five minutes and several ancient New Idea magazines later, the doctor finally called the dolly’s name.

The doctor had neither a bag nor a hat. Nor a clear grasp on the English language, for that matter.
He mumbled a few halting questions, jabbed at the dolly half-heartedly, and wrote out a paper for a pill, pill, pill – a broad-spectrum placebo.
“Thank you doctor,” said Miss Polly. “Will you come to my house tomorrow morning with the bill, bill, bill?”

The doctor looked incredulous. “Oh, no, no, no!” he laughed.
“You must pay at reception today. We are not a bulk-billing practice. You may collect your medication from any pharmacy. If you have a health care card, you can receive a concession. If not, you must pay full price. Thank you velly much.”

The original melody would probably need tweaking to accommodate the extra syllables, but I guess modernity comes at a price.

Blah blah blah

2009-10-02T12:57:00.002+10:00

When did I become such a boring blob?

Seriously, I know I’m 30 now and I’m supposed to be all grown up, but I feel like all I do is work, sleep, eat and veg out. Then when I do get a day off, I spend it in an uneasy stupor – worried that I’m going to waste the day and not achieve anything, but too apathetic to do anything about it. Is this the life that people work for? If so, it’s rather underwhelming, to be honest.

“Ahh,” a sage, Godly mentor, fresh from a neatly structured Daily Bread-guided quiet time may remark, “You need to get back to basics. Get on your knees before the Lord. If you’re too busy for God, then you’re too busy. You need to give it over to Him. He deserves your first-fruits, not the dregs left over. The very least he requires…”

“No shit,” I would interrupt sarcastically. “Believe me, there’s nothing I would love more right now than a little Godly guidance. But I just can’t do it by myself, and as far as I know, the Godly Guidance franchise hasn’t set up a shop in Launceston yet. Fuck knows I’ve looked for it.”

“Ahh,” the all-knowing, been-there-done-that-bought-the-t-shirt sinner-turned-prayer-warrior might reply, “The church is the people, not the building. And people aren’t perfect. That’s why you’ll never find a perfect church. And if you do, then as soon as you join, it won’t be perfect any more. If we were perfect, then Christ wouldn’t have had to…”

“Look, Captain Cliché, if I’d wanted your opinion, then I’d have asked for it, okay? Shouldn’t you be off somewhere writing your sermon for this Sunday? I don’t want a perfect church. I just want somewhere I can go and connect with God. Is that really too much to ask? Isn’t that what church is supposed to be about, after all? I don’t give a toss if there’s a hip-happening music team, or a funky Powerpoint display to go along with the bite-sized easily digestible dot point sermon, or if the pastor has a trendy jacket and ‘goes the extra mile’ for his flock. I just want pure, undiluted God. I need him to renovate my heart before it crusts over any more than it already has.”

“Ahh…”

“If you say ‘ahh’ one more time, I’m gonna go all dentist on your ass and rip your teeth out.”

So yeah, I’d love to find somewhere where I could regularly meet with God and hear what he has to say to me, but I seriously doubt such a place exists. And when I go looking for it, I end up having conversations like that one and unintentionally offending people. Or intentionally offending them, if they’re super annoying. I have to amuse myself somehow, you know.

Connecting with God is so hit-and-miss. Sometimes, when I’m not looking for it, it smacks me in the face. And other times, when I’ve especially set aside time with a cup of tea in a comfortable spot, ready for the long haul, then all that comes into my head is shit – like what I watched on TV last night, or a conversation I had with someone, or what pointless activity I’m going to attempt on my day off. There is no formula. Which is a good thing – I don’t want to be able to control it.

Or maybe I do. I dunno. Maybe that’s the problem.

Cross-contamination Haiku

2009-07-25T13:55:00.001+10:00

I'm not really sure
What this knife was used for, so
I'll give it a wash

Toilet Doors

2009-05-06T10:49:00.002+10:00

Here are some interesting toilet doors I've spotted recently:

St Peter's Pass
(Hee hee! Get down n jiggy with it)

Deloraine Showgrounds
(Perhaps they're a bit short on space?)

Doug Brown

2009-04-12T13:32:00.005+10:00

A few months ago now, right at the start of my 100 churches experiment, I went along to a church that up until now, I’d forgotten to mention.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed knowing that I had nearly one hundred to choose from, I opted for the tried and true method of opening Saturday’s paper, closing my eyes and praying for guidance while my finger hovered indecisively over the page. Pause for effect, then BANG! Bring it down emphatically, confident that whatever I landed on would be the Lord’s will for me that day. Tentatively opening one eye, I discovered that I would be attending… “Sea Breeze Holiday Cabins. Self Cont. family accom. Best $ value. Enq. about our special 4 day package.”

I eventually decided to attend The Baptist Church in the Same Suburb As My Favourite Thai Restaurant (“you like Thai?” “Sure! You like shirt?”) For a while I was enjoying feeling rather independent and aloof at the thought of marching into a strange church alone – so I pretended not to feel relief when I receive a text from R, wondering if I would be starting my pointless spiritual expedition that Sunday, and if so, could she come too? With an hour to kill before the service started, I managed to ply another friend, C, over Facebook chat with promises of fun and fellowship. And chocolate. And when that didn’t work, I teased her about a guy at her church who was preaching that night, who is just a little bit in love with her, and would most likely be scanning the audience for her supportive, reassuring, ‘could-be-my-future-wife-if-it’s-the-Lord’s-will’ face. That one did the trick.

Taking our places in the customary Second From The Back Pew For Uncertain Visitors Who May Wish To Make A Quick Getaway But Don’t Want To Appear Too Reluctant By Sitting In The Very Back Row, R announced that she had brought a book along “in case it got boring”. What a great idea! (Note to self: next time, take a book.) After much nervous a-hemming, the 30-something male worship leader joyfully informed us that this was the contemporary service, and in the contemporary service, almost anything could happen. It was a bit unpredictable like that. A bit zany. A little bit wacky. So hold onto your seats, people – it could be a wild ride! I glanced over at pretty much the only other people there – some tartan-clad elderly folk perched in the front row. Were they prepared for this uncertainty? I hoped they’d be okay.

First there was an item – an earnest “Jesus Is My Boyfriend” type ballad by the aforementioned leader. You could see that his heart was in the right place. Unfortunately, you could hear that his pitch… wasn’t. I glanced across at R. She had opened her book already. We’d been seated for a whole five minutes. C glanced at me, leaned over and whispered, “So what was that you said about chocolate earlier?”

After the usual bunch of Hillsong ballads followed by the ten minute guilt trip that we’ve all come to know and love as “taking up the tithes and offerings”, we were told that there was a special guest speaker tonight, Mr Doug Brown. He was introduced as an “itinerant speaker from Launceston” – surely a contradiction in terms. Oh well, I thought, there’s gotta be at least one good speaker in Launceston, right? And surely if this guy is farming himself out to various churches, he must be kind of in demand, which means he might just know what he’s talking about… right? Right?

Wrong. The guy was a tool. Not so much in the clap trap he was spouting (it was all same-old, same-old really), but in the way he delivered it. He was just oozing this vibe: “I am very wise and learned. You minions could do well to listen to the precious pearls flowing forth from my golden gob. I am the Lord’s anointed vessel. Pay heed! Turn ye, and repent! Forsooth!” He gave me the creeps. Seriously. I could not WAIT to leave. My skin was crawling.

The second the service finished, at the first available moment, all three of us leapt to our feet and made for the exit. To our surprise, the pastor, who had been up the front about three seconds earlier, was somehow waiting at the door to shake our hand. I swear there’s some sort of wormhole that pastors use between the front of the church and the main exit – “quick! They’re getting awaaaay!” Anyway, the pastor seemed harmless enough. I was just glad to be out of there. Glad that I’d never have to hear Doug Brown, Itinerant Speaker, ever again.

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So, anyhoo, (anyhoo? What am I, fifty?) I was at Thump Plate a few weeks after that, just before I buggered off for good. I was there because I had said I would play piano. With the first half of my duties over, there was only the last ‘wake us up before we go-go’ song left to play after the sermon. Good. Only half an hour to wait. That’s not so bad, I thought. I’ll just sit up the back in the sun, and listen to this visiting speaker, Mr… Mr…

Mr Doug Brown.

Hmm. The name rang a bell, but I couldn’t figure out where I knew it from. It wasn’t until he started his spiel that I suddenly remembered. AAARGH! THIS GUY AGAIN! NOOOOOoooooooo…

So, completely against my will, I sat through another round of Doug Brown’s utter tripe. I couldn’t go anywhere, because I could be called upon to play piano at any point. I wanted to punch him by the end of the ordeal. He was, if possible, even more smarmy and self-righteous than the first time I’d had the misfortune to hear him. When he finally shut the hell up, I felt unclean. I couldn’t believe I’d had to go through all that again. Thank goodness it was over.

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Last Sunday, even though I’d all but given up on my experiment out of frustration and boredom, a couple of friends of mine who are currently looking for a church to join decided it was high time I had another dose too. Fair enough then, I thought – surely it couldn’t hurt. After all, it had been a while.

So off I went, this time to The Church Across from Chickenfeed. As I drove along the road to find a parking spot, I noticed about fifteen people milling around outside Chickenfeed’s front doors, hunched over with their coats over their heads for warmth, looking downcast. The sight puzzled me at first. But it soon became obvious why they were there when an efficient-looking girl in a sensible red shirt brusquely opened the sliding doors to the store, and they all shuffled in like sheep to the shearing shed. I was highly amused. I mean, I’d heard of people lining up for concerts and such, but to join a queue on a Sunday morning so that you wouldn’t miss out on a two dollar packet of wooden pegs, or an 80s B-side compilation CD was just ridiculous. What amused me even more was that Ms Efficient didn’t even seem surprised. Was this a regular occurrence on a Sunday morning? Or any other morning for that matter? Ha ha.

I made it into my seat without being sullied by any handsy old men or women – bonus points. I liked the place already. The seats were a little too ‘economy class’ for my liking though – I practically had a mouthful of my own knees, so I dread to think what it was like for the 6 foot 7 guy next to me. I glanced around. Things looked pretty normal. Enthusiastic congregation of various ages and races – check. Vibrant music team, comprising of at least one woman with a Darlene Zschech outfit and matching haircut – check. Involving the ‘yoof’ in something minor enough that it doesn’t matter if they bugger it up (in this case, auxiliary percussion) – check. Drummer who does not possess the ability to play in a six-eight time signature – check. (Or a four-four time signature for that matter. Someone get that guy off the cross-beat before I go insane).

About halfway through the first song, a man rushed from the back of the room, pushing urgently past some bopping punters, clutching a giant bouquet of flowers above his head for fear of them being crushed in the throng. Dashing towards a table at the front of the room, he placed the flowers carefully in an awaiting vase, stood back to view his handiwork, and relaxed his shoulders in relief. I couldn’t help laughing. Double points for effort, flower guy! He obviously took his arm of the ministry very seriously. You could almost sense him hoping that he wouldn’t be marked down for tardiness. Who knows, a giant, gaudy bunch of flowers could be the difference between salvation or otherwise for someone there that morning. That someone, however, was not me. Flowers, schmowers.

After standing for what I felt was a socially acceptable length of time, I hunched back into my seat and locked myself in the shampoo position to read the newsletter. It was your usual border-art-ridden affair, but something in particular caught my eye. On the back page was the usual hall of fame that you find on the back of most church newsletters – a regular ‘who’s who’ of the congregation. Right there, listed as one of the church’s elders, was none other than – you guessed it – Mr Doug Brown.

My eyes widened. I looked up to the front row of the church, where the leadership always sit. There he was, looking smug. I flipped to the front page of the newsletter. And there, in black and white: “speaking today: Mr Doug Brown”.

I could not get out of there fast enough.

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What is WITH this guy?! I just can’t seem to shake him! I’m starting to wonder if I’m being punished for some unforgivable sin. Hell = me, in a car full of rattles and wasps, being preached at by Doug Brown. Forever. I feel like grabbing the people who have been inviting this guy to preach, shaking them and saying, “What are you DOING? Have you even HEARD this guy?”

Argh. I don’t think I can continue with my experiment. It’s really getting me down. Not just because the church community seems to have been taken over by Mr Unctuous, either. I just can’t take any of them seriously any more. I darken the door of a church, and suddenly the most cynical, negative parts of me take it as their signal to come out and play. I find myself either thinking or saying rude things to perfectly nice people. I can’t help analysing everything around me. Every service is like my own private Groundhog Day. And I don’t think it’s hurting my relationship with God, but I doubt it’s doing it any favours either.

I give up.

Resolutions

2009-04-10T16:06:00.001+10:00

Here’s a New Year’s resolution update for you – frankly, I’m blown away. I don’t know if it’s good fortune, hard work or coincidence, but either way I’ve achieved both my goals in a spectacular fashion. I wanted to lose five kilos – I’ve lost six. I also resolved to ask if I could do some work experience in an area I’ve wanted to work in for years. Seriously, years. Well, damned if they didn’t offer me a job! I’m still struggling to believe it. I knew that asking to do work experience was something within my control, something achievable. I never would have thought that a few months on, I’d be getting paid to do it. But I am! So far, I totally love it.

Something that came as a bit of a shock to the system was actually having to use my brain in a job. I hope this doesn’t sound condescending to all the servo chicks and admin assistants out there, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever had to do that. It’s quite exhausting having to maintain interest, intelligence and concentration for eight hours a day, five days in a row. I reckon I’ll cope though. At last I’m working in the sort of job I can see myself staying in. I honestly thought the day would never come.

This New Years Eve, I might resolve to become a gajillionaire.

Twenty Nine

2009-03-15T16:14:00.003+11:00

My friend Mandi was right. Twenty nine is a very unglamorous year. It’s like, I’m in my twenties, but not really. I feel like I’m spending the last year of my twenties sitting around waiting to turn thirty. And when I turn thirty, I’ll have it all figured out, won’t I?

Say someone tells you that they work as a waitress. If they were twenty something, then you’d kinda think, “okay then, a waitress. That’s not a bad job to have while you’re deciding what career path to take”. But say they told you that they work as a waitress, and they were in their thirties. You would assume that was the career path they’d chosen. You would perhaps assume that they worked as a waitress to supplement their husband’s income. Maybe they have a couple of kids – they’re in their thirties, after all – and working as a waitress fits in perfectly because she can look after the kids during the day, and he can look after them at night while she goes to work. If she had no children, then you’d think, “a waitress? She wanted to be a waitress? Fair enough then… maybe she’s a great people person”. I dunno. Nothing against waitresses, mind you. I suppose it seems a bit like one of those jobs that people do while they’re looking for something else. Like working in the accounts department, perhaps.

At the moment, I feel like there is nobody else my age. Everyone seems to be either younger or older. A few years ago, I could have blended in reasonably well with the university aged people, without being automatically bundled in with the mature-aged-put-your-bloody-hand-down-in-lectures group. These days, there is no way I’d fit in with the scruffy bemulleted lot coming currently departing the waning college system. For one thing, I don’t even own an Ipod, let alone feel the need to get the ear buds surgically implanted. For another, I don’t see the need to remove every vowel from every word I write, be it in email or text. I really don’t think it saves any time, and I think it shows a laziness bordering on ignorance.

Of course, there are people my own age around, but they’ve either got ‘real jobs’ or have started a family. So I guess I consider them ‘older’, even though they’re not, simply because I can’t really relate to them. I feel like my friends are getting younger and younger, as I subconsciously connect with people with similar interests and lifestyles, and those in their early to mid twenties haven’t started to think about careers or families too much yet. This is fine at the moment – as a twenty nine year old, I’m still technically in my twenties. But once I hit my thirties, well, it strikes me as kind of creepy.

Like that guy at the night club, trying to crack on to all the girls who look young enough to be his daughter. There's one in every crowd.

Rhema

2009-03-09T13:20:00.004+11:00

Warning: very long blog ahead. You might want to go and get a coffee, then make yourself comfortable. If you’re just popping in because you have a couple of minutes to spare, you might want to come back later. Or not. It’s totally up to you. I don’t mind either way. I probably wouldn’t want to read my crap either.

My friend Nick has a blog that I read fairly regularly. The topics he chooses to write about are interesting and varied, and sometimes he poses questions to his readers and asks for comments. Here is a question that he asked recently:

“I am very keen to hear what you think about God's voice. Have you ever had an experience of God speaking personally to you? How does He do it? What did He say? Have you ever heard people say ridiculous things in the name of God? What did they say and what did it make you think?”

Yes, I have had an experience of God speaking personally to me. A few, actually. I value those experiences a lot, and I hope I never forget a single one. Nick’s question is a good opportunity for me to reflect on some of those experiences, so I thought I may as well jot a few of them down while I was at it. Here they are, as best as I can remember, in rough chronological order.

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“GO!”

I was seventeen years old, living in a total dive in Aileen Crescent, Burnie. Anyone who knows Burnie at all will know the flats I’m talking about – on the corner of Mount Street and Aileen Crescent – not the ones that have been painted white, but the ones with the vacant block of land in front of it. It looks like a block of apartments, and perhaps it is now, but when I lived there back in 1996 it was a bunch of smelly one-room bedsits with shared toilets, showers and laundry facilities, inhabited mainly by middle-aged alcoholic men. And me. I was the only girl. I’d recently dropped out of college so that I could work at McDonalds full time. I couldn’t survive on Austudy, and I was too young to have a license, so I couldn’t get to college anyway. Even when I turned 17, I didn’t have a car or anyone to teach me to drive. Working full time at McDonalds paid $160 a week. My bedsit cost $55 per week to rent.

The guy in the room next to mine was nice enough during the day when I passed him in the hallway, but of a night he would usually get drunk and watch western movies. I know this because the wall that my bed was against was the same wall that his TV was against on the other side. He would watch these movies until at least midnight. I’d be trying to sleep, and all I could hear was “POW-POW! Gallop-gallop-gallop-gallop… POW! POW-POW-POW!” Sometimes, if it was really loud, I’d knock on the wall. To begin with, he’d turn it down a bit. But after a while, he must’ve been tired of me ruining his fun, because he stopped caring. He wouldn’t turn it down. Instead, he’d yell “FUCK YOU!” back through the wall at me.

One night, it was pretty bad. I had to start work at 5:30 the next morning for an open shift. This meant getting up at around 4:30, because I had to factor in the half an hour that it took to walk to work. The guy’s TV was turned up louder than ever, and I’d already knocked and pleaded through the wall at him, to no avail. I had been a Christian for only a few weeks. I remember crying, and praying with all my heart that the guy would turn off his TV so that I could get some sleep. Suddenly, God spoke back to me. Audibly. I heard a loud voice speaking urgently in my ear – “GO!”
Confused, I replied, “What?” The voice spoke again, with even more urgency. “GO!!”

I wasn’t really sure what it meant, but obediently I got out of bed and went to my door. At exactly the same time, the guy in the next room got up and went to his door too. We met in the hallway. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but all sorts of words tearfully poured out as I explained to him that I had to work in a few hours, and I was sorry to ruin his fun, and I knew we all had to live in close proximity, but could he please turn his TV down so that I could get some sleep. He looked at me, stunned. “I am so sorry,” he replied, looking ashamed, “I had no idea. I’ll turn it down straight away. I’m really sorry”. He walked back into his room, and turned it down so low I couldn’t even hear it. For the remainder of my time there, I never had to ask him to turn it down again.

I had never heard God’s voice audibly before that night, and I don’t recall hearing that clearly since.

“He’s a Pharisee”

I was attending a church in Burnie, and I’d just become (rather forcibly) involved in the music team. I was at a practice one night, and I was watching the worship leader sing. Something about him rang alarm bells. He just didn’t seem genuine. At all. I really felt that the guy was hiding something, that he wasn’t being totally honest. I remember trying to shake the feeling, thinking “what would I know? I’m only a new Christian, and this guy is an elder in the church!” I told God I was sorry for thinking things like that about such an upstanding member of his kingdom.
“Why on earth would I be thinking things like that about this guy, God?” I asked.
“He’s a Pharisee!” he replied.

I was stunned! This wasn’t an audible voice like before, but rather a strong, resounding thought in my head. I knew it was God for two reasons. Firstly, it definitely wasn’t a thought I would have had myself. Secondly, it would not go away. It rang around and around in my mind, like the reverberation of a gong. I couldn’t make sense of the information. A Pharisee? What did he mean? Why would he have told me that? I didn’t know. But I knew it was true. The guy was a Pharisee. He was putting on an outward appearance to hide something. The inside of his heart did not match his actions.

About a week later, the guy in question got up in front of the congregation and admitted that he’d been having a six-month long affair with the wife of a friend of his, who also attended the church. He stepped down from eldership, and no longer sang on the music team. His marriage was eventually repaired, but the marriage of the other couple was completely ruined.

I’m still not sure why God felt the need to tell me that about him, but I think it was to help me to learn to trust my instincts, no matter how unlikely they might seem. It was definitely a skill that I’d need for the future.

“YES!”

Since leaving home in 1995, I hadn’t had much success with accommodation. I lived with a friend for six months, until she asked me to leave because she felt I was invading her space. Then I lived with my grandparents, but for various reasons that hadn’t worked out either. Then I lived in the bedsit on Aileen Crescent until I moved into a slightly nicer place with my cousin. My brand new shiny ‘full-on-for-the-Lord’ lifestyle (which I cringe about now, thanks for asking) was in constant conflict with her new-found lesbianism. To top it all off, my pregnant 15 year old sister was sleeping on a camp mattress in my bedroom, for lack of anywhere else to live. I guess it was a recipe for disaster, but whatever the reason, my sister got up in the middle of the night to empty her pregnant bladder, and came face to face with my cousin, standing at my bedroom door with a knife, trying to gather up the courage to come in and stab me with it. So I figured it was time to move out of there, even though I knew in my heart I should stay put. I was offered temporary board with a lady I worked with. I moved in, but it soon became obvious that her and her husband were used to their own space, and tension started to build there too.

I was a bit of a broken mess by this time, without a skerrick of self confidence or trust left in me. It was then that I met a couple at the church I went to. They seemed lovely. They not only offered me a place to stay, but they professed to genuinely love and care for me “as a daughter”. I drank it in. Nobody had ever said that sort of stuff to me before. I desperately wanted it to be true, even though all sorts of alarm bells were going off inside me. I moved in, went back to college to finish year 11 and 12, and tried to feel happy and secure.

It gradually became evident that the couple I was living with could be fairly manipulative and controlling. They would have ‘talks’ to me about "my behaviour" whenever I showed any sort of emotion other than forced happiness. They drew up a list of chores around the house to "keep it fair" – my workload didn’t seem entirely fair to me, but I did it all, for fear of the consequences. They generally treated me like I was a lot younger than I actually was – they even insisted on hiring a babysitter to look after me when they went away for a couple of weeks. By this stage I was nineteen, and I had lived out of home long enough to look after myself, thanks very much, but they paid no heed to my protests. Both of them were constantly unwell, and their health seemed to rule everything they did. None of my friends liked visiting, because the atmosphere in the house was so strange.

Then things just got weird. The guy started spending a lot of time chatting to me, even massaging me, and it was getting a bit too close for comfort. Then the woman stopped talking to me. She wouldn’t tell me why, only that “I should know”. Of course, looking back, as an older and wiser version of me, I’m guessing that the two were connected, but at the time I was completely oblivious. One day they went out to the paddock next door (where I couldn’t hear them) and had a screaming argument. After that, the guy wouldn’t talk to me either, sticking with the “you should know” explanation whenever I asked what I had done wrong. I was completely confused, and totally miserable. There was more tension in the household than in any other I had experienced. I’d walk into a room, and she would walk straight out of it, slamming the door behind her. She stopped cooking meals for me. I wrote her a letter, imploring her to tell me what I’d done wrong, and I found it balled up in her room when I went in there to vacuum. I felt like I was going insane. I really did. I felt like I was missing something completely obvious. But even in the middle of it all, I was still terrified at the thought of losing this new ‘family’, the only ones who I thought had ever really cared about me. Even though in my mind I knew it was ridiculous, the things they said and did made me feel like I could never survive on my own again. They had this crazy hold over me.

In the middle of all this confusion, I went into my room one day and prayed. It had been quite a while since I’d allowed myself to talk to God with a totally open heart and mind, because I was terrified that he would tell me I should move on. But I knew I had to hear the truth.
“God, please tell me what I should do. Should I move out?” I asked, screwing my eyes up in anticipation of what he might say.
“YES!” came the resounding reply.
I opened my eyes. All of a sudden, I felt at peace. For the first time in months, I felt like me again. I knew he was right. I had to leave this insane environment. I knew I was strong enough. I’d done it before, and I could do it again.

I went and told the couple that I was moving out. They were ecstatic. A week before, this would have devastated me. Now, I didn’t care. Predictably, they insisted on orchestrating the whole thing, finding me a flat, helping move my furniture, etc. I agreed, more to keep the peace than anything. They were going away for a couple of weeks, and they decided that when they returned, we would all go looking at flats together.

While they were on holiday, I decided that I was perfectly capable of going to look at places myself, so off I went. The very first flat I looked at was perfect. I signed the lease the next day, and got some friends together to help me move all my stuff. I thought the couple would be proud of me for organising things without the need for their help. I was wrong. They weren’t happy at all. It was like if they couldn’t do it their way, then they wanted no part of it. Fortunately, I no longer cared what they thought. I was free!

A couple of weeks after I moved out, I was handed a letter at church by a small child, from the couple. They wouldn’t even give it to me in person. I read the letter, and nearly fell apart again. It accused me of purposely introducing a virus to their computer while they’d been away, short changing them for board, and for not paying them back some money they’d lent me about six months earlier. All up, including repairs to their computer, they calculated that I owed them around five hundred dollars. The letter stated that they knew full well how much I earned, and they wouldn’t be taking repayment in measly instalments, thank you. They figured I could afford ten repayments of $50 per fortnight until this debt was repaid in full.

I was floored. I showed the letter to a friend, who happened to be an elder in the church. He took the letter away from me and said that he’d deal with it. I later found out that there was quite a file of these sorts of letters from this couple to various people, and that they’d been spoken to before about the same sort of thing. My elder friend told me that this couple were very money focused, and that they wouldn’t let the issue rest until they’d been repaid, even though I knew full well I didn’t owe them anything. The elder and the pastor ended up paying the couple the five hundred dollars out of their own money, just to shut them up.

I still can’t believe it came to that. I wish I still had a copy of the letter, just to remind myself how bloody ridiculous it was. I have barely spoken to them since, which suits me just fine. I can’t believed how sucked in I was, and I’m very grateful to God for getting me the hell out of there.

“K”

It was 1999. I was halfway through Year 12. I was lying in bed one night, thinking about where I’d been, and where I was going. I felt like I had come a long way from the empty shell I was a few years earlier. I was still a bit of an emotional cripple, but for the first time in my life, I felt that I could perhaps give something of myself to someone else. Perhaps I could actually have a functional relationship. It was a novel concept, maybe even absurd. Nevertheless, those were my thoughts that night.

“God, I think I want to get married. Who should I marry?” I asked, a bit tongue-in-cheek.
“K” came the unmistakeable voice, echoing over and over again in my mind.
“WHAT!?” I mentally screeched back at him, “you’ve got to be JOKING! You are joking, right? K is the LAST guy on EARTH I would want to marry! Please tell me you’re joking. Please don’t make me marry K. PLEASE!”
Silence.
Man. I was freaked out. K was this annoying desperado who had been chasing me for a couple of years. I had never been interested in him in that way. Besides, he was at bible college in Adelaide, supposedly having the time of his life. It seemed unlikely that he’d move back to Tasmania. Even if he did, I knew for sure that I didn’t want to marry him. I convinced myself that I’d heard incorrectly. It can’t have been God. He wouldn’t want me to marry someone I didn’t love. There is no way it was him. It couldn’t have been. I pushed down my nagging doubts, and stuck to my ‘I must have misheard’ theory.

Well, to cut a long story short, K came to stay about six months later during his Christmas break. He was a different guy. Completely different. Confident, sure of himself, funny, caring. He didn’t seem to mind what I thought of him, he was just happy being him. I liked that. We hung out together every day. He asked me to marry him when we were at the beach one day, just after Christmas. I freaked out, and told him to ask me in a couple of years, because I wasn’t ready. But then I remembered what God had said to me a few months earlier. It all started to make sense. I realised I didn’t want to lose K from my life. I had no idea whether or not I loved him, but I knew that marrying him was the right thing to do. So I said yes.

I wouldn’t recommend our courtship methods to everyone, but it worked for us. Marrying him was the best thing I ever did. He’s exactly the sort of person I want to share my life with, and I love him with all my heart.

The Odometer Vision

I’d been involved in the aforementioned church for a number of years, and some of the stuff that went on there was starting to take its toll. K and I had been running the youth group for nearly five years, and we were burned out. As a solution, the leadership of the church appointed someone else, and told us we were no longer required. We were very hurt. All we’d wanted was a break of a few weeks, and perhaps some frigging support – not too much to ask, surely? Apparently it was. I turned up at a youth leadership meeting, and was made to feel like a leper. I walked out, and cried the whole way home.

Around the same time, the music team that had been so desperate to have me as a fresh-faced 17 year old told me that they no longer felt I was suitable for the role. According to the elder in charge of music, I had “issues”. I needed to resolve these “issues” before I would be welcome to sing in church again. I asked what the “issues” were, and he was unable to come up with a concrete answer. It was the vibe, really. Just… you know… the vibe. Apparently, I wasn’t worshipping properly. Other singers shut their eyes and raised their hands, and I didn’t do that. Why not? What was wrong with me? I told him it felt fake, like I was putting on a show. He shook his head despairingly.
“Well then Rebecca, why do you come to church?” he asked.
“To see people. To hang out with other Christians. Not necessarily to sing, or talk to God. I can do that anywhere,” I replied.
“Well you see, that’s the very reason why you can’t be on the music team any more!” he earnestly explained, telling me that he put the church before everything, even before his family. Oh. My. Goodness. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the slightest bit biblical. But what the fuck would I know? He was the elder, not me. From then on, I was relegated to overhead projectionist.

Turning up for my shift on projection one Sunday morning, I was feeling pretty low. I was sick to death of the whole thing. I’d seen so much behind-the-scenes bullshit that I was pretty much convinced that the church as I knew it had the totally wrong end of the stick. Surely this wasn’t what God was like? I’d heard he was accepting, not judgmental. Was I supposed to pretend I was in some sort of perfect place while I got my shit together? Here was me thinking that I’d be accepted, warts and all, wherever I happened to be in life. Silly me. For the first time since I’d become a Christian, I started to entertain the idea that I might not actually be in the wrong for once. That it might be them, not me. The very notion shocked me, but didn’t seem at all implausible. In fact, it made perfect sense.

So, I asked God what he thought. During one of the scheduled-yet-spontaneous patches of waffling on where the projector was not required, I shut my eyes and asked him, “What am I DOING here? Is this all just a pile of crap? Where are you in all of this?”
A vision popped up behind my closed eyelids. It was a car odometer. I watched with interest as the numbers on the odometer clicked over rapidly, getting to a few hundred, then it would reset itself to zero. This happened over and over. The numbers never reached more than a couple of thousand before the reset button would be pushed and the odometer would read zero again.
“What does this mean?” I asked him, slightly amused.
“Every time you come back to this place,” he replied, “I have to reset your odometer to zero.”
I opened my eyes. I knew I had to leave that church. And not go back.

So I did. And I’ve never regretted it. I discarded everything I’d been taught there, figuring that if it was true, then it would show itself to be true without it being drummed repeatedly into my psyche. I’ve learned more about God, more about myself, more about people, and more about life in general than I ever did while I was doing the ‘normal’ Christian church thing. I still find it amusing that God would tell someone to leave a church in order to have a better relationship with him. But I’m very glad he did.

“It’s just a job”

This one still hurts a lot, so I’ll be brief. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it before anyway. In 2007, I had a very stressful job that I loved and stupidly gave my whole self to. The company went under, and I asked God where my future lay with them – should I go, or should I stay?
“It’s just a job. Remember that.” he said.
So I went into work, repeating his words over and over in an attempt to detach myself from caring so much. The next day I got fired.

I know I should listen to what he said, but I just can’t seem to stop it hurting. He was right. It was just a job. I’ll just keep telling myself that, and maybe one day it won’t hurt any more.

“You have let yourself go”

This was in around August last year. I was lying in bed one night, and I asked him to tell me something I needed to hear.
“You have let yourself go” came his familiar voice, resonating in my mind.
Immediately, I began to wholeheartedly agree with him – he is God after all, and he’s been right all those other times. But then I realised I had no idea what he actually meant by that. Was he referring to my blubbery physique? To my gradually developing indifference to pretty much everything? I have thought about this comment often since then, but I still have no idea. Of course, I probed him for more information, but nothing. Nada. Ideas and suggestions are most welcome.

“Which way is home?”

After an unrelated rant to him one night late last year (again, while lying in bed), my mind was swiftly transported to a place on the Bass Highway just outside of Elizabeth Town, kind of near the big apple orchard. I somehow knew that this was the halfway point between Burnie and Launceston. It was so random, and it had nothing to do with whatever I was whingeing to him about at the time. So I asked him, “What am I doing here?”
He replied with a question of his own. “Which way is home?”
I was stumped. I looked towards Burnie, and then towards Launceston. Which way was home? Suddenly it was obvious how much I had been holding on to my ‘old’ life on the coast. I had not fully moved on. I realised I had to commit to one or the other. I said to him, “This better not be some not-so-subtle way of saying I should move back to Burnie, because that is NOT something I want to do”. I sensed that it wasn’t. Just that I had to decide to fully move on.

So I did. Driving back to Launnie after the Burnie carols, for the first time I felt like I was driving home. I knew I’d have to give up my involvement in things like the carols, because it was holding on to that old life, and I wouldn’t be able to completely move on while I was doing that. But I just couldn’t bring myself to tell them. As it turns out, I didn’t have to. I was sent a ‘thank you’ card from the organiser, informing me in a very chummy ‘no hard feelings’ kind of way that the carols was changing, and that they would be “giving me a rest this year”. Haha. I guess if I wasn’t going to do it, then someone else would do it for me. You’d think I’d have learned to listen by now, eh.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that I look back over it, there’s a bit of a pattern in all of that. More often than not, he seems to speak to me during times of change in my life. I’m not sure whether to be pleased, or scared about what he’ll say next.

Getting back to Nick’s original question, of course I have heard people say ridiculous things in the name of God. Many, many times. It’s the main reason why I’m where I’m at as far as church goes. I reckon there’ll be a lot of people with a shitload of explaining to do when the time comes. No doubt I’ll be one of them.

There’s not much I can do about that now, though. All I can do is to continue to try and be genuine in all I say and do.

Real Fans

2009-01-25T14:30:00.002+11:00

Today’s church was randomly selected because it was the only one in the paper that started at 10:30 that wasn’t named “St Someone-or-other”. I’d had a fairly late night the night before, and wasn’t in the mood to be liturged at. Now that I mention it, the paper is getting a bit thin on choice. Only nine denominations advertised this week. Looks like I might actually have to put in a bit more effort after I’ve exhausted these options. Sux to be me.

The name of the church I’d selected was a bit odd. I mentioned to K where I was going, and he said it sounded like one of those cults where the one sixty-something year old man fathers all the children. Instantly remembered that guy who was on 60 Minutes around 1989, with a face only a mother could love, who looked like he’d eaten all the children rather than fathered them. Whatever happened to that guy? Anyway, I was determined to go today with all the glass-half-fullness I could muster. Of course, it would be a bit too much to expect for the glass to be completely full. Aim low folks, and you won’t be disappointed.

Turned up in time to see two fluoro orange vested guys with ‘SECURITY’ menacingly printed on the back, herding the last car of about six into the car park. They seemed to take this task very seriously. Didn’t want to complicate things for them, as it seemed the car park could only take six cars, so I parked on the street.
Sat in my usual spot nearest the exit. In case of a fire, of course. I’m very safety conscious, you know.
The one-man-Casio-keyboard-band made me smile, for his sheer enthusiasm if nothing else. The kids (who made up roughly 60% of the small congregation) were up the front having a great time dancing along without a care in the world. Someone (presumably these same kids) had decorated the church by fastening tinsel to the walls with large strips of masking tape, and nobody had bothered to take it down yet. Very festive in a slapdash kind of way.
Inevitably, the dreaded words were uttered: “Go up to someone you haven’t spoken to yet this morning, and tell them, ‘I love you because Jesus lives in me!’” At first, the handful of adults there stuck to who they knew, clapping their mates on the shoulder and robotically repeating the instructed greeting. Then an old lady snuck up on me from behind. “I love you because Jesus lives in me!” she exclaimed, giving my right breast a reassuring squeeze, then ambling off in search of further prey. In her defence, it does tend to reside right next to my arm, which I’m pretty sure is where she was actually aiming for. Felt rather violated nonetheless.
No sooner had I collected myself again, I was lobbed on by Elderly Man and Linen Leisure Suit Lady. Seems they both decided in the same split second that I looked like I needed some lovin’. Almost breaking into a run, they came at me with arms outstretched from opposite directions – there was no place to run. “I love you because Jesus lives in me!” they both hollered in unison, mussing up my hair and groping me from every available angle. “Err… fabulous” was my incredulous reply, albeit muffled by one of their armpits. Felt highly amused yet incredibly traumatised all at once. Smelled like an op shop for quite some time after that.
The sermon. Boy, where do I start? We were informed right from the get-go by the sermon giver that he would be drawing a parallel between sports and Jesus, and that the sermon was entitled, “Are you a real fan of Jesus?” Then, he proceeded to shout belittling accusations at everyone for the next half an hour. It seems to be the trend these days to have a number of titled ‘points’ in your sermon, and this one was no different. Great – a guilt trip with structure. Real fans get there early. Real fans don’t care what time they get home. They’ll turn up even in a blizzard, they sit right up the front, and they never miss a game, no matter what. Real fans memorise statistics (bible verses), they pay the cost no matter how high, and they are always vocal. I cannot begin to describe how utterly disgusted I was by all of this. Not so much by the content itself (even though it had no biblical basis whatsoever), but by the accusing manner in which it was delivered. He seemed to be doing his level best to make every single person in the congregation feel like the worst Christian in the world. His strategy in achieving this was fairly simple - 1. State point: "Real fans pay the price". 2. Use his own shiny, spotless life as an example: "My wife and I give hundreds, nay, thousands, to all sorts of charities. We gave X to this person, Y to this person, Z to such and such. And that was only last week! Aren't we wonderful?" 3. Point out that everyone else sitting there was falling way short of his example: "How much did YOU give last week? Bet it wasn't half as much as that!" It really was a total and utter pile of crap. By the time he had reached his final point (“if you’re one of those quiet types that doesn’t call out during sermons, then you’re not a true fan of Jesus”), I walked out. Literally shaking with anger, and absolutely appalled.

Well, I’ve heard some total and utter shite in my time, but this was ridiculous. The only consolation was that the kids were out at Sunday School, so they didn’t have to sit through it. I felt sorry for the rest of them, though. Nobody else looked as outraged as I felt. They looked as though they were used to it. Which is awful.

How long can this sort of thing go on? What has the church become?

I’m not sure I can take much more.

Groundhog Day

2009-01-14T12:33:00.000+11:00

Here we go again. Didn’t I just write a recap of 2007 like a week ago? What the hell happened? And what have I done? Another year over? A new one just begun? Imagine there’s no heaven? It’s easy if you try? Just excuse me while I start my own one-man John Lennon tribute band.

2008 wasn’t a bad year. It wasn’t a good year. It was just a year. I was mainly happy, albeit a bit bored and restless. Some stuff happened. Here is some stuff that happened:

Started a new job in January. Liked it. Got used to it. Became indifferent to it.
Half committed to a church. Started playing piano. Stopped playing piano. Fully uncommitted to it.
Formed an a cappella group. Got some gigs. Did some busking. Got thoroughly out-busked by a giant brass band about ten metres away. Realised how intrinsically stingy the people of Launceston are.
Went back to uni. Gave English a try. Hated it. Changed back to history. Loved it.
Upgraded our car to a Subaru Outback. Felt like a yuppie.
Went to Sydney to visit a friend. Had a miniature personality crisis. Felt small. Got a tattoo. Felt tough. Went to Hillsong. Felt amused.
Had relatives visit. Went quietly insane after the 30th cup of tea and 43rd conversation about Tasmanian weather.
Planted a veggie garden. Felt like Peter Cundall when some stuff actually grew.
Participated in the wedding of a good friend as her matron of honour. Loved it. Felt old.
Sang in Carols by Candlelight. Wore a shiny silver top that I will never, ever wear again.

I also made two New Year’s resolutions.

Ask if I could do some work experience in a different department at work
I made this resolution on New Year’s Eve. I knew once I’d made the resolution, I’d have to act on it immediately otherwise I’d chicken out. So I rang the boss straight away. She said that would be fine, and that I could start whenever I liked! I’d fulfilled my resolution, and it wasn’t even 2009 yet. So I thought I’d better make another one:

Lose five kilograms
Yes, I know. Lose weight. Very original of me. Even though I knew that the swim-ring I’d been cultivating over the last few years was happy fat, it was fat nonetheless. I figured it would be easier to lose a few kilos than to buy a new wardrobe. So I joined a website called Calorie King. It’s totally fabulous, and it’s working already.

New Years Eve itself was spent on our deck with beer and friends. M brought along some small squares of lead, telling us that a German friend of hers told her of a tradition where you heat up a bit of lead until it melts, then throw it into cold water, and the shape it forms is supposed to predict the year that lies ahead. This is the shape I got:

I think it’s a dragon. This year I’m going to fly the sky at night, setting people and property alight with my fiery breath, before taking refuge in my treasure-filled lair.

Then some annoying prat called Beowulf is gonna come and stick a sword through my heart.

Beats a quiet night in, I suppose.

Superchurch Dot Org

2008-12-27T10:50:00.003+11:00

My 100 churches experiment hasn’t really gotten underway yet, due to my aforementioned obligatory piano playing. However, I’ve managed to tick another church off my list, without even having to get off my vast acreage and go anywhere. “How could this be possible?” I hear you gasp in awe. Quite simple, really. I remembered another one I’ve already attended. Superchurch Dot Org.

I went there with a friend a few weeks ago, but not for the first time. After the last time, I didn’t think I’d be going again. I kind of likened it to one of those Chickenfeed Christmas crackers you get. They look pretty spiffy, all wrapped up in pretty paper with gold dangly bits on them. But then you pull on them, and they don’t go “bang”. So you have to get the strip of “bang” paper out, and practically burn your fingers off trying to get it to go. Then you look inside and realise there’s no toy. Or if there is a toy, it’s one of those little hoppy frogs, or a keyring token, or something just as gay. You put the hat on (if there is a hat), and it falls down around your neck. And the jokes (if there are any jokes) are the lamest dad-jokes you’ve ever heard. But that’s all Christmas crackers, really. Where the hell was I going with this analogy? Oh yeah. It had all the appearances of something really great, but when it came down to it, there wasn’t really much substance. Unfortunately, this time was no different.

The service reminded me of television. Before you had time to get bored with one thing, something else was dancing in front of you, commanding your attention. First, there’s an upbeat song to get us all in the mood. Next, a multimedia presentation. Then another song. Then the announcements. Then a drama. Then another song. All in quick succession. I mean, we’d hate for people to actually have five seconds worth of headspace to themselves to contemplate any of the things they’re seeing or hearing. Perhaps they’re catering for the growing population of people who’ve “got that ADHD”. Who knows. What I ‘got out of it’ (it’s about getting, after all) were two distinct impressions: this church values excellence, and they value prosperity. Everything that was done was done to a very professional standard, with little expense spared.
Of course there was the ubiquitous ‘connection time’ – five painful minutes of either awkward shuffling and forced small talk, or sitting and watching members of the various cliques eagerly catching up with each other. If you were new, you could draw further attention to yourself and wave your arms around to get a voucher for a free coffee at the café after the service. Up until this point, I had ignorantly held the misconception that all coffee was free at church. Boy, was I stupid.
The sermon was given by a slightly panic-stricken church leader, and the gist of it was something like, “Don’t leave! We’re losing numbers! It’s God’s will for you to keep coming here! Please don’t go!” Of course, those actual words weren’t uttered, but they may as well have been. The guy brought out three chairs – one office chair, one dining room chair, and one that was a smaller version of the ones the audience… err… sorry, congregation were sitting on. The office chair was to represent work, the dining chair home, and the church chair, well, church. A parallel was then drawn between the amount of time the average Christian spent sitting on each chair. Cue forty five minute guilt trip. For fuxake, you think I want to spend the majority of my waking hours at work? Besides being annoyed about that, it was strongly insinuated that the only one of these chairs that would enable you to be with God was the church chair. That really pissed me off, because that’s pretty much the opposite of how I’ve found it to be. Then he said that even being five or ten minutes late for church would make God angry. Damn. I’m totally screwed.
I was ever so slightly cheered by the announcement that we’d be hearing not one, but three testimonies tonight. I love testimonies. Most likely it’s due to my secret voyeuristic tendencies, but I like to think it’s because they’re real. A well articulated, honest testimony is worth a thousand sermons. So I listened to the testimonies, and they were pretty real at first. But they all ended as soon as the conversion experience was described. “I had this shit life, and all this stuff happened [insert watered-down version of stuff]. Then I came to know God, and I lived happily ever after”. So… that’s it? That’s the sum total of life? And you’re happy with that? What are you going to do with yourself now that your life has reached its zenith at the ripe old age of thirty two? Sit around and wait to be taken up to glory? Meh. I guess I’m the only one who still has shit stuff happen, who still gets depressed, who still wonders what the point of it all is.

What is the point of it all, anyway?

Actually, come to think of it, I quite like the hoppy frogs in Christmas crackers. They’re kind of cool in an unpredictable sort of way. If I can land a hoppy frog into the drink of an annoying relative next Christmas, it’ll make the whole damn thing worthwhile.

Christmas Day

2008-12-26T09:43:00.000+11:00

Venue 1

Me: Hi Dad
Dad: Hello! Good to see you. Would you like a drink? What do you fancy? Gee, your hair looks nice that colour. And I like your shirt. What have you guys been up to this morning? Have a seat! Lunch won’t be far away.

Venue 2

Me: Hi Mum
Mum: Hello! Mwah! I came to the carols the other night. I heard that little glitch in your voice during your solo… hahaha! You must have been SO embarrassed! I certainly would have been, if it had happened to me. But you kept going, even under the circumstances. Oh how horrible! I’ve got the whole thing recorded on my mobile phone! Hahahaha! (walks off laughing.)

Heed His Call

2008-12-20T09:27:00.003+11:00

Here is something I read in a newsletter at church recently that made me chuckle to myself:

“It is the intention of [this church] to make an advance group booking for next year’s Hillsong Conference. Please pray for the Lord’s leading in your lives, and that He may call upon you to attend the conference in 2009, and that you will heed His call and make this important commitment to the Lord.”

Now, it’s not the conference itself that I’m laughing at – I’m sure they’re just swell. It’s the fact that there’s obviously no doubt in the author’s mind that it is indeed God’s will for, well, pretty much everyone to go to the next conference. It’s just a matter of whether you are in communion with Him enough to recognise this. It’s like one of those questionnaires that asks a yes/no question, then assumes that you’ve answered a particular way by the way it asks the next question:

Q1. Do you like turnips? Yes/No
Q2. Why don’t you like turnips?

I mean, why pray for the Lord’s leading in your lives about the conference when the very next prayer is going to be to ask him that he may call upon you to attend it? And to cap it all off, then you’re going to pray that you will ‘heed his call’? Why not just ‘heed his call’ to begin with, and save the effort of praying about it, if you’re so sure that’s what he’d want? Fer cryin out loud!

Hehe. “Heed His call”. I mean, who talks like that any more? Hehehe.

Firefox Rox

2008-12-18T22:06:00.000+11:00

For some reason, up until yesterday, this blog was only working in Firefox. No doubt it was because of my inferior HTML skills, but I preferred to think that it was because Internet Explorer is shit. That was my reason and I was sticking to it. Besides having a blog that only worked in Firefox was like writing it in invisible ink. Only cool people who used the same browser as me would be able to read it. It was like so Famous Five.

Anyway, it started to irritate me that I couldn’t fix whatever the problem was, and I threw a mini tantrum and cried to K, and he spent hours looking at my el-crappo code, and he found the problem and fixed it!

That’s why I love him. Not just because he fixed it, but because he fixed it even though I sooked about it. What a guy.

Gardening

2008-12-17T15:46:00.006+11:00

Since uni has finished for the year, I’ve been spending quite a bit of my spare time gardening. I’ve finally gotten around to planting a veggie garden. I’m so proud of myself. The only spot that seemed suitable was right next to the house in the backyard. It looked like it had been used as a veggie plot before, because when we moved in it was just a patch of dirt that had been enclosed with rocks. Then some weeds grew. Then they grew even bigger. So when I finally got around to doing something about it, it took ages. Plus, there were all these rocks and half bricks and busted bottles etc in the dirt. It was like landfill. Then I had to possum-proof it. That took ages too, but planting the garden would have been pointless otherwise. I hate possums, and they’re everywhere around here. I planted snow peas, tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers, capsicums, spinach, lettuces and parsley. Oh, and I put some mushroom compost in crates.

That was a couple of weeks ago now, and I just went up to have a look at how things were going. Much to my surprise, my plants are growing! They aren’t dead! I really think I was expecting them to be, which disturbs me a bit. But they aren’t! I tried something, and it worked! I’m glad it worked, because if it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have bothered trying again.

If I were reading this on someone else’s blog, I would have stopped reading by now. I’d have scanned through the entry, thought, “bah! Gardening! Booo-riiing!” and clicked the next link by now. But I don’t care. Gardening is boring, and reading about someone else gardening – even more so. But when I think of anything else that people my age do, I realise that I’m not interested in any of it. I don’t have an all-consuming career. I don’t want kids. I don’t go out partying. But I don’t have any other pursuit that defines me either – I know what I don’t like, but I’m not really sure what I do.

But I do like gardening. Gardening is normal.

I like something that is normal. A part of me is normal. I am normal.

Worker

2008-12-10T11:41:00.015+11:00

I consider myself a somewhat creative person. Probably not as creative as some might think I am, seeing as I rarely have ideas of my own. Most of the artistic stuff I’ve done over the years has been a copy of something I’ve already seen or heard someone else do. But I guess I do have some level of artistic ability, as the ‘copies’ I have attempted have ranged from “not bad” to “pretty darned accurate”. I remember when I was growing up hardly a day would pass when I wasn’t making some crafty thing, drawing a picture, designing, building, envisioning. I’d wake up on a weekend with an idea burning inside that I would just have to try out.

Occasionally I still get split second glimpses of that creative desire. But only glimpses. Enough to remember what it used to be like. And I know why it’s gone. I’m a worker now.

Working (almost) full time requires a great percentage of my waking hours, a lot of my attention, thoughts and energy. Monday and Tuesday I work. Usually Wednesdays are reserved for studying. Thursday and Friday I work. Weekends are for winding down, or housework, or social occasions, or obligatory activities. Then the cycle starts all over again.

At first, when one of those split second glimpses of creativity would flash into my mind, I would do my utmost to grab a hold of it. I’d summon up any leftover dregs of energy and force myself to focus on one of the many activities I used to love – playing music, drawing, writing, sewing, etc. But as the glimpse faded, so did my motivation. I’d end up hating the project I’d begun, struggling through to the end. Or worse, not finishing it at all.

I’ve come to realise that in order for the creativity of yesteryear to dwell in me again, I need time. I need more than a day, or two days rest from work. By the end of the two weeks of holidays that I had recently, I was motivated. Raring to go. Lots of projects were flying through my mind. Where to start? Nowhere, that’s where. It was time to go back to work. Batteries recharged, I had to spend my renewed energy, concentration and motivation on my job. Going back to work, where bit by bit the life gets sapped out of me again, while I look forward to my next lot of holidays to recover from it.

Is it worth it? I have a lovely place to live, nice possessions, and we never go without. I am sacrificing my time and energy, and that small creative part of me along with it, for financial comfort. For possessions that I never have the time to enjoy. Our house is lovely and sunny, but I’m never home during the day to enjoy it. We have a deck, a hammock and outdoor areas, but lack the leisure time that the enjoyment of these things requires. When I do have a Wednesday off, or a weekend, I spend it staring vacantly into space, zombified by work, trying to get work out of my head so that I can concentrate on something worthwhile. I can’t decide what to focus my precious spare time on. I wander here and there, not really satisfactorily finishing any one thing. All I can think about is how little time I have before I have to go back to work. I no longer have the mental clarity I used to. My mind is a fog. I forget things. I have no concentration span. I don’t care about anything.

I know, boo hoo. Everyone else has the same dilemma. And it’s not that there’s anything wrong with my job. I get paid a pretty reasonable wage for doing things that require not much effort on my part. The work isn’t hard. It isn’t strenuous, and it’s not really boring. It’s just constant. It’s like a dripping tap. One drip isn’t really a lot of water, but if you put a bucket under it, then by the end of the day that bucket would hold more than you realise. That’s what it feels like to me – I look at that bucket of water and think, “did all that come out of me? I didn’t realise I had that much water to give. Imagine all the other things I could have used that for”. Instead, I used it explaining people’s accounts to them, and taking their credit card numbers.

I don’t think I can take much more before I completely lose the person I am. But I’m trapped. I can quit work and have nowhere to live and no means to be creative even if I wanted to be. Or I can keep working for another twenty years until the mortgage is paid off, by which time I’ll be fifty and my young adulthood will be behind me.

Some fucking choice.

Dear Blog

2008-10-10T09:21:00.003+11:00

Dear Blog

I just wanted to drop you a line, seeing as it's been a while. I'm really sorry that we haven't been keeping in touch much lately. It's not you, it's me. I still love you. I've just had so much on lately, and I know that' s no excuse, but I keep thinking I'll find the time and then it never happens. I'm sorry. I promise - once I've finished uni for the year, been a bridesmaid, scaled the mountain of paperwork, had the in-laws over to visit from SA, and played piano in church for two hundred consecutive weeks, I am so like totally gonna hang out with you.

Yours at the end of October,

Rebecca

Famous

2008-08-06T16:52:00.007+10:00

Gus and I are famous!

I searched for my address on Google Maps, clicked on 'street view', and there I was, riding down my driveway:

What are the odds...

Holidays

2008-08-04T23:47:00.006+10:00

I’m on two weeks holiday, starting today! YAAAY! I feel so… temporarily free. I’ve been engaging in all manner of uncharacteristic behaviour, like laughing spontaneously, smiling for no reason… just feeling happy in general really. I hardly recognise myself. K keeps looking at me with a quizzical expression, as though my personality is splitting right in front of his eyes. Never fear – I’ve got no doubt that my soul will be back to its regular shrivelled-prune state in a fortnight’s time.

Not that work has been that bad lately. We have a new staff member in the complaints… err… I mean accounts department. She’s not exactly Speedy Gonzales yet, but any work she does get done is work I don’t have to do myself. So I’ve been spending the last week at work doing those not-that-important-so-it’s-gonna-have-to-wait jobs. Like deleting old accounts. I printed out a giant list of businesses that have a thirty day account but haven’t used it for three years or more, and sat there methodically exterminating them, blasting their outdated zeroes and ones into oblivion. Bam! Pow! Like Space Invaders. But the Amstrad version, where you have to wait half an hour for the tape to load. Freakin archaic accounting system.

I could see why a lot of the businesses whose accounts I was disposing of probably didn’t last very long. Not that I know much about running a business, but even a dumbass like myself could tell that their scope was way too narrow. Of course the Cake Decorators Guild of Cressy was sent to the collection agency. I mean, geez. Were they really expecting to do well? Become a franchise, perhaps? Go global? Morons. So, to make the afternoon a little less mind numbing, I started my own Businesses Doomed for Failure list in my head. Like the Mobile Chihuahua Tail Clipping Service. Or the East Launceston Electric Toothbrush Repair Centre. Or the Over 70s Beach Volleyball Club of Liaweenie. Or the Penultimate Tuesday Morning Of The Month Walkie Talkie Association for Men Aged Between Forty Six and Forty Eight Who Also Happen To Really Like Crumpets And Have Problems Expressing Their Feelings And Who Always Wanted A Pet Labrador But Their Wife Wouldn’t Let Them And Their Wife Is Fat And Smells Bad.

I mean, you just never know.

Damn, I'm glad I'm on holidays.

Cold Shoulders

2008-07-23T10:40:00.006+10:00

There are many things that I don’t, and will probably never, understand about the “yoof of today”. Most things I don’t really care to know. For instance, the specific yet rather oblique criteria one must meet to be considered ‘emo’. Or why great teenage oafs are riding around on those little clown bikes lately. What’s with that? Don’t they realise they look ridiculous? Anyway, one thing that I have wondered about in my vast amounts of spare time, is why my idea of being sufficiently clothed seems to differ so greatly from the idea of most young girls, particularly when going out for a night on the town.

I was driving through town on my way to pick up K from work the other night. It was bloody cold. The heater in the car was cranked, I had my puffy snowman jacket on, and my teeth were still chattering. So imagine my horror when I turned my head and saw a gaggle of girls on their way to Sporty’s, or Lonnie’s, or Gropey’s, or whatever meat-headed oonce-fest they were heading to, wearing nothing but a few strategically placed hankies. Seriously. One girl was wearing a see-through strapless dress, barely covering her boobs, and finishing up just under her butt cheeks. Another had on what I will tentatively term a ‘mini skirt’ (I’ve seen belts that are wider), a crop top and stilettos. All the girls had more skin showing than was covered. All the girls were shivering. All were struggling to walk in shoes that resembled Paddle Pop sticks with toothpicks glued on for heels.

I mean, I’ve never pretended to be a girly-girl. I’ve never really fit in with groups like that. But most groups that I don’t fit into, I can at least understand somewhat, if not appreciate. I don’t understand what they are hoping to achieve by dressing like that. No doubt they’re trying to attract attention from the opposite sex. But surely it’s possible to look nice and keep warm? And apart from being cold, they weren’t exactly leaving much to the imagination. I mean, I’m not a guy, so I don’t think like one, but surely part of the fun is wondering what someone is like underneath their clothes, rather than have all those interesting bits on display for the world to ogle (or wince) at. Do guys really like girls who dress like that? Are they rewarded for their discomfort? I guess they must be, otherwise they wouldn’t bother. Someone, please enlighten me.

Fuxake. IT'S WINTER, PEOPLE!

Church-A-Palooza

2008-07-12T18:25:00.001+10:00

Hmmm. My relationship with church (the institution) has always been one of those love-hate things. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. I don’t love it or hate it. I nothing it. Before we moved to Launceston, I hadn’t been to church for ages, maybe a year or two. And that was damn fine with me. No early Sunday mornings, no wasting a quarter of my precious weekend sitting through services that would inevitably bore me to death, no pressure to join the music team, the prayer team, the morning tea roster, the cleaning roster, the missionary prayer group, the community care constituent, the finance committee, the Croquet for Jesus Club, the Ladies Coathanger-Knitting Guild, to lead the youth group (just because I seem to fit that ‘youth leader age group’, or image, or was seen in the hallway talking to a ‘yoof’, or was overheard accidentally saying the words “awesome” or “generation”), or anything else that’s gonna drain me of any life or energy or passion or personality I may have had when I first arrived. But then, we moved to Launceston, and out of nowhere this strange, almost foreign desire came over me – the desire to start attending somewhere again. I know – annoying – but I went with it anyway. I sussed out a few places, before settling on one in particular. Let’s call it, say, “Thump Plate”.

Originally, I went along to Thump Plate because my (then) boss invited me to. Then, I met some really cool people, and through those people became involved in the Group of Indeterminable Cause. It was those people who kept me going along to church. Then, a bunch of people at Thump Plate had a hissy fit about the pastor there – they wanted “good solid Bible teaching”, and he wanted them to get off their spiritually obese arses and actually do something constructive with their faith (I know – the nerve!) In the end, they ‘ran him out of town’ in the form of a pastoral feedback survey. So nearly all of the people that I’d become friends with there stopped attending. The only reason I’m still going at all is because in the midst of all this, I was coerced to play piano for the service occasionally. I enjoy playing piano, so I agreed – on the proviso that I wouldn’t be playing very often, and that there wouldn’t be too many rehearsals taking up my spare time. So now, a few months later, I find myself one of only two piano players in the whole church, rostered on to play at least every second Sunday, and spending most Saturday afternoons rehearsing. Fuxake. The only reason I’m still going to Thump Plate is because I enjoy playing piano. But I don’t have to be a prophet to see that it won’t be long before I’ll be tired of playing so often.

So for a while there, much to my disgust, I thought I was starting to turn from my church-whore ways, and settle into a long term monogamous relationship. But not for much longer, I fear. Now don’t get me wrong – when I started out on the seemingly futile venture of finding a church where I felt like I fit in, I was never searching for a place that offered interesting church services. I would have been foolish to set my standards that high. Interesting church services are on par with Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, unicorns, and church luncheons without egg sandwiches. Pure myth. Every service I’ve ever attended at any church has culminated in some form of church-coma – the only variation has been the depth. I’ve all but given up hope of ever reconciling the relationship I have with God to the outward appearance of religion that constitutes church as I’ve known it. (I’m totally willing to be proven wrong here. Please… someone? Anyone? I see that hand! Oh, you were just stretching? Okay…sorry). I guess ultimately what I’m searching for, in order of likelihood, is firstly to be able to connect with people, and secondly to be able to connect with God. Both of those things I find much easier to do outside of the church environment. So why go at all? I don’t know. Something just keeps drawing me. Boredom? Martyrdom? Dehydration? One of those giant hooks you get people off stage with? I’m not really sure.

Then, I had an idea. Pastor Beard, the ex-pastor, mentioned one day that there are over one hundred registered churches in Launceston. ONE HUNDRED. That’s a lot. Why would a population of 80,000, with an estimated percentage of church-going Christians of 9%, need ONE HUNDRED churches?! That’s one hundred buildings that are owned, mortgaged or rented. One hundred pastor’s wages. One hundred electricity bills. One hundred photocopiers that are on their last legs. What a waste of money. Surely there’s a better way? I suppose there probably is. But rather than ponder the answer to that, I got to wondering; is there a soul alive who has ever been to all of these churches? I doubt it. I am assuming that all but a handful are of the Christian persuasion, and probably most are of Protestant descent rather than Catholic, which means that the majority of the churches would be pretty similar. How different could they possibly be from each other? How could one small city need so many separate gatherings of believers?

So, I have set myself a challenge. I am going to try and attend one hundred churches in Launceston. No, really – I am. It will take years. But I will run the race. I will not rest until it is done. And I’m really really going to try not to be an utter shit about it. I don’t want to attend them all so that I can bag the crap out of them. I’m genuinely interested in why so damn many are necessary. (Disclaimer: I may at times lapse in this new-found earnestness – I’m not a freaking miracle-worker after all).

To make my goal seem slightly more achievable, here are some I prepared earlier:

Thump Plate Christian Centre
The Church Near Our House (aka “Elderly Men Have Wandering Hands”)
The Church That Starts With Z (aka “Banner Betty and the Hearing Loss Posse meets Mr Shouty”)
City Life Christian Community Life Family Life Church
The Church Formerly Known As “Joey Jo Jo Shabadoo's church”
Nude Erections (does that one count? I only went for five minutes… Please don’t make me go back… curls up in foetal position)

So that's six. Only ninety four to go. Achievable? Unlikely. Impossible? Maybe. Daring? Not really. Cup of tea and a biscuit? There'd better be.

Nanny

2008-03-17T21:53:00.008+11:00

At the risk of ruining my carefully cultivated reputation of being a cynical shit who exudes about as much warmth as a brick in a freezer, I love my Nanny. She’s the matriarchal glue that holds the funny looking bits of our family together in all its dysfunctional glory. Without her, I doubt the rest of us would have much to do with each other. At any rate, we’d almost certainly have to give up our lifelong passive smoking habit. Anyway, Nanny’s great. Here are some reasons why:

Upon taking me in as a wayward 16 year old, the price was set for my lodgement at $30 per week. Apart from the fact that that amount wouldn’t even begin to cover my hot water consumption alone (and I’m proud to say my habit for unbelievably lengthy showers is still alive and well, hallelujah), she would then give three dollars back to me every day for my school lunch. Any effort to deny this generosity was met with her adamant refusal. "What about the lunches? I always cut the lunches."
Rules of lodgement: "I’ll do your washin’, and you can do the ironin’. I’ve always done the washin’. Matter of fact, I’ve always done everyone’s washin’." Of course, she then proceeds to do the washin’ and the ironin’, much to my chagrin as a 16 year old try-hard grunge wannabe who certainly did NOT want her oversized clothes ironed. Washing them was dorky enough.
When I think of Nanny, I picture her kicking back in her recliner, engulfed in a cloud of cigarette smoke, in her favourite fuchsia leisure suit with matching fuchsia lipstick, with the fire going in the middle of summer, ranting about the Government, or dole bludgers, or what the Government aren’t doing about dole bludgers, or the price of any of the following: food, petrol, electricity, telephone, rates, water, registration, cat food, cigarettes, Austar, and… well… pretty much everything, really.
She constantly has "one foot in the grave and one foot on a banana skin" – a precarious position indeed, but one she has claimed to be in for as long as I can remember
I can hear her now, lamenting the demise of Wheel of Fortune, especially in its glory days. Apparently, Baby John Burgess was irreplaceable. (Personally, I’ve never seen anyone with quite the same inability to separate his head movements from the rest of his body. He reminds me of a paper puppet glued to a Paddle Pop stick). But never fear – whenever she pines for Wheel of Fortune, she can simply whip out one of the many episodes she still has on tape. I doubt that the solutions to the puzzles are all that surprising to her by now, but it’s the memories, gosh darn it.
If she ever tires of the Wheel of Fortune tapes, there’s always the Deal or No Deal tapes to fall back on
If you ask her how she is, you’d better make a cup of tea and have a seat – you’re in for a forty five minute health report, complete with gory details about seeping sores and runny eyes. And she’s always got "that damned cough again". It’s the dairy, you know. Nothing to do with the aforementioned cloud of cigarette smoke. No – it’s definitely the dairy. Come to think of it, the wad of butter that tends to accompany pretty much all five food groups would probably affect anyone’s health.
The runny eye issue eventually led to an appointment at the hospital to have a cataract removed. After a hearty lunch, she turned up at the hospital, only to be told that she wasn’t supposed to have eaten anything. "No", argued Nanny, "They crossed that bit out in the letter – see, look!" She pulled the letter out from her bag. Upon closer inspection, someone pointed out that the part of the letter she was referring to was actually highlighted. Well! Nanny had never heard of a highlighter, had she! Evidently, if it’s not a pencil (for crosswords) or a bingo marker, it doesn’t rate a mention.
Only Nanny could get lost in Westbury. With Daph and Elaine on the way back from the casino. I mean, Westbury…
My brother suggested she program Consumer Affairs into the speed dial on her phone, rather than wearing out those particular numbers from repeated use.
When asked if there are any plans for the next Christmas together, she always cheerfully replies, "Oh, I’ll be dead by then!"
She refuses to get a CD player. She doesn’t need "one of those new fangled things"
Anything that takes more than a passing thought is too much effort. She just "can’t be bothered". Yet she’ll be out of the recliner like a rocket if someone’s outside the house doing a U-turn in the cul-de-sac. Old people are so nosy.

Rock on, Nanny!

A Sermon Illustration

2008-03-16T13:16:00.001+11:00

New Year's Resolution Haiku

2008-02-10T16:32:00.000+11:00

Perhaps at age twelve
Hitchhiker's Guide's a good read
Twenty eight's too old.

Phone

2008-02-10T16:23:00.003+11:00

My mobile phone died the other day. My trusty old black-and-white-screened monophonic-ring-toned bare-bones Nokia 1100. That phone was like a phone to me. I'm going to miss it and all its wonderful features, like… um… its ability to make and receive phone calls. Actually, come to think of it, I will miss the built in torch. And my Ernie and Bert phone cover. And Snake II.

So, seeing as I'm such a social butterfly, I needed a new phone quickly. I went to get one in my lunch hour, but ended up getting stuck in line waiting for lunch first, then I ran into someone I knew and yapped to them for a while (social butterfly, remember), so by the time I got into Wills and stood around waiting for a sales assistant to rouse from their slumber and come and serve me, I had precisely ten minutes before I had to be back at work. Luckily, I knew what I wanted and how much I wanted to pay. I wanted: a phone. Just a phone. I didn't want something that would make me a coffee in the morning or keep me constantly entertained. Just a phone. And I wanted one for under a hundred bucks.

Well, you sure do get more bang for your buck these days! (wtf does that mean, anyway?) You can't even GET 'just a phone' any more. My el-crappo Nokia 1100 cost me $89 three years ago. Pfft. PFFT, I say. The phone I hurriedly chose was $99 – one of those Nokia flip phones. It has a colour screen, plays MP3s and videos, has a camera and video function, surfs the internet, has bluetooth, a calendar, a stopwatch, a radio, a sound recorder, a converter, a memory card, a world clock, and Sudoku! SUDOKU! My life is complete. Sayonara, Snake II. You've been superseded.

So now that I've got a phone with a camera in it, I can take photos wherever I go (yes... it is I, Captain Obvious). So here's something I saw in a shop the other day that amused me:

Oh yeah, I bet you just can't shut her up. Life of the party, she is.

Aged Rage

2008-02-08T23:06:00.003+11:00

My new job seems to be working out okay so far. Not that working in accounts is my dream career or anything, but it seems like a pretty cruisey place to work. Apart from the fact that it was like entering some sort of technology time warp. I mean, don't get me wrong – the good old days of CRT monitors, Office 97, dot matrix printers and DOS-based command prompt software were damn fine days indeed, but in this day and age I must admit I've gotten used to the finer things in life, like, oh I dunno, being able to email someone an invoice instead of faxing it. But the atmosphere there is a pretty good one, and that's the main thing. It seems like everyone who works there has been there for about twenty years, which is a good sign I guess. Either that or the place is like the employment equivalent of the Hotel California. Apparently on your 25th anniversary, employees are presented with a silver tray. On your 30th anniversary, you get a matching decanter. When I asked what you were supposed to do with the tray for five years while you waited for the decanter, they just laughed. Whether they were laughing at me, with me or near me, I'm still not sure.

This week, all the subscriber invoices went out with an error on them. Instead of the due amount being in the 'current – please pay in 30 days' box, the amount owing was printed in the 'overdue – please pay immediately' area. So all week I've been answering the phone to every damn Betty Jones in Launceston, demanding to know why their invoice says they are overdue when they know full well they aren't. Sigh. Needless to say, it's been a long week – one endless conversation with an irate elderly person. Elderly people aren't the only ones who subscribe, of course, but they certainly seem to be the only ones who complain. It wouldn't be so bad if they'd just tell me the problem, listen to my explanation and heartfelt apology, accept it, and hang up. But nooooo… First, they have to announce their age, the aeons they've been subscribing for, and make sure you're very clear on the fact that they have always paid on time. Then they have to tell you the whole long-winded story of how they came to discover the error on their invoice:

"Well! I woke up this morning, and after my cup of tea, I heard the mailman. And I thought to myself, 'There's the mailman. I might go and check the mail'. So, I went and checked the mail. I walked back inside with my letters, and I sat down to look at them, and I noticed there was a bill from you! So I opened it, and I had a look. And well! Imagine my shock when I saw that the bill said I was overdue! I have always paid on time, you know. I've never been overdue, and I've been subscribing for fifty years. I'm eighty six years old, you know!"

"Yes, I know Mrs Jones, I'm really very sorry. Our accounts were printed with an error on them. The amount that you owe is not overdue, it's in the wrong section. It should be in the 'current' section. You have until the end of the month to pay. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience. Please accept our apologies."

"Well! Yes! Because I'm not overdue, you know. I knew that was a mistake as soon as I saw it. I couldn't believe it! I mean, after I woke up and had my cup of tea, and heard the mailman, and went to the mail box, and came back inside, and opened the mail, and saw the bill from you, I was most unhappy! I've never been overdue. I have always paid on time, and I've been a subscriber for fifty years. I'm eighty six!"

"I'm really sorry, Mrs Jones. Hopefully the problem will be fixed by next month, so it shouldn't happen again."

"Well, I certainly hope not! I'm eighty six years old, you know! I've been subscribing for fifty years, and I've never been overdue!"

And so on. I finally get Betty off the phone, breathing a sigh of relief as I hang up the receiver. The phone rings again. This time, it's Wilfred Smith. He's ninety three years old. His mailman came before he'd had his morning cup of tea. He's got a good mind to cancel his subscription. He doesn't need this stress. He's ninety three years old. Next time I ring up to complain somewhere, I'm going to announce my age a few hundred thousand times and see if it makes a difference. Unfortunately, "I'm twenty eight! Give me a discount!" doesn't really have the same ring to it.

Work Schmerk

2008-01-18T23:06:00.001+11:00

Lately I've been bounding out of bed every Saturday morning and racing down to the corner shop to get the paper to check the positions vacant. Okay, maybe not 'bounding'… probably more like 'ambling arthritically'. And maybe not 'racing' either… perhaps more like 'sauntering slothfully'. Anyway, checking the paper for a new job has become a highlight of my week. There's no need to tell me how sad-arsed this is – I'm fully aware.

A few weeks ago I saw a job that looked okay, as a credit clerk for a local publication. After five minutes and a few copy and pastes later, I had an application letter together. One interview and a medical later, I was offered the job! So, today was my last day at my current workplace, and I start my new job on Monday. I really really really really really really really hope I like it. I've had just about enough of shit work situations. New year, new job, new start, and all that glass-half-full kind of crap.

A few staff gathered around me at work today to say farewell. One of the partners of the firm asked me where my new job was. When I told him, and that it was in the accounts department, he screwed up his nose. "Ohhh… I hope you won't be in the debt collection part, ringing people up chasing payments. That would be awful. I had a friend who worked there and did that, and she lasted a whole three weeks before she quit. Horrible job, it was." He shook his head, evidently trying to clear it of the awful thought of what a horrendous job it would have been. I stared at him, instantly deciding that it would be best not to tell him that that was exactly what I'd be doing in my new job. Then, seeing the gigantic novelty farewell card I was given, he seized it from me, declaring that he'd forgotten to write in it. With tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth in concentration, he penned, "Have fun with Eb Hextall… hope you don't get stuck in the phone debt accounts collection".

Okay, first of all, who the fuck is Eb Hextall? And secondly, not only did he feel the need to verbally cast doubts on my future at a company I haven't even started working for yet, just in case that wasn't enough, he thought he'd do me a favour and put it in writing. In my farewell card. Ha! I suppose if I cared what he thought, I might be offended. Still, I hate to admit it, but I am slightly more worried about my new job than I was before. Damn.

I guess it could be worse. I could be starting a job as an accountant.

Obligatory Reminiscence

2008-01-13T20:39:00.000+11:00

Where would any respectable blog be in a brand new year without some sort of half-arsed recap of the year just passed? Nowhere, that's where. I'm not scared to get all retrospective on yo ass. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be, you know.

When I think of how my life was exactly a year ago, I'm surprised at how much has changed. It doesn't really feel like we've done anything worth writing about, but when I think about it, I really am in a totally different place. A year ago, we were living in a flat in Ulverstone, having just bought our house in Launceston. We weren't going to church anywhere (unless you count my occasional sojourn to the Presbyterian down the road. Which I don't). I was working for AM in Devonport. In March we moved to Launceston – new house, new office. I began my career as a church hopper. I joined the Uni of Tas Symphonic Band. I auditioned for a musical. (Incidentally, I don't think I ever wrote about what actually happened there… well, if I may take the opportunity now… a couple of months went by and I didn't hear back from them, so I decided to call the director and ask him if I'd gotten a part or not. Well, he could find no record of me ever auditioning! Then he bluntly told me that it was too late now anyway, they'd started rehearsals. I was a bit disappointed – I was rather looking forward to "every single pastor in town coming along and critiquing my performance with ruthless honesty and bee-in-their-bonnet sensationalism". Oh well, maybe next time. In the meantime, this bracket is still open, and has just a few too many words within its confines to be considered grammatically correct, so I'd better rectify that now).

Where was I… oh yes… AM went belly up in June. K and I had our seven year anniversary in August, and celebrated with a trip to Melbourne. I got fired that same month (and, might I add, at the risk of creating another grammatically questionable diversion, I STILL HAVEN'T BEEN PAID MY STAFF ENTITLEMENTS! RAH!) Then, before you could even say "Job Seeker Diary", I was employed again. The excitement was short lived when I realised that most of my role there would involve finding new and interesting ways to prevent myself from nodding off at my desk. In October I applied for a job at a school that I desperately wanted. In November I got a rejection letter from them in the mail. That letter marked the beginning of a period of utter hopelessness that I'm only just emerging from. So yeah, I guess that's a fair bit of stuff really.

Also, here are some other little memorable things that I think of when I look back over the year just gone (in no particular order, and with no feeling of obligation on my part to explain any of the more ambiguous ones. So suffer in ya jocks.)

lying in the hammock with K
going for night walks and looking in people's windows to see what sort of lives they lead (mainly lots of TV watching, and a bit of ironing occasionally. Nice to know that everyone else is just as boring as I am)
watching Australian Idol (go Carl!) and Fat People ("I know you're hurtin'… feels like you're lurnin…")
listening to people's stories over a meal at the Group of Indeterminable Cause. Meeting some awesome people there
Ladies Craft Group (bwahahahahaha!)
getting braces on (again) and off (again)
joining the Seedless Grapes Club
meeting new friends at the pub
Thursday night Bona Fide Born Again Believers Bible Study Brought to you By Ben and Barney
playing in Uni of Tas Symphonic Band
dyeing my hair black
Hari's Curry, Thai takeaway and baked spuds from the van for lunch
our sewerage being blocked for several weeks and K digging it up by hand
taking a pillion passenger for the first time
cups of tea with Rachel (Planet Organic Chai Spice to be precise)
finding a new church that I might just possibly perhaps maybe feel like I could one day belong to (perchance)
Watching The Simpsons movie at the Gold Class cinema at Crown Casino
planting fruit trees and raspberries
various creatures in our yard eating the aforementioned fruit trees and raspberries – wallabies, possums, frogs, blue tongue lizards, echidnas, bumblebees, and every freaking cat in Trevallyn
playing Taboo on Christmas Day and Boxing Day
Tuesday night production meetings
reading the final Harry Potter book
painting the lounge room & hall
Ezzie's white whisker
playing music in church again
breaking into the old LGH (twice)
Launceston and Burnie Carols by Candlelight

And finally, here are my New Years Resolutions for 2008:

Read "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"
Watch a Star Wars movie

I know. I like to aim high.

Dizzy

2007-10-12T19:01:00.000+10:00

I was walking behind a couple of young mums in my lunch break the other day. The type that amble along at a snail's pace, content to take all the time in the world as well as all the available space on the footpath with their giant cow-catcher prams and their vast 'I-still-haven't-lost-all-my-baby-weight' bums wobbling back and forth, making it impossible for anyone else to pass. After hopping around in frustration for a while, I resigned myself to being stuck behind them, listening to their fascinating conversation. It went something like:
Mum 1 – "Yeah, well, y'know, after he turned around and said that to me, I turned around and told him he could stick it. What a bastard."
Mum 2 – "Yeah! I would've turned around and punched him if it was me!"
Mum 1 – "Well if he ever turns around and says anything like that again, I'm gonna turn around and take him for half!"
Mum 2 – "And so you should!"

And so on. I couldn't help being amused. There seemed to be a lot of turning around going on in the discussion she was recounting. Regular ballerinas, they were. I mean, did they actually pirouette on the spot, and then say their piece? Or were they facing away from each other, so that they had to physically rotate 180 degrees before they could converse face to face? I had images of two people standing back to back, the first one spinning around to give their side of the argument, then turning to face the other direction again to hear the reply. Seemed a waste of effort to me, when they could just remain looking at each other. Hmm.

Felt like turning around and suggesting that there might be a lot less vertigo if everyone involved could just stay facing the one direction. But then they might have turned around and punched me.

Quickie

2007-10-10T19:00:00.001+10:00

Had a mini-church experience on Sunday night. I'd been meaning to visit a certain church, simply because of its name. Usually I don't like to mention names of churches specifically, but in this case I just have to make an exception – it's called Nude Erections. Okay, sure, it's spelt a little differently than that, but homophonic principles aside, that is the name they have chosen for their particular branch of the body of Christ. Which is cool – I'm all for naming churches after lewd images, if that's what floats your boat. After all, it was the novelty factor of the name that made me want to pay them a visit, so it must be achieving something. That, and the fact that a guy I was talking to this week told me he used to attend there regularly, and that now he considers it a cult. My interest was aroused immediately (so to speak). I was going to check out Nude Erections!

Rocked up to the night service to the new whizz-bang venue they've just built. The first thing I noticed was a huge sign in the foyer, clearly visible as you walk toward the building from the car park – "ATM HERE". I grinned. Funny how little things like that can create a mindset for the sort of church you're about to attend, even before you experience it for yourself. No cash for the offering? No worries, just pop out to the foyer! Credit card facilities also available for those who wish to give money they don't even have yet! I shouldn't jump to conclusions I suppose, but I was sure it was a sign. Well, it was a sign – it was on a little stand and everything.

Following the thump-thump-thump of the worship music I could hear emanating from the building, I walked through the doors and was greeted with a sight all church visitors dread – no more than twenty people, standing around a bunch of tables and chairs with pens and paper on them. Argh! Intimate contact with strangers! Run awaaay! It's one thing to be a casual observer in the back row, but it's quite another to sit awkwardly at a table with a bunch of bona fide born again bless-ed believers who are bending over backwards to make me (the potential convert) feel comfortable, and somehow managing through every action and deed to achieve the exact opposite.

I was just about to turn and escape when a lady approached me, wearing the all too familiar Frozen Welcome Expression. Standing about five millimetres away from my face, she proceeded to joyfully explain that this service was a 'little bit different' to the norm, with a more intimate time of connection and discussion. Hmm. I mustn't have looked too impressed, since she added, "It can be a little bit daunting for newcomers, can't it?"
"Just a bit" I replied, uncomfortably.
After giving me a reassuring pat on the arm, she pentecostal-hopped her way over to another uneasy looking guy, no doubt a fellow visitor. Seizing the opportunity, I quickly turned to leave. My movement must have caught her eye, as she turned back to me, gazing wide-eyed in confusion.
"Bye!" I called cheerfully, as I walked toward the exit.
"Wait!" she exclaimed, panicked. "Are you leaving?"
"Yep. See ya!"
She grabbed my arm, frantic. "Did I say something that offended you?"
I laughed. "No, of course not! How could you have? We had like a five word conversation. It's just a bit too… intimate for my liking."
The Frozen Welcome Expression quickly returned, and after squeezing my arm what felt like twenty times, I was finally able to leave.

Quite disappointed that I didn't see any actual nude erections during my time there – again, more for the novelty value than some sort of pervy voyeuristic tendency on my part. Nor did I see any evidence of cult activity, but it was a bit soon to tell I suppose. Perhaps I had a narrow escape.

Employable

2007-10-06T23:06:00.001+10:00

Well, seeing as the myriads of people who read my blog (okay, maybe just the one) are clamouring for part two of the tale of my journey to the dole queue, I thought I'd better oblige with an update on what's been happening lately.

After the company I worked for gave me the right foot of fellowship, I was suddenly left with the task of finding a new job – and quickly. It's kind of weird actually. I'd become very attached to that company (even though things were pretty shit near the end there), and suddenly I was supposed to just get over it and move on to something else. This sounds a bit extreme, but it's kinda like, say if K died, it'd be like joining a dating agency the next day to try and find a new husband. There was no time to grieve for the chapter of my life that was closed forever – I needed to earn an income.

Luckily, all I had to do was sit on my vast acreage and wait for a job to fall in my lap. The day after my last day at AM, I got two phone calls from guys who worked at recruitment agencies who had heard my plight and wanted to put me on their books. Sounded good to me! However, I felt obliged to go to some sort of effort myself, so I went hunting on the Seek website and checked last Saturday's Examiner. To my surprise, there were heaps of admin jobs. Must be a skills shortage or something. The Seek website had one that closed the next day, as an MYOB assistant at an accounting firm in the city. I threw together an application and emailed it off. Exhausted from the effort of applying for one whole job, I decided to resume my search the next day.

Turns out there was no need. The next morning I got a phone call, inviting me to an interview with the recruitment agency for the job I'd applied for! So off I trundled. It went very well. They called me for a second interview – with my prospective employer. It went very well. That afternoon, the recruitment agency called me and informed me that they would like to offer me the position! Man, I thought, they sure don't waste time. So they sent me a letter of offer. I read through it – it was pretty standard, apart from the fact that I'd be taking a $5k per annum pay cut. Damn. Oh well, I thought, at least I'll have a job to go to. Any job is better than nothing.

Well, I've been there nearly four weeks now, and I have to say it's one of the most uninteresting jobs I've ever had. Don't get me wrong, the company seems really nice and all, and there are some great people that work there, but I just don't have anything to DO. It's driving me nuts. And when they do give me work to complete, it's like the accounting equivalent of cleaning the toilets. Like entering two years worth of transactions into an abandoned MYOB file with only bank statements to work from. It's really not something I can see myself doing long term. Plus, the work environment is much more restrictive than I'm used to. I have to timesheet every minute of my day. I have a swipe card that tracks my every movement in, out and throughout the building. The only websites I can view are work-related ones that have been whitelisted in the system. Email is tracked. Personal phone calls are forbidden. I mean, I understand that people need to keep on track and focus on work, but I'm not TWELVE, for crying out loud! I think that staff are much more likely to be loyal if they feel they are trusted by their employers. Sure, there will always be the odd one or two that take advantage of that trust, but you'll get them no matter what. I really don't want to work in an environment like that for much longer. I feel like my personality is slowly ebbing away, being drowned in a sea of conformity.

So that's where I stand at the moment. I know I should be grateful that I've even got a job at all. I dunno, I guess job satisfaction is important to me. Maybe my heart is still with the old company. Who knows. I'm keeping my eye out for somewhere I feel I could work long term. I've applied for a job in a school office, which I really hope I get. I've always wanted to work in a school office. Huge ambition I know, but at least it's achievable. My only concern is that the job I've applied for is with a school that is a client of the company that recently gave me the arse. All it would take is for someone to ask BJ about me, and my chances of getting the job are probably screwed. But I think it's worth a shot.

Bludger

2007-08-26T16:03:00.001+10:00

I began this week with a job, and ended it without one.

At least I can stop worrying about what I should do now, I guess. No more whinging to God about it, trying to decide if I should stay or move on. But I wish it had've been my decision. It wasn't. I got fired.

Well, when I say 'fired', I should probably say that I wasn't given the option to stay. I had been back from holidays for a whole day and a half before the new 'general manager', BJ, asked me to go out for a coffee. Well, at least he asked my boss G to tell me that's what we were doing. So I reluctantly trudged down to the coffee shop with a sinking feeling in my heart. I said to G on the way down, "Is he gonna fire me?"
"He can't do that" said G, "he's not your boss."

We sat down at the table. BJ started by asking me if I was happy in my job. I replied by saying I had been very happy up until a few months ago, when the company had gone into administration and three new companies had started up. I told him it was a bit hard to answer that question until I was sure about what the new structure would look like. He tried another tack. "But you're not happy working under R, are you?" I said that admittedly it had come as quite a shock when I heard that G was leaving and that R would be my boss again, but I had had some time to think and gain perspective over my time off, and I'd come to a peace about working under R. This didn't seem to be the answer that BJ was expecting. "That's not what I've heard", he said, "I've heard differently. I've heard that you have issues working under R". I replied that sure, we'd had our ups and downs over the years, but I respected R and was happy to work under him.

BJ replied, "Well let me tell you, that won't be the case. R was confused when he said that he would be your boss. He won't be your boss. I will be. I'm the new General Manager. So that's not really going to work very well, is it? We don't really see eye to eye, do we?"
"No. We don't."
"I can't really see us working well together, can you?"
"Are you firing me?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"Well, you were never re-hired, Rebecca" replied BJ. "Your employment ended when the company went into administration last month. And you haven't been offered a new employment contract, have you?"
"No. I haven't. I'm guessing I won't be offered one, then?"
"Well, it wouldn't really work, would it? You don't want to work under me, do you?"
"No, I don't. Absolutely not. But I was told R would be my boss! I have no problem working under him!"
"Well, that isn't an option. I'm the new General Manager, and you and I can't work together. So we need to look at other options."

He then went on to tell me my 'options' – I could either leave immediately, or I could stay for two, three, four weeks, however long it took me to find another job, and that they would help me to find work, as long as I would help them in return. He said I could let him know which option I'd decided on in the next couple of days.

Wow. I was speechless. After all the hard work I'd put in over the years. All the stress. All for nothing. They were asking me to leave. I felt like someone had punched me in the guts. I decided to go home for the rest of the afternoon, seeing as I was in no fit state to concentrate anyway, and think about my decision. But I already knew that there was only one option really – there was no way I wanted to stick around in a work environment like that for the next few weeks. I didn't want to be there for one more second, knowing they wanted me gone. So the next morning I went and cleaned out my desk, gathered my stuff together, and said goodbye.

Being the third person to leave the company this month (with more departures looking likely very soon) speaks volumes, in my opinion. It hurts that I had to go out this way though. I would have preferred to leave on my own terms like the others, not in semi-disgrace. At least, that's what it felt like. I feel sorry for whoever replaces me. There was two weeks worth of backlog sitting in my in-tray, waiting for me to come back from my holidays. Anyone with half a brain would have sacked me after I'd at least gotten through the pile. Which reminds me – one point of interest is that the old company went into administration on July 13^th, and I got fired on 21^st August, over a month later – enough time to set up the MYOB files and stuff for the new companies. Coincidence? Hmm. The most hurtful thing of all though, is that my supposed boss, R, didn't even say goodbye. Didn't ring me, didn't talk to me. Didn't say thanks. I worked my butt off for his company for two years. Apparently, that's not even worth a phone call.

So… anyone got any jobs? Will drop pants for food.

Daffodil

2007-08-10T13:44:00.001+10:00

I'm on holidays at the moment. This week I have done NOTHING. It's been fantastic – exactly what I needed. I was planning on doing some gardening and house type stuff, but the weather has been so totally shit I'm reluctant to go even as far as the carport to hop in the car and go anywhere. Let alone take Gus out for a ride. So instead I've been playing my Game Boy and reading the final Harry Potter book. If anyone spoils the ending for me before I'm finished, I swear I'll whop them over the head with it. It's quite a big book too, so nobody had better try anything.

Being on holiday has given me a little bit of perspective as far as work goes. Most other things in my life have been going great, but work has really been the pits these past couple of months, and I can't see it getting any better either. That's the worst thing – if I could see a light at the end of the tunnel, it would make it a lot easier to go through some of the things that are happening. But I can't see a light. Just an endless freaking tunnel.

So what should I do? Get another job? Stick it out? God seems characteristically silent on the matter. The only thing he has told me is to not hold my job in such a high regard. So what is that supposed to mean? Am I gonna get fired? Quit? I just don't want to make the wrong decision. I'm a loyal person really, so I'm reluctant to leave. But I can't go on the way I have been. Yesterday my boss asked me to fill out some form that needed to be done that day. I'd finally begun to relax and forget about work, but even him asking me to do such a tiny thing sent me into the spiral of work related panic that has become so familiar lately. I just can't go on like that any more. I feel like I'm going crazy. I wish I knew what to do about it. It's affecting other areas of my life, and I'm sick and tired of it.

I just looked out the window at the windy, rainy day, and felt depressed. So much for gardening. It's interesting to see what's popping up in the garden now that spring is near. Lots of bulbs are starting to poke through the dirt and show signs of sprouting flowers. I'm interested to see what sort they'll turn out to be. One of them tentatively started to open a couple of days ago, revealing himself as a bright yellow daffodil. But then the wind and the rain came, and when I looked out there this morning, the daffodil was lying on the ground, all blown and battered by the wind. It made my heart sad. It's just typical really – he finally got the courage to open up, thinking the weather would be kind to him. Instead, it turned on him, and now he's all crushed and broken.

I'm gonna go pick him and put him in a vase. At least then he'll brighten up my house. He'll have a purpose for existing.

Tobogganing

2007-07-22T22:16:00.000+10:00

Went to Ben Lomond on Thursday with K, M and J. It was SO much fun! We went there to go tobogganing – I'm not quite game enough for skiing. It was M's idea, and she insisted that we all take a day off work to go. That particular part certainly didn't disappoint me – work is awful at the moment, so I was glad to get away. We borrowed M's mum's Land Rover and hired chains to put on the tyres. K and I bought some waterproof gear and thermals, then we were set. Yay! I was excited. I don't usually let myself get excited before an event, just so I can avoid disappointment in case it doesn't happen for some reason, but I was excited this time.

We arrived at the top of the mountain at about midday. I'd heard horror stories about Jacob's Ladder, but it wasn't that bad. I mean, it's a freaky road, but it's pretty wide, and there are railings on the corners, plus J is a very safe driver, so it was okay. We put on all our gear and waddled up to the shop to hire the toboggans. All the toboggans had names, and were in bright fluoro colours. I ended up with a bright pink toboggan named Brad. The lady behind the counter suggested that maybe Brad was a bit confused. I laughed. I'd never considered that a toboggan could be confused about its/his/her sexuality. Maybe having a girl riding him all day might clear things up for him.

Tobogganing was GREAT! We started on the weiner's slope, but soon gained confidence and moved to a better slope further down. There was tons of snow – I'd never seen so much snow in my whole life. Tobogganing wasn't that hard, but you were pretty much at the mercy of the slope – none of us managed to figure out how to steer the damn things, so we just held on and hoped for the best. I seemed to go a bit further than the others, maybe because I was the smallest. K definitely crashed his toboggan the most. He kept trying to go over jumps, and just end up axing himself. At one stage, we went around the corner and decided to try a very steep slope. It was fantastic the first few times, but the last time was interesting. A pile of snow had been building up about halfway down, probably from our footprints. The last time I went down, I hit the pile, went sailing through the air, and landed on my back with a thud. Cartoon birds flew around my head. Brad was nowhere to be seen – when the going got tough, he'd buggered off. I eventually spied him, cowering behind a bush. Pfft. What a wimp.

We went to the pub/café thing for lunch, after going to the drying room and toilets. That was an ordeal in itself – removing fifty layers and putting them back on again isn't easy. While I was zipping myself all watertight again, a sticker on the toilet cistern caught my eye. It said something like, "Please do not flush oil, fat, milk, paint, chemicals or harmful substances down this toilet. Launceston's water supply starts here!" Well! Launceston's water supply starts at the toilets at Ben Lomond? I felt both proud and disgusted that I'd just made a contribution to Launceston's water supply. It occurred to me that I could even be drinking my contribution by the time I got home.

After lunch and a few more runs down the hill, we decided to build a snowman. Well at least I decided to build a snowman – J and I put in all the hard yards, and we'd just got him to a decent size and I was about to go find him some stick arms, when suddenly everyone else wanted to put their two cents worth in. Looking back, the whole process was pretty funny, and seemed to reflect our different personalities perfectly – K was furrowing his brow in concentration as he painstakingly sculpted an arm out of snow. I was whining about how I didn't want snow arms for him, I wanted stick arms, and it was MY snowman, and now he'd come and taken over, and I didn't want snow arms, I wanted stick arms, and why wasn't he listening to me? J was hopping around with a grin on his face, trying to find an opportunity to knock the whole thing over when nobody was watching. M was sitting a little bit away from the rest of us, humming to herself, sculpting a smaller 'lady friend' for our big snowman, complete with intricate facial features and boobs. Then she set to work on the big snowman, and made his head look like a penis. So the snowman ended up with one snow arm, a penis for a head, and two sticks that would have been arms lying at his base. Oh well – it'll look intriguing to anyone else who gives it more than a passing glance I guess.

It started snowing pretty heavily after that, and got really windy, and we were all knackered, so we called it a day. I had the best time though. I felt so free, sliding down the hill on Brad. K and I were pretty sore the next day though. It was worth it! For one whole day, all my worries were gone.

Poos

2007-07-08T15:35:00.000+10:00

Have been very unwell this last week. I'm not entirely sure of the difference between a cold and the flu, but if this was a cold, it was a killer mutant crazy one. I haven't felt so horrible in a long, long time. Normally I can drug myself up and just get on with things, but this had me flat on my back for nearly a week. It couldn't have come at a worse time, work-wise. I had so much to do this week, heaps of end of financial year and payroll stuff, and my boss was away all week so I was hoping to get it all done and dusted before he came back. No such luck – it's all still sitting there waiting for me, along with next week's work of course. Cry. Oh well. At least I got to watch Judge Judy. Judge Judy rocks.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I love Pods. Those little wafer shell chocolate things – you can get Mars, Snickers, Dove, and maybe one other sort, I can't remember. My favourites are the Snickers ones. Not sure why, because I hate Snickers bars. Anyway, I was eating some Pods when I went to visit M & J the other day. I met Ted at the door, and offered him one. He looked at the bag I was holding out, and raised his eyebrow. "What are Poos?" he asked. I grinned. "They're not Poos! They're Pods!" He took the bag and turned it around so I could see the front. I laughed and laughed – I'd managed to open the bag so that the top of the 'D' had been cut off, so it really did look like I was eating a bag of Poos. Hahaha! Poos.

Needless to say, he still ate a handful. Can't have been too put off by the thought of eating excrement in a crispy wafer shell.

Disco Fingers

2007-06-08T21:29:00.000+10:00

COULD IT BE ANY MORE FREAKIN COLD IN LAUNCESTON? Why didn't I just go the whole hog and move to Antarctica? Riding a motorbike to work in the morning is the pits in weather like this. I must look a sight to anyone waiting at the lights in the morning… hunched over the handlebars like a giant black foetus, the only sign of life being a puff of frosty air being emitted from beneath my visor every couple of seconds. I even walk to the post office to get the mail with my bike jacket and snowman pants still on. I get a few funny looks from the usual pantyhose-clad, high-heel-wearing, makeup-smeared office girls that usually show up there at that time of morning. They might look more 'shaggable-secretary' than me, but at least I'm warm.

I have heat grips on Gus, which helps a bit. Since it's been cold, I've noticed a strange riding habit of mine – on each hand I have three fingers and thumb firmly wrapped around the grips, but my index fingers stick out in front, pointing the way, like I'm some sort of deranged disco rider. I'd never noticed these stray digits before – now that it's freezing, all the rest of my fingers are nicely warmed by the heat grips, except for those two, protruding as though I'm some sort of human forklift. "Which way is that scooter going?" I can sense pedestrians thinking as I ride past. "That way! Straight ahead for me!" my fingers reply, removing all doubt from their minds. This inadvertent riding style of mine also has the potential to cause conflict whilst waiting at traffic lights. I can picture it – I'm at the front of the queue, waiting to take off. Across the intersection, the guy in the car facing me sees my wayward fingers. He looks confused at first, then agitated. "Me?" he mouths from behind the wheel. "Yes. YOU" reply my fingers menacingly. Before I know it, we're having fisticuffs in the middle of the intersection in Launceston peak hour traffic. The potential for this sort of misunderstanding is very real indeed. I'm just not sure what I can do about it.

Hmm. I'm sitting here, at nine o'clock on a Friday night, eating grated cheese and writing about my fingers. What a pathetic life I lead… bwahahaha.

Movies

2007-06-04T20:22:00.000+10:00

Spent a fair bit of time watching DVDs this past weekend. I really don't enjoy movies that much, so it was a bit of a rare thing for me. It was day one of my period… felt like someone was repeatedly punching me in the uterus and kicking me in the vagina all at once. Amidst all that phantom pummelling of the reproductive organs, I thought a weekend on the couch was well deserved. Thought y'all might like a menstrual update there.

Went and hired Kenny, the one about the guy who manages a portaloo company. It was so good! I've heard some poo colloquialisms in my time, but "mud banana" is a new one on me. I laughed and laughed. What a great guy. I just wanted to take him out for a coffee and tell him what a fantastic job he was doing. He was treated like crap (and covered in it) over and over, but never lost his positive outlook. What a legend. I'd recommend this movie to anyone.

I got a free weekly movie with Kenny. Of course, I didn't know about the free weekly thing until I'd picked out my overnight movie, stood in line at the counter, and slowly inched my way to the front of the queue. I plonked the DVD on the counter, beaming with pride over the speed of my decision, thinking the transaction would soon be over and I could be on my way home. The video man beamed back. "We have an offer on at the moment, one free weekly with every overnight hired!" "Great!" I said, inwardly ambivalent – torn between marvelling at the generous offer, and frustrated at having to choose another movie when I thought I was finished with all that choosing business. I was soon to realise that it was all an evil ploy to get people to hire lame movies that you wouldn't normally watch. Went to select my weekly, as the video man watched me browse. Felt rather hurried. I like to either take my time choosing a movie, or know exactly what I want to hire, and get in and out as quickly as possible. I was after the quick option that day. Yet there I was, having to choose another film – with the added pressure of the video man waiting for me to make my selection, so he could go back to whatever it is video men do when they aren't serving customers. I hastily grabbed the first half decent looking movie on the shelf, and made my way back to the counter, hoping that spontaneity would pay off in this instance.

It didn't. The movie I selected was The Stepford Wives. Worst. Movie. EVER. Take my advice – don't even waste your time looking at the cover, let alone picking it up and reading the back of it, let alone (heaven forbid) actually hiring it. I cannot overemphasise how incredibly lame this movie is. Don't EVER watch it. It would be an hour and a half of your life completely wasted. Gone forever. You'll never get it back. In fact, don't even read this paragraph about me telling you how lame it is. Even reading about how crap it is would be a waste of your life. Writing about how crap it is is like wasting that hour and a half all over again. So I'll stop now before any more precious minutes go swirling down the drain of time, never to return.

Yumour, I'm Using Yumour

2007-06-03T02:49:00.003+10:00

Received some negative feedback about this blog via email recently. Seeing as it's about my blog, and this is my blog, I thought I'd post it here. This is pretty much it, slightly edited to remove any identifying information:

"Hey old digger

I must admit Bec (I'll be honest, because you like honesty) the majority of your blog is very sad and ugly, (apart from your hilarious 99 points).

I hope you get the part as well for the play you auditioned for, because if you do, I'm going to invite every single pastor in town to come along and critique your performance with ruthless honesty and bee-in-their-bonnet sensationalism. :-)

You do realise you can actually stay at home on Sundays; instead of pulling apart the very thing people selflessly and servant-heartedly give their lives to, even if it is a touch mundane, robotic and cliché. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for dramatic change in the life of churches, but I'm passionate about finding answers, not sitting there like a fricken goose and pointing the finger. Crap like this (I'm being honest) doesn't help anyone. Find some answers, make a difference, and your blog will be worth reading.

There is me being brutally honest, and I await your brutally honest response.

PS: I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with you guys; loved the house."

Well. Gutted was not the word. This email affected me more than I care to reveal – mainly because it was a friend that wrote it. I can handle this sort of criticism from someone I barely know, because they don't know me, where I'm coming from, or the heart and humour behind what I write. But this person does, which is why it came as such a shock. This was my eventual reply:

"Hi

I enjoyed hanging out with you too. It was great to catch up, and I especially enjoyed the discussions we had on church, some of the issues, and how things could be done better. I felt that we shared similar views on a lot of things, and I had no doubt that you heard my heart with regard to it all. That is why when I read your response to my blog, I was utterly astounded. Totally blown away. I shared the link with you because I felt certain that you would know where I was coming from. Your knee-jerk reaction to what I have written indicates that you have taken everything I have written about the church as some sort of personal attack, directed at you and everything you stand for. Perhaps if you read my blog from oldest entry to newest, keeping in mind what you already know about me and where I'm at, then you wouldn't have been quite so scathing in your correspondence.

I can't believe I even have to explain to you that it is FAR from my intention to personally attack ANYONE. The things I have written about my church experiences of late are simply satire, and were in NO way written with the intention of 'bagging out' or having a go at any of the people I have alluded to. I assumed that anyone who knew me well would know that I have total respect for the genuine attitudes of those who lead or are otherwise involved in churches. My entries are not personal attacks, nor do I believe that I am "pointing the finger". Rather, I seek to emphasise how ridiculous 'corporate Christianity' can seem to outsiders to the church. Having a few years away from church involvement has given me a perspective on the goings-on that I didn't have while I was a part of it all. I appreciate that someone like yourself, who is heavily involved, wouldn't really notice a lot of the things that someone who was 'unchurched' might - being in the midst of it all makes it hard to see these things. But I wouldn't have shared my writing with you if I didn't think you would at least see the humour in what I had written. Have you really lost the ability to laugh at yourself and your surroundings? I wouldn't have thought so by some of the comments you yourself made after the service we attended. Now I'm not so sure.

As I am attempting to explain, my observations were NEVER intended to be construed as personal attacks against anyone who is in there having a go. Take the 'Happy Clappers' blog as a case in point. I have no doubt that the lady on the welcoming committee who greeted us at the door was a lovely, genuine person, who really desired to serve God by being involved in that way. But the often over-enthusiastic approach of church welcomers can be rather annoying, especially to newcomers - I used this one experience to identify with this perception. The lady that night simply represented welcoming committees all over the world. Since I don't know her from a bar of soap, I thought this would have been obvious. Likewise, the guy that got up and spoke about growth said nothing that endorsed nicking people from other congregations, and I never meant to imply that that's what he meant. I simply used his illustration to highlight what I believe is a commonly held misconception - that numbers of attendees equals a healthy church. You and I both know this is not the case. My intention was not to highlight any personality faults in these two people, but rather to make light of common perceptions in general. I thought you would realise that.

As for "the majority of my blog [being] very sad and ugly", I am assuming that before you would make such a statement, you would have thought it only fair to read the whole thing, and are therefore commenting on my blog as a whole. Since only twenty five percent of my blog is about church experiences, then I can assume that you find my entries about Valentine's Day, swimming, work, moving, Gavin, finding a frog and my many introspective musings "sad and ugly". This hurts me more than you would believe. I have tried for the first time in my life to 'bare all' with regards to my thoughts and feelings on things, writing about where I am at right now, even thought it might not be where I want to end up. And you, a friend I've had for over half my life, who I thought would understand me as much as anyone could, thinks that the contents of my heart are sad and ugly. Maybe you're right - maybe I am sad and ugly inside. All I am trying to do is represent myself as sincerely as possible, right here in this very stage of my life. I hope that life gets better, and I hope my perspective on things improves. It is not my intention to stay stagnant, or to go backwards. But I'm NOT about to pretend that I'm not in the place I am, and I would think it fake to wait until I'm in a good place before I let people see what's inside of me. MANY people feel down, negative, cynical, all those so-called 'bad' emotions. It is my hope that those people can relate to some of what I am saying, and perhaps follow my journey as things improve for me. It is likely that you will encounter many "sad and ugly" people on your journey in life. I just hope that you show those people more empathy than you have shown me in your email.

Though you may not see it, I am on a journey of "finding answers" and "making a difference". I thought I made that clear in our conversations the other day. I'm not sure where I'm supposed to start looking for these answers, or how someone like me could make a difference. But I hoped my blog would be a record of that journey, if nothing else. I'm not interested in leaving out the bad bits. I'm not trying to say that my blog is God-inspired. Nor do I think he is opposed to what I say. The premise is pretty simple really - just someone trying to share where they're at in an honest way. Perhaps you're right - maybe church isn't for me. Maybe I should stay home on Sundays and forget the whole thing. I was hoping to find somewhere that accepted me 'warts and all', but to be honest, I'm starting to wonder if any such place exists. I refuse to pretend to have it all together just for the sake of being positive. In my experience, this only alienates those who might not be at a great place in their lives. I'd prefer to get alongside them.

I have waited a few days before replying in order to try to be as objective as possible in my reply, rather than blurt out the first thing that came into my head after reading your email. Replying out of anger or hurt feelings doesn't help anyone. That's not to say that I'm not still hurt or angry, because it's probably fairly obvious that I am. Criticism is always hard to take, but I can honestly say that I gave your email a lot of consideration before I decided what to write in response. Also, if you have decided to show other people my blog, and they feel the same way you do, then I would ask you to please show them this response so that I can at least have the chance to explain where I'm coming from. If you are willing, I would also like to use your email and my response in a blog entry (with any identifying information removed of course), just in case anyone else reads it who might misinterpret the things I have written. The last thing I want to do is hurt anyone.

Feel free to respond to this, but to be honest, if your response is going to be more of the same, I'd rather not hear it. I'm sure you'd agree that the last thing I need is to absorb more negativity into my life, especially after what has been one of the most trying couple of weeks I have had in quite some time.

Rebecca"

Received a response the next day, apologising for the hurtful comments, and explaining a bit about where my friend was coming from – frustrated with church in a lot of ways, but trying desperately to find a solution to the things that are seen as problems. I can understand this. My comments on church goings-on are honestly not meant as attacks – just observations from an old cynic who is tired of the role-play and would really love to genuinely connect with God without all the bells and whistles that seem to accompany it these days. I'm sick to death of hoo-hah. For a long time, it prevented me from attending church at all. But I'm a people person, and I really miss that about being a part of a church – connecting with people afterwards makes a boring service worth attending. So these little blogs of mine are written to help me get through it without going insane. I write them for ME. I'm rapt that others consider them worth reading. But if nobody else read what I wrote, I'd write it anyway.

I guess I wanted to post this discourse for the benefit of anyone else who might read my blog and consider it "sad and ugly". If that's what you think, and you don't know me in person, then I don't give a shit what you think. But if you do know me in person and you think that, then I just want you to know that I'm sorry if anything I've written has hurt you in any way. I'm not sorry for writing it though. And I'm not about to stop either. I like to write. I like to be honest about how I feel, seeing as it will all be hollered from some dude's rooftop one day anyway. But I am sorry if you have taken it personally. It was not intended that way. I'm just a person on a journey, like everyone else. A person who feels sad and ugly and depressed and worthless sometimes.

But I try to look for things that make me happy. Like that frog in the yard. He made me happy. I might go outside and look for him again. I need more frog-finding moments in my life.

The Real Deal

2007-05-27T18:27:00.001+10:00

Went to a church service like none I've ever been to this morning. The service was held in the foyer section, much to mine and K's surprise – we were hoping to slink in to a back pew somewhere, unnoticed. Instead, we walked straight into a room full of people. Hung around near the entrance for a while, before we realised that was a dumb spot to stand for a couple of new people trying to blend in – we accidentally became the welcoming team for a few minutes there. Quickly went to find a seat at one of the tables in case someone tried to pin a 'Hi, I'm Rebecca!' badge on my front, and sign me up to chair the welcoming team's committee meetings on the penultimate Tuesday of every month.

While we were waiting for the service to start, I flicked through a church bulletin I'd found on the table in front of me. Most of it was the usual yada yada – what's on this week, tithe targets, praise and prayer points, and the ubiquitous hall of fame on the back cover. But there was one article that particularly caught my eye. I hope the author doesn't mind if I copy the article here. This is what it said:

"Is This A Sign Of A Dying Church???

I write this editorial with a heavy heart, burdened with a sense that all is not well in [this church]. Take a look around and count how many of you are here in church today? Where have all the others gone? Why are they not here?

I cannot try to offer reasons for their absences except that I can only hope that they have not chosen to miss church for some trivial excuses. This does not detract from the fact that our pews are getting emptier each week, and if this is not a worrying sight, then be prepared to see a sign on the door of church one Sunday saying: "No Church Today Due to Insufficient Numbers, Please Go & Do Church Somewhere Else!" Are we prepared for this to happen? There are already signs of this happening on long weekend Sundays, when everyone supposedly goes away?

I will confess that I have been rather disillusioned by what has been talked about in church over the past few weeks. I was not impressed by a visiting speaker telling me that church is no longer sacred, and we should be thinking "Outreach, Outreach, Outreach!" While I acknowledge that as Christians, we should not be an exclusive group and shun the non-believers, I take offence to the suggestion that it is better to outreach than to attend church on Sunday. If that is the case, I shall be looking for a nice shady tree in a park next Sunday, bringing a large picnic rug and lunch, and inviting some stranger in the park to come share my rug, my lunch & do "outreach". "Nothing wrong with that", I hear some of you remark, but the bottom-line here is not all of us are cut out to do outreach, or want to do outreach. Some of us prefer to come to church to worship the Lord, be inspired, motivated, and encouraged by a Biblical message and cherish our time of being able to be in the Lord's temple. After all, is not the church the "Body of Christ"?

What are you getting out of church these days? Have you made your thoughts or expectations known to the Elders, your Home Group, your spouse, your fellow brother or sister in church? Or will you just slip quietly away to another church to find more meaningful worship & hope things will improve at [this church]? Are you losing your church before your very eyes? Can you afford not to say or do anything and let [this church] meet her inevitable demise? I sensed that these are troubled times at [this church]…

(Disclaimer: Views expressed in this editorial are not necessarily a representation of the views of other members in [this church]. This editorial is meant to generate discussion, reflection, and quiet meditation before the Lord.) – EDITOR"

Felt a bit like a rabbit that had accidentally hopped onto a shooting range. Didn't have much time to contemplate the article before a guy with a microphone started ahem-ing and shuffling papers up the front. Didn't hear much of what he said for the first few minutes, because all I could think about was his ENORMOUS BEARD. I've never seen a beard that big. Soon snapped out of my beard fixation when I realised that he was introducing what was to be a very serious time of discussion.

Pastor Beard went on to outline some feedback he'd been getting from people in the church lately, and told us he was about to set a few things straight. He drew a diagram on the white board that looked like this:

He explained that he believed that most Christians had a tendency to separate the different components of their lives into sections – work, church, God, family, marriage, social life, etc. It wasn't often that the components intersected. Church and God in particular are not often seen as having anything in common with the world, but rather as a refuge from it. Then he drew a different diagram, one that looked like this:

The dark grey area, he explained, was the goal – that was the ideal place to be. He urged the congregation to view their lives holistically, and not in separate, irreconcilable sections. He wasn't saying to embrace the world, but rather accept that we are all a part of it, and to see all aspects of our lives as a part of our walk with God, and not just the churchy stuff. He said that in Australia, one thousand churches a year close down. If the church didn't change their mindset sooner rather than later, then there wouldn't be a church left at all. Pastor Beard then opened the subject up for discussion. All sorts of opinions were aired. A lot of people wholeheartedly agreed with him. Others leaned more towards the aforementioned newsletter article, seemingly more worried about what they were or weren't "getting out of church". People got fired up. Discussions were had. After about an hour, everyone prayed in groups and then had some lunch together.

This was all very interesting as an outsider. The thing that struck me the most about the whole thing was that this church (or the pastor at least) wasn't afraid to admit, even in the presence of visitors, that things weren't as great as they could be. Nobody was pretending that things were perfect. Nobody seemed afraid to be themselves, or to say what they thought. Some might have seen it as division in the ranks – I saw it as a place where it was okay to be where you were at. It made me want to be a part of it. Mainly because the thing that puts me off church the most are the people/congregations that pretend they have it all together. I don't want to be a part of a church that has it all together! I'd only come along and wreck it. The sort of service that I attended today was, in my opinion, the real thing. People being vulnerable. Leadership being vulnerable. Not pretending to know all the answers, but willing to be open to whatever those answers might be. Sign me up, I say. Am I climbing aboard a sinking ship? I'm not sure. I guess time will tell.

Eurobeat

2007-05-22T22:39:00.000+10:00

I just did something a little bit gay. I auditioned for a musical called Eurobeat, based on the Eurovision song contest. I saw it in the paper on Saturday and thought, "what the hell?" Might be fun. Something to amuse myself, and maybe meet some people around this one horse town. So I hopped on Gus in the freezing cold and headed to Newstead College where the auditions were being held.

It was the kind of audition where you just bowl up, fill in a form about great works you've done in the past, and wait until your group of people is called. I filled in the form, and sat on the floor, trying to blend in with the wall. There were probably about thirty people in the waiting area, the vast majority of which were teenage girls. So there was nothing to look at besides acres of ass cleavage and bad mullets. Oh, and the occasional archetypical gay guy minced past, laughing gaily over his shoulder at some dry witticism spouted by the archetypical gay guy's best friend – the Outgoing Overweight Female. Everyone seemed to know someone else, except me. Waiting was pretty boring. But it amused me to find that even though it's been years since I've been involved in musical theatre, the kinds of people they draw obviously haven't changed a bit.

I went in with the third group of people, and the first thing we did was learned a simple dance routine. I felt like an elephant. But I had fun all the same. Then they made us sing one by one. I sang my favourite song to sing at the moment, At Last – the Eva version. I sounded like an elephant. But I had fun all the same. I don't think I was outrageous enough, though. Everyone else I auditioned with was trying to outdo each other in outrageousness. One lady even slunk on the floor like a snake as she sang her prepared song. I think she was trying to look sultry. I guess if there was a male snake in the room, it might have felt turned on.

There's something both demoralising and empowering about doing all these things by myself. I really want to meet people, so I'm trying to not be scared and just get out there and do stuff, even when nobody I know wants to come with me. But nobody ever wants to talk to the person who's sitting alone. It's heaps easier to meet people when you're already with people that you know. So you can't win – it's like having to ring up to get the phone connected. But at the same time, I wasn't as nervous tonight as I thought I'd be – I guess I just figured that nobody knew me, so I had nothing to lose.

I probably won't get a part. But maybe I will! The director mentioned that there might be some nudity involved for some of the parts. If I land a part, I hope I get to flash my boobs.

Happy Clappers

2007-05-21T23:22:00.001+10:00

Wasn't going to go to church on Sunday, but ended up there anyway. Not that I got dragged kicking and screaming mind you, but I sort of tagged along with someone else before I really realised what I was doing. It was one of those churches that everyone knows because of the guy who runs it, but it's still got some token ambiguous Christian-sounding name (usually with the word 'life' in it somewhere). You say to someone, "I went to Launceston Life Church on the weekend". Blank stare. "Um, you know, Joey Jo Jo Shabadoo's church". Instantly, their eyes brighten with recognition. And of course, they'll have a highly thought out opinion already prepared about Joey Jo Jo Shabadoo's church, even if they've never been there themselves.

Walked in slightly late, to a packed auditorium. Was greeted at the door by a middle aged woman, who crinkled her eyes right on cue, and put on her best 'full 'o joy' expression. Then, quick as a flash, my tonsils nearly got a paper cut courtesy of a church bulletin being rammed down my throat. Welcome to church! Had I been before? No? Well, I'd better have a contact card then! More paper ammunition headed straight for my face. I ducked just in time and went to find a seat. Like, contact cards are like, so 2006.
All the seats were taken, dammit. Suggested joining the throng of people on stage. We probably would have blended into the crowd up there quite nicely. A bit too much jumping/boob bouncing for my liking though. Chose some seats in the back row instead. Ended up sitting behind a young kid who looked like a frog, who stared at me through the whole service.
My highlight was the power going off during a Powerpoint presentation. Felt like standing up and prophesying that it was God's way of showing people not to have boring slide shows in their church services. But then I remembered I wasn't wearing a hat, so I thought I'd better not.
Went to find the toilet (snuck out while every head was bowed and every eye closed, with everyone locked in the shampoo position). Accidentally walked into the kid's church room instead. They were playing some lame follow the leader game. Exited the room just in time to hear one kid whine, "what's the point of this stupid game?" Felt like taking the kid aside and telling her to get used to it – that she'd probably be lamenting those very words for the rest of her churchgoing life.
I'm struggling to think of an object, person or concept that didn't receive a round of applause at some time during the service. Give the Lord a round of applause. Give the band a round of applause. Give the kids going to kid's church a round of applause. Give that last round of applause a round of applause. Sat on my hands obstinately, in case they developed a life of their own.
At one point, someone spiritual instructed us to lift our hands towards the front to pray for something or other. Grabbed K's arms and lifted them right up for him, making them do a muppet dance. Ha ha.
Learned that growing is about numbers. And not even numbers of new converts – just numbers of people attending. Well, that doesn't sound so hard! Why not just go and flog a whole heap of existing Christians from other churches? That would be the easy way to do it. Besides, those Christians probably weren't being used or fulfilled in their church anyway. Surely it's the best thing for everyone.
There was cake at the end! Triple brownie points for food. It was nice cake too. Got talking to some people we know, and ended up being some of the last to leave – not sure how that happened, but I don't want it to happen again. Don't wanna look too keen… keep em guessing, I say.

Not big on the concert style service, myself. It was kind of like, "sorry God, can we chat later? I don't want to miss anything". But the pastor is a genuine guy, so I really hope it all goes well for him. It's just not my thing/cup of tea/scene. 2 Joy Gems. **

Like Minded People

2007-05-11T22:57:00.001+10:00

Today at work we decided it was Casual Clothes for No Cause Day. We'd all had a pretty tiring week, so we thought an informal day was in order. What a difference it made! I was happy all day. I was comfortable, and I felt like myself. Lunch time rolled around, and I suggested we grab some pizzas to share, instead of our usual trek down to Mike's Country Kitchen (who, incidentally, make roast lamb rolls that are almost as good as the ones at the Fairway Coffee Lounge in Devonport). We got three Pizza Hut pizzas, and they were really nice. Everyone told me what a great idea it was to get pizza. I felt useful. Yay for today!

I got a text message in the afternoon from the girl I met at The Church That My Boss Goes To, asking if I wanted to come and hang out at the pub with a bunch of "like minded people". The same girl had invited me to a prayer meeting a couple of weeks ago. I really wanted to go to the prayer meeting, not to pray, but to hang out with "like minded people" (even though the term "like minded people" is totally wanky). But I didn't end up going. I don't think I'm ready for prayer meetings yet. There are too many things that happen in them that annoy me. Like people who go "mmm. Mmm" in agreement every five seconds. I want to smash 'em. And people who rock back and forth. What's the deal with that? And the other people, apart from me, who pray with their eyes open. You constantly find yourself catching their eye, and then it's all awkward, coz you were supposed to be talking to God, and instead you're looking at some random dude across the room. It's very off-putting. And people who say "Lord" a million times, as though God doesn't realise they're praying to him… or perhaps to remind themselves that that's who they're praying to. And people who tell you the facts of a situation WHILE THEY'RE PRAYING… as though God doesn't know what's going on! "Lord, we come before you Lord, just to ask, Lord, that you will look after Bob, Lord. Lord, Bob is going through a rough time at the moment, Lord, what with his wife going into hospital last night after breaking her leg, Lord. ("mmm. Mmm.") Lord, we ask that you would be with the children, Lord, as they are being looked after by the next door neighbours, Lord, who are going through issues of their own, Lord…" blah blah blah. And someone's always got to clap the end of the meeting. It's not over until someone claps. Eyes open – everyone looks at each other blearily, stretching – "Amen!" CLAP. Aaargh!

No, I'm definitely not ready for prayer meetings.

Anyway, we went to the pub. It was really cool – we met some great people. Like minded people even. I chatted to the girl I'd met, and another girl that I recognised from Ulverstone. And I gave a guy my phone number (ooh err) and he's going to call me to see if I want to be a part of a Bible-talking-about group thingie. Better blow the dust off it if I'm gonna be a part of something like that!

Gotta go now. There's a show on SBS called "Turn Me On: The History of the Vibrator". Time for watching a bit of SBS soft porn with K.

99 Things About Me

2007-05-09T23:10:00.001+10:00

I don't like those forward things that you see in your inbox at least once a week. So I made up my own. If you don't like it, I don't care.

My name is Rebecca Claire.
Apparently, I came very close to being called Jessica. Ugh.
I play the alto saxophone.
I play the drums too, but I'm not very good.
My first job was at McDonalds when I was 15.
I worked in a service station for 8 years.
I have also worked as a cook in an Italian restaurant, as a singing tutor, and making handmade paper products.
I am scared of wasps.
I never loved anyone until I met K.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an author.
I suffer from anxiety.
I have been married for nearly seven years.
K and I never dated. We went from friends to engaged.
I have a black cat called Ezzie.
I have never been drunk.
I hate being cold. I feel the cold easily.
I think jewellery is a waste of money.
I believe the world is less than ten thousand years old.
I love to sing. I wish I did it more often.
I have a birthmark shaped like Australia on my neck. It has Tasmania and everything!
I am an exhibitionist. Wanna see my boobs?
I never, EVER want to have children.
I cry a lot.
I went to Uni but didn't complete a degree. I want to go back to Uni one day.
I have a sister and a brother. I am the eldest child.
I prefer slippers to shoes.
I lost my virginity when I was 15.
I hate Mother's Day. I'm not a fan of Christmas either.
I love my job. It stresses me out, but I still love it.
I like to draw, but I haven't done it in ages. People kept asking me to draw things, and it eventually killed my desire to do it.
I loved school. I got great marks.
I'm supposed to wear contact lenses, but I don't.
I love anything peppermint.
Birds make me happy. Especially galahs and cockatoos. I hate to see birds in cages.
I'm not very polite. I rub people up the wrong way. I alternate between being devastated by this, and not giving a shit.
I think films are boring.
I ride a scooter called Gus.
Music I like includes Lauryn Hill, Billy Joel, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Eva Cassidy, Pete Murray, Darren Hanlon, Dave Brubeck, Jack Johnson and Roxette.
I think it's boring when people tell me what music they like.
It's even more boring when they tell me about dreams they've had.
I'm a glass half empty kind of person. So sue me.
Colourful things make me happy.
I talk in my sleep.
K has never bought me flowers. Flowers are a waste of money, and belong in the garden. Whose dumb idea was it to pick them and bring them inside anyway?
I'm not interested in travelling whatsoever.
My parents divorced when I was 12.
I left home when I was 15.
I have compassion for animals, but very little compassion for humans.
I seem to get on better with males than I do with females.
I'm highly strung and don't cope with stress very well at all. I don't think I'm a very strong person.
I'd like to get a tattoo one day, but I probably won't.
I had braces in my mid twenties, and have more teeth with fillings than without.
I like sunbaking naked.
I've never felt like I fitted in anywhere. That's such an emo thing to say.
I have a Game Boy.
I think global warming is a load of crap.
Before I met God, I was considering a career as a prostitute. Not that I was a slut or anything – I was emotionally dead anyway, and I thought it would pay a lot for little effort.
When I'm old I want to live in an old people's home.
I like to swear. Fuck shit bugger.
Plants don't tend to live very long under my care.
I can do this thing where if I have two objects that are identical but are different colours (like lollies, or pen lids, etc), I can mix them up, put one in each hand, and I can tell what colour is in which hand without looking. I don't know how.
I hate marshmallows.
I'm damn lazy and I hate exercising.
I love Indian food – the hotter the better.
I had my ears pierced when I was six, but haven't worn earrings since high school.
I'm a spelling Nazi.
When I get home after work, the first thing I do is put on my slippers, my favourite fleecy trousers and a stripy thermal top. I usually take my bra off too.
I feel like I do most of the housework, and it annoys me.
I can't sleep with my mouth closed.
Rattles in cars drive me nuts.
I'm a night person.
I hate cooking. I'd eat out every night if I could.
I'm not afraid of people.
I won $100 in a poster competition when I was in Grade 6.
I love to drink tea. Black, no sugar. My current favourite is Chai. I carry teabags in my handbag so that when I go to cafés, That way, I only have to get a cup of boiling water and it doesn't cost me anything.
I don't like sleeping away from home.
Sometimes I know things have happened without anyone telling me.
I'm scared that life is passing me by, and I'm missing out on some big opportunity or something, and that I won't fulfil my purpose on earth. I have no idea what that purpose might be, or if there even is one.
I have big tired looking bags under my eyes that are there and have always been there no matter how much sleep I get.
I have never broken a bone.
I can raise one eyebrow.
Sometimes I wish I was dead.
I never cry in movies.
I've been singing in the Burnie Christmas Carols for five years.
I don't like people shortening my name.
I love K, but I still find other guys attractive.
I once played a lead role in a musical.
I wear Sunflowers perfume every day.
I used to be a singer in a band. It was fun while it lasted.
One day I want to write a book.
I am very critical of myself and others.
I smoke sometimes. Rarely.
Every time I have a cup of tea, I get a new cup out of the cupboard.
After I got married, I put on six kilos. I now weigh 54 kilos.
I have a terrible long term memory.
I can keep a secret.
I like to break into dilapidated buildings and explore them.
I really want people to like me and enjoy being in my company. But only people that I like. The rest can bite me.
I have no strong dreams, visions, desires or passions in life.

I would have had 100 things, but the number 100 was too big and so the text didn't line up with all the rest, and that bugged me. I can't remember what it was that I deleted. Probably just more bullshit.

Time Warp

2007-05-07T23:44:00.001+10:00

Man I had a crap week last week. I cried at work three days out of five. Go me. On Tuesday I cried three times. Two of those times were about the same thing. I don't even remember what it was now! It was obviously pretty life threatening. My poor male co-workers. Ha ha ha.

K and I went to church last night. It's slowly starting to dawn on me that I am probably never going to find a church whose service I enjoy. The main reason for this is because they are all so BORING ("it's not me, it's you"). You take a group of perfectly nice people, all shapes and sizes, all sorts of different personalities, chuck em in a church service, and WHAM – instant homogenisation. What are people afraid of? Enjoying their lives? Being themselves? Heaven forbid! I'm not entirely sure why I'm even going. Why am I? Something is compelling me to. Not sure why, but heck, I'll run with it. At least it gives me something to write about.

We ended up going to City Life Christian Community Life Family Life Church (name homogenised to protect true identity). This church was randomly selected by means of having the most boring ad in the paper. And is brought to you by the number six. Man's number. Bwahahahaha.

Opening the front door quietly, K and I were hoping to be able to sneak into a back row relatively unnoticed. Upon entering the auditorium, we snuck into a back row all right, but unnoticed we were not – being two of only nine people in the entire room kinda makes you stand out, visitor or not.
As we perched on our turquoise plastic school chairs, I felt like I'd entered some sort of time warp. So much so that I half expected archaeologists, complete with film crew, to come tiptoeing onto the stage, whispering, "folks, here we have a perfectly preserved room AND congregation, untouched for some thirty years. Note the orange and brown paint on the walls, middle aged members resplendent in period attire of acid wash jeans, sneakers and fleecy jumpers with collars. And here's a delightful specimen – a mural of what appears to be the Lord, looking serene whilst leaning on a shepherd's crook, gazing out over the city". The mural was a talking point between K and I – he insisted the white blobs in the distance were houses. I was sure they were sheep. They had to be sheep; otherwise the whole shepherd theme would have been a little redundant, surely.
A guy up the front was singing when we arrived. As soon as the song stopped, he practically broke into a run, skidding to a halt in front of us. A bit out of breath, but trying to look nonchalant, he thrust his hand towards ours, introducing himself. "So, you're visiting this evening?" he asked. I replied, "No, we've been coming here every Sunday for years." A bit mean perhaps, but surely it was obvious to Freddy's blind goldfish that we were visitors. Luckily, he got the joke. He then explained how the service was going to be run. Twice. A few songs, cup of coffee, a bit of a yak, then another coffee. Got it.
The songs practically creaked with old age. All of them were about spiritual warfare, and all of them were from no later than 1987. Rise up, call on the fire of the Spirit, because he's the lion of the tribe of Judah, break down the strongholds, that kind of thing. I'm standing there, mumbling "Fear not [clap-clap-clap] for I am with you, says the Lo-orrd" in a half-arsed sort of fashion. K leans over to me and whispers, "At least, he was in 1984!"
At coffee time, a friendly looking chap ambled over to us and introduced himself as the pastor. Thus followed a fifteen minute conversation full of more awkward silences and bored fidgeting than I'd ever experienced. I guess he hadn't exercised the gift of welcoming visitors for a while. After a riveting five minutes discussing the weather we've been having lately, isn't it crazy, yada yada, I asked him what the white blobs were in the mural. "Houses" he replied, looking more than a little ashamed of being a pastor of a church that had a mural on the wall such as this one. "But they're all white! I thought they were sheep" said I. "No, that's a sheep" he said, pointing to another blob a bit lower down. One sheep? What's the point of shepherding one sheep? Besides, it looked more like a cow to me.
The sermon was next. I slept through it, albeit sitting bolt upright with my eyes open. The topic was "Six realities you should know". The six realities were; 1. God's word. 2. Righteousness. 3. Our freedom. 4. Indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 5. New creation, and 6. Name of Jesus. I would never have remembered these in a million years if K hadn't observed that the acronym for these six points was GROINN. Snaps for City Life Christian Community Life Family Life Church for reclaiming a normally taboo area of the body for the purposes of a sermon, even if it was unintentional. Don't let the devil have all the fun body parts, folks – use them to illustrate your point! Now when life gets me down, I'll just think of GROINN and it's bound to brighten my day.
Rather than go in for Round Two of Coffee and Small Talk, K and I opted to sidle out the door. Eyes to the ground, look like you have to be somewhere, that type of thing.

This service reminded me of a CD that you've played over and over and over and over. Perhaps you once quite liked the album, but it's probably had one too many plays, so all the fun has gone out of it and it just annoys you now. Time for a new CD, guys! 2 Joy Gems. **

Pity Party

2007-04-30T23:18:00.000+10:00

Tonight after work, I walked down to where Gus was parked with a big grin on my face. I'm not sure why, but I just felt really happy. I'd gotten a lot done at work, I was on my way home, and I was going to spend the evening with K. I grinned the whole way home, thinking about how much I loved riding Gus, how much I loved living in Launceston, how the air smelled nice, and how I was going to cook one of K's favourites for tea.

Then I rode up the driveway, and saw an empty space where our car is usually parked. My heart sank. I realised K was at work. Again. I thought he had the night off, but I was wrong. So I went inside and nuked a microwave dinner and sat on my BFA in front of the computer all night, doing nothing in particular. Sulking, mainly.

K texted me and asked how my night was going, and I poured out my pathetic story to him. He suggested I go and visit someone - put in the effort, surprise a friend, that sort of thing. But why doesn't anyone ever put in the effort with ME? I feel like I'm always the person who organises to meet up with people. If I don't arrange to see friends, then I'd never see them. Don't my friends ever sit around and think, "Gee, I haven't caught up with Rebecca in a while. I might pop around and see what she's up to!" I guess not, because it never happens. I mustn't be a very nice person to be around. I thought I was nice. Well, sometimes at least. Maybe I was wrong.

There are easier things in life than being a nice person. Nailing jelly to a tree, for instance.

Still Shopping

2007-04-29T18:52:00.003+10:00

I only went to a morning service today. And I didn't go to church at all last Sunday. I know, I know, form an orderly queue in the 'recommitments' section, while every head is bowed and every eye is closed. Hell, going spasmodically has got to be better than not going at all, some might say.

Today's church was randomly selected by means of being the church that my boss goes to. I'm aware that I'm treading on dangerous ground here – If I hate it, I'll either have to lie and say it was great, which I'm not very good at doing, or tell him how much it sucked, which will hurt his feelings. Or get me sacked. But if I like it and want to go back, then that means I'll be going to my boss's church. Hmm. He's invited me along a few times though, so I thought I'd get it over and done with on a day that I knew he wouldn't be there.

Nobody tried to grope me at the door this time, which is always a good sign. But that was probably because I was walking to find a seat as fast as my little legs could carry me after my last experience.
There appeared to be three main age categories – ninety, forty five, and twelve.
The building was nice, but the auditorium had an unnecessarily high ceiling. Plus, it was back to front – behind me was a beautiful view of bushland through huge floor to ceiling windows. In front of me was the stage, framed by some ugly panel board. I was tempted to turn all the seats around. Or my seat at least. Maybe start a trend.
The unnecessarily high ceiling had those radiant panel heaters on it. Great idea, I thought, if you're SIX METRES TALL. It was FREEZING in there. I hate being cold.
There was a very annoying child sitting in front of me. Yap yap yap, I wanna go outside and kick my ball, I don't wanna go to Sunday School, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I need to go to the toilet, and so on. I wanted to pick him up by the back of the hair and give him something to complain about. Communion came around, and upon seeing the loaf of bread, the annoying kid whinged about being hungry. So the lady next to him broke off a big bit and shoved it in his mouth (probably more for five seconds of peace than for concern about his nutritional welfare). Then the juice came around, and whaddya know? He was suddenly thirsty. But the lady drew the line at the juice – "No, you CAN'T have any of that!" she exclaimed, shocked at the mere thought. It puzzled me to think that the body of Christ could be shoved in a whining child's gob to shut him up, but the juice was evidently nothing to be trifled with.
The musicians showed the enthusiasm of a bowl of socks. Not that I blame them – "The Best of Hillsong 1995" was probably a great album, but I didn't feel it terribly necessary to relive it note for note twelve years later. In fact, the service up until the end of the songs was the spiritual equivalent of chewing on a dry Salada. At one point, a forty year old woman wearing pigtails got up and gave a monotone mini-sermon about how we should be worshipping. I think I dozed off halfway through, but I'm pretty sure her main thrust was the promotion of the raising of hands. During the next song, she raised her arms as if to say "See? It's not so bad!" However, everyone else's arms remained superglued to the sides of their tweed jackets. It kinda reminded me of the nerd at the footy who tries to start a Mexican wave, but it doesn't catch on.
Then the sermon began, given by a visiting speaker named Darren. It was actually one of the best sermons I've heard in a long time. And not because he was a particularly gifted speaker, or because the spirit of the Lord was moving mightily through his mere human form, hallelujah-amen, but because everything he said was the truth. He spoke about how seventy something percent of Australians claim to be spiritual, or believe in God or a higher power, yet only nine percent attended church regularly. Then he said, "And I don't blame them, to be honest with you". I was grinning from ear to ear. He spoke about how people don't want to come and sit in a cold, boring service for a quarter of their weekend every week, and that if we didn't start meeting people where they're at, then it'll be too late before we know it – God would start taking it to the streets. I felt like applauding. However, I'm fairly sure I was the only one – the temperature in the room dropped about ten degrees, and I'm sure it wasn't just because of the lame heaters. I guess people don't like being told they're doing a crappy job of something. My favourite bit was when he was trying to illustrate the point of God not being all harsh and condemning, and how he made things for us to enjoy in life. I believe his actual quote was, "For example, God made orgasms". The oxygen levels in the room suddenly depleted to accommodate the collective gasp of the congregation. Preach it, brother!
After the service, a girl came up and introduced herself to me, and we got chatting about the whole 'church really blows' thing. She doesn't attend church very often, and I really enjoyed talking to her as we had similar views on things. We swapped numbers, and I hope I see her again on my Gulliver's travels.

Hard to rate this one I had to take into consideration the dreary service versus the fantastic sermon, keeping in mind that it was a visiting speaker, so I can assume that the usual sermons at that church are not quite up to that standard. But everyone was really nice, and nobody seemed fake at all. And that's the main thing. So 3 Joy Gems. ***

Gavin's Progress

2007-04-19T23:28:00.000+10:00

I got an update on Gavin recently.

A couple of weeks ago, he opened his eyes and smiled at his partner in recognition! He still can't talk and is recovering from another operation on his skull, but he is communicating by squeezing people's hands.

I was so happy to hear that. It means that he's still Gavin, and that he'll get better.

A Lemon

2007-04-18T21:44:00.000+10:00

It occurs to me that the reason I don't appear to have any sort of solid purpose for being on the earth is because the reason I am on the earth in the first place is no longer valid.

I was born because my parents believed that having me would bring them fulfilment in some way. This did not happen. They now lead their own lives, doing their own things with their own new families. So seeing as my original purpose for being born no longer exists, and probably never did, I guess I'm just destined to live out my years, trying to have as little negative impact as possible until I die. I don't feel deserving of good things happening to me, as I don't believe I'm really 'earning' them, because I have not and never will achieve my original purpose. I shouldn't really be here – I was born under a misconception.

Something in the back of my mind is saying that this is a lie, that I do have a purpose for being here, that I have as much right as anyone else to exist and be happy. I think this is due to sitting in church for a number of years, listening to the 'God has a plan and a purpose for your life' drum being beaten. I'm not saying that's not the case, it could well be. It just hasn't shown itself to be true for me as yet. So I can only draw the aforementioned conclusion.

It's kinda like the guy who really loves apricots, and goes out to the nursery to buy an apricot tree to plant in their backyard. As the tree grows and becomes established, its first fruit reveals an error on the nursery's behalf – the tree is not an apricot tree after all, but a lemon tree. The man is disappointed. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to rip the tree out now. Instead, he leaves the lemon tree alone, occasionally picking a lemon to put on pancakes, or giving them away to other people who might like lemons. It's not a bad tree. It has its good points. But it's not what the man intended it to be.

The lemon tree produces lemons that some people find useful. But if it had never been planted in the first place, those people could have sourced those lemons from somewhere else. In fact, they might have even planted their own lemon tree, if they loved lemons so much. Therefore, by being mistakenly planted, this lemon tree might be taking up a spot that could have been filled by another, more wanted lemon tree. That lemon tree will now never have a chance at life, and all because of a tree that was mistakenly planted.

The thing that sucks the most about it is that it's not the lemon tree's fault. He didn't ask to be planted. He would have loved to have been the chosen tree, but he wasn't. It was someone else's mistake, but he has to live with the consequences.

Supermarket Christian

2007-04-17T18:54:00.001+10:00

I went to two churches on Sunday. How spiritual am I!

First impressions count, so here they are:

Morning Church

(randomly selected by means of being the closest church to my house. I'm quite lazy really. No, really, I am. We can hear their services as clear as a bell from our deck, so I thought I'd go and see what all the hoo-hah was about).

There was no sign telling me where the entrance was, so I kinda had to lurk around like a flasher in the bushes and wait for someone else to go in before I knew where to go.
The person I'd followed inside got groped at the door by a lady on the 'welcoming team'. Avoiding the welcoming team was like running the gauntlet – the team consisted of about five people, all staring at me intently as they shook my hand and clapped me on the shoulder. My hand was sticky by the end of it. I was annoyed. I'd just washed my hands! I'm a bit OC about these things.
I'd found a seat and was reflecting on the fact that having a sticky hand was getting off pretty lightly really, and that it could have been a lot worse, when an eighty five thousand year old man came up and mauled me welcomingly. I'm struggling to think of a part of my body that didn't come into contact with his hands. I'm scared of old men and paranoid about being touched by strangers, so by the time I'd had my hair ruffled, my back slapped, my shoulder petted and my cheek kissed, I was ready to run out the door. Instead, I sat there and thought of England.
I sat one seat away from a girl around my age, who soon introduced herself and invited me to move across and sit next to her so that I didn't look like I was by myself. I told her that it was appropriate really, seeing as I was by myself. She laughed and patted the seat next to her. I thought I'd better cut her some slack. She turned out to be really nice and ended up being my tour guide for the morning.
The worship team consisted of two rhythm guitarists who were also singing (one guy and one girl), a bass player and a drummer. They all looked around 20 years old. The drummer was really good, and kept me interested in the songs. Even the song they played continuously for 25 minutes. The songs were simple and the musicians were skilled. I didn't not like it.
There were two teenage boys sitting directly behind me who saw the songs as an opportunity to catch up on what had been happening during the week at the top of their lungs. I turned around a couple of times and glared at them in an 'I-know-I'm-just-visiting-but-you're-really-giving-me-the-shits' sort of way, but that didn't seem to do anything. I will consider adding them to my list of people I'd like to punch instead.
The people in this church seem big on reproducing. There were offspring everywhere. Erk. Generally they seemed fairly well behaved. Just as well… (thumps palm with fist)
During the slow 'reflecting-on-your-walk-with-God' part of the worship (aka "What Should I Cook For Lunch?", some guy got up and said that he "sensed" that some people in the congregation had a "word to bring". Well, it was a race to the front! There were evidently some very keen prophets in this church. Most of it was the usual unmemorable white noise, but one lady had a 'word' about peas. I laughed. I liked hearing about peas.
The first 20 minutes of the sermon were really good. The last 20 minutes probably were as well, but I'll never know because my concentration span simply does not last that long. It was about trees. Peas and trees – an interesting theme for the day.
After the service (and the ensuing relief that the seemingly eternal tree sermon had finally reached its zenith), my new friend took me to the morning tea area and got me a drink. I chatted to lots of people, and I still remember their names. Everyone was really friendly, and I didn't loathe the service, so I reckon I'll return for a second go.

All in all, 4 Joy Gems ****

Evening Church

(randomly selected from The Examiner on Saturday, 14^th April 2007 (ibid. et al ad nauseum), for having a name that starts with 'Z')

This church wins the prize for being one of the largest church building I have ever attended. It was seriously huge. The service was held in a kind of stadium thingie, and there were other buildings with cafés, museums, all sorts of stuff. Massive churches seem all the rage these days. I don't understand the attraction myself.
I saw about five people I knew within the first ten minutes of arriving. Then, I was introduced to someone I had never met in my life, and they said to me "you must be Carly's sister!" Harrumph.
Everyone seemed pretty friendly. The four of us found a seat. Then WHAM! The music started. It was so loud, I could feel my hair blowing backwards with the force of the noise. A little kid had his fingers in his ears – it seemed like a great idea to me. I would have done the same if I wasn't worried about appearing rude. The worship lasted around 45 minutes, and in that time they played three songs. The second song was about dancing, and I swear the tap water in that neighbourhood must contain amphetamines, because the four of us were the ONLY ones in the entire building not dancing like lunatics. EVERYONE danced like it was coffee day at kindergarten for the entire length of the song. Then, they cracked out the banners. The friend to the left of me was laughing into his chest. I thought the dancing song had gone for an eternity, but I soon took that thought back when the next song started – they sang one line in the song for about half an hour. ONE LINE! HALF AN HOUR! I really wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not.
Right, I thought to myself, this church could still redeem itself in my eyes – it's sermon time. We were informed that we would be watching the eleventh video in a series of twelve. Two words in that sentence rang alarm bells for me straight away – 'video' and 'series'. Yawn-o-rama. But no, I chastised myself, don't be cynical all your cynical life, you cynic. Give it a chance. Well – half an hour later, after being shouted at and belittled by an American televangelist style preacher about how we would receive TENFOLD if only we would give away all our money, preferably to his God ordained ministry (which grossed $120 million last year, praise the Lord), and that really, none of us gave nearly as much as we should be, and that God SEES this, and we should be giving offerings over and above our tithe, which should go to the STOREHOUSE (everybody say "storehouse") which is the local church, but the offerings should be given in PARTNERSHIP (everybody say "partnership"), preferably to his ministry, and could everyone give the Lord a half-hearted round of applause, hallelujah – all four of us walked out. We just couldn't take any more.

One good thing came from attending that church – the four of us went out for a meal afterwards and picked it to bits, which led to a really great chat about all sorts of stuff. It was worth sitting through an hour of 'Banner Betty and the Hearing Loss Posse meets Mr Shouty' to have that outing afterwards.

The people were friendly, and they were genuinely trying hard to build a great church. So I won't be totally heartless. 1 Joy Gem *

Gavin

2007-03-28T23:34:00.000+10:00

My friend Gavin was in a car accident a few weeks ago. I clicked on The Advocate website one morning, and read an article about a car crash in Forth the night before. As I read about the person involved - 39 year old man from Wilmot with a white Barina - I was filled with dread. Surely there couldn't be too many people who would fit that description. So even though it was early in the morning, I decided to ring him up to make sure that he was okay.

His partner answered the phone, and I could tell by her voice that Gavin was the one who had been in the accident. She was frantic. They'd flown him to the Royal Hobart Hospital the night before, and he'd had emergency surgery to relieve the pressure in his head. His head injuries were very serious, and he was in a critical condition. The doctors were putting him in an induced coma until they could assess the damage. And that's all she knew.

Now, around four weeks on, I'm really none the wiser. I tried calling the hospital, but they wouldn't tell me anything about how he was doing because I wasn't a family member. They said if I wanted to know anything then I'd have to call his partner. But I don't have her mobile number, and I'm assuming she's in Hobart with Gavin rather than at home in Wilmot. So I sent a card for him, and put a note in it for his partner, asking her to give me a call with some news. I still haven't heard from her, which isn't unusual I guess, as she must have a lot on her plate at the moment.

Eventually I found out from someone who was talking to someone who called Gavin's partner that he is out of his coma, but still isn't responding a lot, and it appears that he is paralysed down one side. I really, really hope he recovers. He's such a great person, who has such an appreciation for life. It's just not right.

Get well soon, Gavin. I'm thinking of you.

Gus Got a Note

2007-03-22T22:37:00.001+11:00

I've been parking Gus in the laneway behind our building at work. Despite all the 'no parking' signs about the place, I haven't been booked because it appears to be privately owned. However, I got a little note on Gus a couple of days ago, saying "Could you please leave this space free, as we have deliveries daily".

Now I don't know where to park! The minimum for the multi storey car parks in Launceston is $4 a day, which might not seem much to some city folk, but to someone used to having free parking at work, it's a damn nuisance. I thought about parking in the same laneway and just moving Gus up a few metres, but I don't want to annoy anyone. But as my boss rightly said, "it's not their laneway either". So what should I do… try and find the author of the note to see if they'd mind if I parked somewhere else? Park there anyway? Pay $4 a day? Rah. I can't be bothered dealing with it.

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K found a frog on our driveway tonight, and ran inside to get me so that I could see him. He was brown and fat. He could hardly even lift his little tummy onto a rock he was trying to climb on. I've never seen a frog that fat before. He made me happy. I'm happy that a frog lives in our yard.

Killer

2007-03-20T10:25:00.001+11:00

Last weekend was all over the place. I'm usually very organised, so when I knew I had to play a gig in Burnie, I thought I'd make the most of the trip and go to the old house to do a bit of cleaning. Two birds with one stone and all that. Rachel said she loved cleaning and was keen to help – I was grateful, even though it meant she was a FREAK – I mean, who likes cleaning? Seriously? It's gotta be the most unrewarding job in the world. If you write a book, it stays written. If you paint a picture, it stays painted. If you clean a toilet, someone's just gonna crap in it again. Regardless, I was pleased to have another set of hands helping me.

I was determined to be ready on time – Rachel was coming at 9:30 to pick me up, I had to be ready for my gig as well as having all the cleaning stuff sorted out to take with us. It wasn't until we were pulling in the driveway of the old house that I remembered the dream I'd had the night before – the awful, terrible dream, where I'd forgotten to ask K for the key to the old house, as I'd already given my key to the real estate. But the dream was TRUE! I had forgotten the key! I never forget things like that, but man I felt like a dickhead having to tell Rachel that I didn't have a key to get in.

After a few phone calls to the real estate, and several failed attempts to break in on our own (that place is Fort Knox, I tell ya), we managed to get inside and make a start. I finished the bathroom, and decided that I was going to clean all the shelves in the house next. After being fairly involved with one set of shelves in the main bedroom, I stood back to admire my work. The fact that I'd had my head right in the cupboard meant that I wasn't at quite the right angle to see the massive huntsman spider that was sitting under the very shelf I'd just been cleaning. Argh! I'm not normally that bothered by spiders (I mean, I wouldn't marry one or anything, but I'm not really scared of them), but this one took me completely by surprise. My first instinct was to seek out the insect spray and give him a good coating. As soon as I had done that, I felt terrible. Huntsmen take an ETERNITY to die, and I had to watch him staggering around, clinging onto life, trying to get away from the invisible poison that had already sealed his fate. I was torn – should I scoop him up and put him outside, and hope that the fresh air would revive him? Should I stomp on him and end his suffering? No, I couldn't do that – I'd feel his bones crunching under my shoe, and that would be worse. Instead, I decided that the most humane thing to do would be to finish what I'd started and engulf him in a second coat of the stuff. He stumbled around like a drunk at closing time. It broke my heart. Eventually, he fell on his back, curled up his legs and died.

I felt extremely guilty. Why hadn't I just left him in the cupboard? It's not like he was bothering anyone, it was an empty house. Why did I have to kill him? He might have had a family to support. He might have had his whole little life ahead of him. And I killed him for no reason. I deeply regretted doing it – I wish I had never spotted him.

My reaction to all this puzzled me – I can sit and watch ads about the starving children in Ethiopia and feel absolutely nothing towards them, but I can't kill a spider without feeling heartbroken. Is there something wrong with me? Nobody else would have cared about killing a spider, would they? I care more about animals than I do about most people. I don't know why it is so, but there it is.

I'm sorry, little spider. :-(

So Long, North West Coast

2007-03-09T17:46:00.001+11:00

It was my last day at work in the Devonport office today. I kept doing that thing where everything you do all day, you think "this is the last time I'll make a coffee at this sink" or "I'll never sit at this desk again". I will certainly miss working in that office, but that doesn't mean I'm unhappy with my decision to move. Now that the company I work for has moved into a new building, it's a fair bit different than the old place. We are now sharing the building with a bunch of other people, which means there was a lot more activity going on around me, which made it hard to concentrate this week. I definitely think the move is for the best.

While I was tidying up loose ends, I got to thinking about leaving – not just the office, but the North West Coast in general. This has been my home for most of my life, and there's a lot I'll miss about it.

The things I'll miss about living in Ulverstone are:

Living five minutes walk from the beach
Walking the streets of a night with K, peering into people's windows
Going for bicycle rides through Fairway Park to see the galahs
Our friendly next door neighbours, and the neighbourhood in general
Not having to maintain a garden
Not having to pay for parking
Being close to friends and commitments in Burnie and Devonport

The things I'll miss about Devonport are:

The roast lamb rolls at the Fairway Coffee Lounge
Um…
Have I said the roast lamb rolls at the Fairway Coffee Lounge?
The nice lady at the post office hatch who remembers my PO box number without me having to tell her
The roast lamb rolls at the Fairway Coffee Lounge

The things I WON'T miss about Devonport are:

Having to put my motorbike gear on just to go out for five minutes, because nothing is within walking distance from the office
Not being able to find a parking spot. Ever.
Having to park somewhere to go to the bank and post office, then ride up the road and park again to go to Kmart and the supermarket, then ride up the road AGAIN to run errands in the Fourways
The shitty roads that desperately need resurfacing
How every street is a main street
Random weirdos coming up to me wanting to have lengthy discussions about my scooter when I'm in a hurry

The things I'm looking forward to about living and working in Launceston are:

HARI'S CURRY!
Living in the same city as many of our good friends, and not having to drive an hour and a half to get home after hanging out with them
NOT having to put my motorbike gear on just to go out for five minutes, because EVERYTHING is within walking distance from the office
Knowing whether or not my boss is ignoring me on MSN, because I'll be able to see him
Living close to the Trevallyn Reserve and the Cataract Gorge
Living in our own house again, that we can modify as we see fit
Having a crack at gardening
Going on journeys with Gus to new places
Maxing out the Myer card
Finding a church that I feel I could belong to

Well, time to move on. Thanks, North West Coast - I have many fond memories.

I Don't Remember

2007-02-25T12:29:00.000+11:00

I have a terrible long term memory. I really do. Sometimes the hypochondriac in me wonders "maybe I have some sort of early onset Alzheimer's?" I think it's a combination of genetics (a few of my relatives have mentioned that they have the same problem) as well as a kind of learned reaction that my brain has developed over my lifetime to help me cope with life's hard knocks. It is a blessing and a curse really. I find it fairly easy to forgive people for things they may have done, simply because after a while I can't remember exactly what it was that they did to upset me. Also, it's great for watching films and reading books that I've already seen or read before – I'm reading or watching and thinking, "this seems vaguely familiar", but I can't remember enough of it to know what's coming next. This is a big reason why I've taken to keeping blogs – if I write it down then I'm more likely to remember stuff. And if I don't, I can always read it later.

Songs, however, I can never, ever forget. My memory is full of a lifetime of songs, TV theme tunes and jingles from commercials that no matter how hard I try, I cannot erase from my mind. It is frustrating. I mean, how useful could this information possibly be:

You can't beat a Sao
Sao satisfaction
You can't beat a Sao, that's a fact
Sao brings out the flavour
Of any food you favour
You can't beat a Sao, that's a fact

Or:

Follow the arrow, just follow don't say no
Follow the arrow, they'll show you where to go
Arrows go this way, arrows go that
Arrows take you to an octopus, they take you to your hat

Or:

Feathers, fur or fins
Shell or scale or skin
If it walks on legs or flies on wings
If it runs or crawls or slithers or swims
It's got its place in the scheme of things
Feathers, fur or fins

I was bemoaning all this with friends recently, and one of them suggested that I should make up songs about the things that happen in my life, so that I can remember them. I'm not sure if that would work. I mean, how catchy is a song with lyrics like, "went to lots of meetings last year, la la la, also discovered that I quite like risotto, la la la", or, "Doo-doo-doo… my last pap smear was in 2003… yeeeeah yeah"? Maybe that's where folk or country and western songs originated? I mean, it's possible that Billy Bob BoJangle might never have remembered that it was 12 months since his separation and he could now legally get a divorce if a year ago today he hadn't crooned, "Left my skank of a wife for another lovely womaaan, wooah-oh, singin, the life of a ma-an on the run".

By contrast, my short term memory is fantastic. If you ever want to know what I had for lunch yesterday and exactly what time it was when I took my first bite, or how much Whiskas was on special for at the supermarket last week, then I'm your girl.

TGIF

2007-02-23T22:32:00.001+11:00

Someone on my work Messenger account today had their personal message as "TGIF" (Thank God It's Friday). It got me wondering a few things. The first random thought was, "Does God like Fridays more than other days? Like, does he look forward to the weekend like everyone else?" My next thought was about how ridiculous my first thought was. But then I thought, "If [person at work] was so damn pleased that it was Friday so that they could have a couple of days off from working, then why don't they get another job? One they enjoy going to?"

I love my job. And I'm not just saying that in case someone from where I work randomly decides to see if I have a blog somewhere (unlikely – they probably have a life). When Friday rolls around, most of me is glad for the respite the weekend brings, but another part of me is disappointed that the work week is over. Does that make me a freak? Maybe. I always dreamed of having a job that I loved though – it has made such a difference to my outlook on life. Before I worked full time, I was often sad and depressed, and was never really sure why. Sometimes I wonder if that's still all lurking beneath the surface, and having a job is simply a distraction from it. I'm a bit scared of taking holidays, for that reason. I don't think that's the case though – I think most of the reason for the sadness was that I didn't feel like I had any reason for being here on earth, I had a shit job that any halfwit could do. Now I feel slightly useful occasionally.

How many people, at a vague guess, don't like their jobs? I reckon it would be a lot. Maybe even more than half. So then, is there a solution to that? Are they in the wrong job, or do they just have a negative attitude towards work that would carry through no matter where they were? I think it's sad. You spend so much of your life working, if you don't enjoy it, then that's a big part of your life you haven't enjoyed. It's just not worth it! I'm not sure what you'd do about it though. Changing jobs isn't all that easy sometimes, particularly with financial commitments or families to support. But even if you work towards your goal bit by bit, it's heartening to know that you'll get there eventually, and it makes working in a shit job a bit more bearable.

Congratulations to my brother, Luke, who just quit his job at Kmart that he hated, so that he could go to TAFE and get a trade. What a bold move – but one that will pay off in the end. Go Luke!

Swimming

2007-02-18T21:32:00.000+11:00

Went swimming in the Leven River yesterday with K, Fanghead, Keith and Dan. It was so nice! Well, it was to begin with anyway. Not content with just swimming and relaxing, the boys decided to see whose penis was the biggest in a game of 'Who Can Swim With the Biggest Rock'. (Why don't men just pull down their pants and compare once and for all, instead of all this chest-beating? It'd save a lot of time.) Anyway, the winner was Dan, after a couple of near drownings. Not content with the result, Keith thought they should see 'Who Can Skim a Rock the Most Times'. Again, the winner was Dan. Then it got ridiculous with 'Who Can Bust a Rock in Half'. The testosterone was so thick I felt like I was asphyxiating. Then I saw a spider on a rock and Fanghead screamed the place down. Then K got a fish hook stuck in his foot. Then we saw an empty beer bottle, bobbing up and down, going on a journey down the river, past someone's slimy old shoe. The novelty wore off at that point, it was getting kinda gross.

Today I went swimming in the sea with Jason. What a difference! The water was so warm and clear, and there were waves to jump over. There were no spiders or beer bottles or cavemen antics. I am sure gonna miss having the ocean only 5 minutes walk away. Sigh. Where is there to swim in Launceston? The Cataract Gorge, with all the eels and car bodies and probably human bodies and submerged logs? Or the adjacent pool, where the lovely water temperature is undoubtedly linked to the amount of urine within, and you feel like you're doing the hokey-pokey rather than swimming because you can barely move for all the people? Bah!

The last time I went swimming in the Gorge, I swore I'd never do it again. I ended up covered in slime, and had some sort of mysterious skin rash the next day. And K nearly drowned trying to swim from one side to the other while carrying a rock as big as his head.

My Funny Valentine

2007-02-16T10:25:00.000+11:00

It was Valentine's Day on Wednesday.

Traditionally, K and I do not celebrate this day. Whenever February 14th has rolled around in the past, we have pointed our noses in the air, and sneered in self-righteous disdain at others who chose to waste their money by succumbing to the wishes of advertisers, florists, Cadbury, Hallmark, etc. Let other couples be guilted into spending their hard-earned dollars in order to 'prove' their love for each other! Let others feel forced into superficial displays of affection! We felt far above such frivolity - almost to the point of ignoring each other for the entire day, just in case anyone got the wrong idea.

This year I spent the day at work as usual, watching colleagues receive gaudy packages complete with simpering love notes. Bleh. Riding Gus home from work, I shook my head at how some people blithely do what the media tells them to do, without thinking to question it. I was still scoffing to myself as I rode into the garage upon my arrival home.

What was that noise? Sounded like jazz music. Must be coming from next door, or across the road maybe... no, it sounded quite close. Perhaps K had left the radio on, or it was coming from a website he was looking at. Puzzled, I went inside, where I discovered the source of the music - our CD player. The table had been set for two, complete with wine glasses, placemats and candles. The house was clean, and I could smell a roast dinner cooking. K beamed at me, barely containing his excitement. I could hardly believe my eyes! Here before me was a man who, when asked if he loved me a while back, replied, "I told you I loved you on our wedding day... if anything changes, I'll let you know". And here he was busting out a mad Valentine's effort - I was stunned.

For me, the most startling thing from all of this was my gradual realisation that I really, really loved and appreciated the effort he went to. Me, the person who laughs in the face of romantic notions, the girl who has never received flowers purely because of the obvious scorn I have shown towards such 'nonsense', was actually quite chuffed that someone cared enough about me to go to so much effort. I have no idea why this particular year was different to any other, but I'm glad it was - we had a wonderful evening. We finished our dinner and sat drinking the wine and chatting for a while, then we went for a swim in the sea as the sun set behind the Dial Ranges. It was sickeningly romantic - but I had such a good time!

I shouldn't get too used to it - no doubt it'll be back to normal by next February 14th. And I don't mind that either. It was a wonderful evening, but mainly because I wasn't expecting it. What's so special about receiving flowers or gifts when you're fully aware that you're going to get them? Nothing. Of course you're gonna go to an effort for your partner if you think they'll be mad at you if you don't do it. And of course, there's the worry over whether they'll go to more of an effort than you will, or vice versa. The reason this year was so special was because neither of us had any expectations of each other.

Thank you, K. I love you.

Dreams

2006-11-02T22:25:00.006+11:00

The other night I dreamed that I was walking along with a friend, I'm not sure who, through the streets of town one day. I had a baby's head cradled in my arms. The baby's body was packed away in my carry-bag, until such a time that I could figure out how to put it back together again. The head seemed happy enough though, smiling away. I tickled the little face and it giggled. I thought to myself, "maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have a baby after all!"

Then suddenly, the little head seemed to realise that it had lost its body at some point. The face screwed up and went red, and started to wail. I didn't know what to do! I didn't know how to put the baby back together. I ended up handing the head and my carry bag to my friend, so she could put the baby back together.

I think it's a sign - if I ever had a baby, I'd unintentionally decapitate it.

Thoughts from a 10 year reunion

2005-12-24T19:38:00.007+11:00

It’s Christmas tomorrow, which sucks. I don’t remember when I stopped liking it, coz I know I used to like it, but I don’t now, which makes me wonder when the point was that I stopped.

Went to my 10 year reunion last night. It was, surprisingly enough, not too bad. Nobody had changed much. There were still the typical groups, the daggy people at one table, the cool people near the bar, and little cliques dotted here and there around the room. And me and K just floating around between everyone, not really fitting anywhere. The annoying people were still annoying, the hot guys were still hot. I think I had too much makeup on. Poor K had to drag around behind me like a lost dog while I yapped to people I used to be friends with ten years ago about nothing in particular. Most of the conversations were pretty much like this;

Me – (wide smile) hello! How are you?!
Person (returning wide smile) I’m really good! How are you?!
Me – (a little over enthusiastic) Great! What have you been up to?
Person – oh, you know… (proceeds to recap the past ten years in approximately ten seconds) working, I’m engaged, getting married in March 2007, we’ve bought a house, travelled a bit…
Me – (glazed eyes) uh huh…
Person – (after a few minutes) … but I’m glad I tried it though. How about yourself? What do you do?
Me – (response ready) Oh, I’ve been married for about five and a half years, I work for an IT company…
Person – You like it?
Me – (summons unnecessarily fake enthusiasm) yeah I love it! It’s great!
Person – (glazed eyes) cool…
Me – (trails off) yeah…
Person - (glances over shoulder) well I’d better…
Me – (embarrassed at having held them up from something or someone more important) Oh yeah, sure. Nice talking to you! (wide smile again)
Person – you too! Bye

Feeling a bit jaded with skin deep conversations after a while, I spotted an ex boyfriend sitting near the bar. I marched up to him, interrupting his conversation, and talked at him for five minutes about how sorry I was that I hurt him back then, and how I'd always remembered it and felt really bad, and if I could take it back I would, etc etc. Luckily he laughed and told me not to worry about it. Well that was one past guilt dealt with already, and it was only nine o’clock.

I decided to try and find my friend KP who I’d arrived with in the first place. No luck. I thought I’d try outside, where there were a few people hanging around outside the entrance. Upon approaching this group, I realised that the circle they’d formed was to make the passing of a big joint a lot easier. Some things never change, eh. Same people and everything. I spied KP running from across the road where her children were being babysat in a hotel room.

A Sour Faced Girl whom KP had never really gotten on with much turned to me and said “did she just go and put her baby in her car?” Horrified, I replied “of course not! They are staying in the hotel across the road”. Well, I mentioned this comment to KP when she finally came inside, and she was pretty pissed off. “How dare she, what a %$#*ing %@!$ who %$#@ wouldn’t &#!*with a #$%@” etc etc. It was then we realised that SFG’s husband was sitting directly in front of us, listening to every word. Oh well.

More and more drinks were had, particularly by my friend KP, who ended up having it out with SFG about her comments about KP’s parenting skills in true high school style (at the top of their voices in order to be heard above the music). Then KP decided to go and ask The Lesbian of our grade whether or not she thought she was hot. I never did find out what The Lesbian’s response was. Must ask KP. Not that I want to know whether KP is attractive to lesbians, but just out of interest. I wonder if I’m attractive to lesbians? Just out of interest mind you. Anyway, when KP made the loud observation that fat people travel in packs and always seem to be the ones who end up on the dance floor at gatherings, I decided that the drink I was holding would be my last. Picking my way through the group of fat people on the dance floor, I went to see where K had gotten to.

Well naturally we ended up being nearly the last to leave, which always seems to happen at these sorts of things. I hate it, I feel like people must think I’m a desperado who doesn’t have a life usually, but hangs out for occasional gatherings like these to scratch the social itch in my life. Which isn’t true by the way. I have a very rich and varied social life thank you very much. I don’t know where you heard otherwise. Anyway, I’m really glad I went. I would have regretted it if I’d missed it.

And I won’t have to go to another one for at least ten more years!