Ah! The Clock is Always Slow; It is Later Than You Think.

It’s New Year’s Day! Happy New Year! For some reason small lad is swanning around rugged up like the middle of winter – this summer is not so much a summer as slightly warm with daylight saving. Disappointing.

Today I’m fighting the battle of the gorge after the champagne and amounts of nibble food partaken of last night (the heartburn today is teeeee-riffic!). One of my ears is a bit spinny as well, so I’d better not lean down too fast or I’ll topple over like a Terry Gilliam animation in Monty Python.

After my last entry I had some lovely silence in my head, where I wasn’t telling myself anything. Nothing. Zip. Tranquillity. It was a nice place to be in, but the world will rush in, as it does, so that lasted about a month. Then it was a case of telling myself far too much and beating myself up rather a lot. Sigh.

It would be nice to give my brain a holiday, especially the parts monitoring just how badly I’m screwing something up. It gets tiresome.

Since I’m now a recluse (I’m thinking of getting a membership badge) big groups of people freak me out a little. So Christmas shopping was approached with a contradictory mix of “eek!” and “grrarr!”, but it all worked out in the end. I must be doing something right, because I got asked in shops where “x” might be as if I was staff and everything.

There was a Christmas event I didn’t attend, which made some waves of an interesting stripe. One of the guests opined that I hadn’t shown up because of her. Since we're all friends there, way to put people on the spot. Way. Go you. (Actually she asked if, not opined that, but I wanted to use "opined" in a sentence. Opined. Dig it.)

Guesty then went on to say that nothing was her fault; it was the fault of someone else (I’m going to call that one Else).

Else, Guesty and I worked together in my old job. Else was having rather large issues at the time – bad divorce, almost no visitation, previous breakdown under her belt – and having trouble with the job. Since I’m big and mean and tough I report it. Cue about eight months later, I’m frustrated beyond belief and I blow up. Else tells me I should “take it up with management”*, to which I reply that I have…big mistake. For the next year after this I have Guesty and another, let me call her Quitty**, telling me how I don’t understand how bad it all is, I’m unhelpful, blah blah blah. And blah. It takes me a while to figure out just how much is being said behind my back, because prior to this Guesty and I, at least, seemed to have been pretty close friends***.

So Else is using me as a scapegoat. That was no surprise really; working with her was always a foray into being questioned over everything I did. Mostly I flicked it off (to which Else would be saying, “really?” “are you sure?” ad infinitum – so you either flick it off or become a mass of neuroses – and I have enough neuroses). Even at its worst though, I felt pretty sorry for Else – because she couldn’t seem to take any responsibility. In the finish, to make the long story short, she leaves for greener pastures. Guesty and I have a conversation about the things Guesty has said over the last twelve months or so – to which she replies “I never said that. If I’ve ever given you that impression, I am very sorry – you’ve always been…” blah blah, I can’t go on with it, I really might vomit. That was the last lie I was willing to listen to. (Yeah baby, there were more, yeah baby yeah). I haven’t been in touch since.

*If there’s one phrase used by the barely competent I can’t stand, it’s “take it up with management”. As if that’s got anything to do with the discussion: yes, congratulations, you’ve said the threatening thing so now I’ll back down, soooo not, you’ve just effed up good and proper and I have to fix your mess. Grrrraaarrr I want to smash.

**”Quitty” because during all of this she made a point of telling me I should quit my job because a) the system had screwed me (different pay grade by qualification – I was in the lower grade with the higher qualification) and b) I would never get anywhere here. On separate occasions. Strangely, because professionally I’d been part of something really big and good and quite successful and I’d gotten into the higher grade, just before this little shit nugget was dropped.

***I suspect that the pleasantries in the middle of the backstabbing had to do with husbandly and his amazing fix-it prowess, but maybe I’m far too cynical for my own good.

Anyway, sheesh, even having left stuff out it’s a bloody long spiel. I wasn’t perfect in here either; temper, temper, I’ve got a temper, but never mind all that. This distance on I still feel pretty sorry for Else: I don’t think she’s capable of better, which means she’ll constantly have enemies and nothing will ever be her fault. On the other hand, I have nothing but contempt for Guesty and Quitty – friends of Else or not, it was all pretty crap.

That contempt hit a new low after the event I didn’t attend. Guesty was trying to blame Else for showing up at my farewell*. Some friend; blame the incapable one for something you did. I know some of that is unfair – Guesty likes a bit of drama and didn’t (doesn’t?) always think of ramifications, but tough noogies, she made me miserable – Guesty. Not Else, credit where credit’s due.

*Else showed up. I knnoooooww!. For pure gall, I stand in admiration.

I’ve also had a few events to go to where other attendees looked rather unhappy I was there. In one case it was assumed (why?) I wasn’t showing up at all and the dirty look I got will keep me going for a few months. Snort. Maybe I should stick with the recluse thing...except I'd miss out on:

1.Driving behind a car with the number plate MUM-291. Is there a MUM-666 out there? Is her other name Rosemary? Or has the Devil gone for a daughter (who has since reproduced)?

2. Fruit pots, brought to me by Woollies, awesome last minute snack when I've been lazy in the food-to-take-to-work department.

3. A rather loud phone conversation where a lady (?) was telling her last date that she thought he (or she) hadn't been on many dates. She moved away before I could hear any more. She had nice legs, just to enter into the reportage.

4. The Harry Potter Exhibition. Awesome. I want the clothes.

5. They make CC's corn chips with guarana now. Why, oh why?

6. Sitting on a train going past people's backyards: one has a pool with no ladder, and two doors down is a pool ladder with no pool. A feud in progress or a coincidence?

7. Watching a Mum train her child (over a period of years) to wait for the toast instead of trying new foods. Just give the kid the damn toast. Or not. Don't hold off for hours and then give in; the kid will just keep doing the same thing, and while parent-etiquette prevents eye-rolls, said rolls are happening, believe me.

I finished reading Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy (just to keep some narrative in this overly-spaced-apart thing) and I love that book. Hilarious, well paced and full of little nuggets to give one to thought*.

"The ultimate consequence of denying reality is always failure. Scratch a worthless bum and you'll discover an irrational man." - Ayn Rand, the hologram. Very certain is our Ayn.

* As opposed to giving one to drink, to the earth, to be married or to the blood-brain border patrol**.

Is it bad to sidebar a sidebar?***

** Try saying that three times fast. While drunk.

*** Well it isn't a footnote. Much as I like them, i don't have the little horizontal line and smaller-print below said line.

I had my grammar corrected by Google. And Google was right (technically - I stand by my use of tense, since I was watching the movie at the time, it was in the present). How mortifying.

My shifts generally go quiet in the depths of the night (can you tell?), when little is stirring except rogue cockroaches scurrying past the tea room*. Sounds great, doesn't it? Work goes quiet, there's nothing to do, how too, too marvellous. What it really means is I'm struggling to stay awake. To the extent where I think: "Hmm, I feel a bit sleepy eyes, oh my head's going down (a submarine klaxon sounds) 'we're going down, Captain!' head going for bench, what bench, that bench, clunk." and out like a light. I surface when the chute system goes (I'm sitting right next to it) or if the phone rings. Bleary-eyed and probably puffy, I'll get up and work or speak on the phone. It must be hilarious to watch, from passed out to "HELLO, Blood Bank! Lateonenite** speaking!" I've probably alarmed a few people that way.

*I've only seen one in the whole year-and-a-bit I've been here, but allow me the poetic license, okay?

**of course I don't say Lateonenite, but perhaps I should. My name gets mangled into Stacey, Tracey, Therese, Vanessa, and on several memorable occasions, Elizabeth. Or I could give up and call myself Barry.

So this is Barry, signing off – I’ll try on the next entry to talk less about myself.

That Hoary Cripple, With Malicious Eye

I've spent the last six days in bed! Or on the lounge! Same thing! I was so bored today I nearly painted my nails! Black, but still! I feel very weird! I'm in at work tonight! Not sure this is a good idea! I have fifteen minutes before the trauma specimen finishes and I have to do a crossmatch! No pressure! I think I may lose my voice! That would be trouble! Semaphore doesn't work down phones! I've tried! The phone wound up rebounding into my face after catching on my out-flung arm! These exclamation marks are giving me a headache!

The fog has settled in for the night; the streetlights are hazy and soft, illuminating little. The road, bordered by untended grassy fields, dips ahead into the black. The mist catching on the grasses looks like frost; cold and breathtaking. Visibility is at ten metres and dropping: a man stands in the long grass by the side of the road. Unseen, he leans down to fuss at something at his feet, then looks at the road. He can hear nothing, but the fog - the blasted fog - could be hiding anything. He moves in front of the unseen bundle and reaches down. He pulls ropes up to his shoulder, turns and pulls the bundle behind. It could be a rolled-up rug. It could be.

Husbandly caught the lurgy as well, but he, natch, is shaking it off after a day or so. Shouldn't there be some rule about taking it in turns for illnesses? Not that I wish him sick, but it seems a bit unfair when I subsist on four hours sleep a day Mondays and Tuesdays while toddling off to work all night. Ah. Perhaps I have put my finger on the problem. Hmmm. Will have to consider options, yes?

The three sisters tended house for their ailing mother, a cliche in four parts. None of the sisters married; their mother and eventually they themselves discouraged such things. They grew their own vegetables and took in sewing when times were lean, or, not so lean, for special occasions. Over the years their prowess with needles earned them celebrity. They might have been known as witches, else.

My ten minutes is well up and has been for a while; there's been a problem. Now I have to wait for a new sample. Lucky me. I shall leap (leap!) into action when it arrives. I really do need a life instead of alternating odd paragraphs. I would have liked to have taken some more time off but ditto the needing a medical certificate and unable to get to doctor; I'm not so badly off as I was, I'm just tired. Or...

There were cigarette butts jammed into a styrofoam cup by the back door, squashed into dirty liquid that might have been coffee. She hoped none of the staff knew she came out here, but didn't care enough to stay inside. She could sit by that bed for only so long before the walls closed in, the smell became unbearable, the scream inside her head no longer un-screamed. The hospital was tiny - he should have been flown out to Sydney yesterday. There was a storm, she could feel the acid dripping off the words - more important people than her husband would be flown out first. Then the storm. He was still here and no longer conscious.

Ferrets dance in my fevered brain and I feel I should explain; the darkness and dreck. Nah. I just like the word ferret. I wish I had brought my pillow tonight though, if only to be able to rest. Every now and then. Between samples, as it were. At least I no longer have to do fertility counts (yes, that is what it sounds like - Gentlemen, if your swimmers were slow, I salute you - they were easier to count). I sometimes miss some of the things I've done in my career. I told small lad about being an enucleator for the Eye Bank (yes, removal of eyes for donation). It was a brief period. His response? "Yuck." Succinct. I like it.

I hear the sea booming at the shoreline through the crack of the window and wonder if I should be finding it relaxing. I smell jasmine from the trellis just under the window: the night should be warmer so the scent of jasmine can herald some promise. The smell of flowers should always be warm, because the first time I smelt gardenia was at a funeral. The body was cold so the smell was stale.

See? Lots of detail in the unwritten words. It is long past midnight now, I had to break off to do all sorts of work and ... stuff. I am going to put this in under Septemeber, because I like temporal upsets (it's like I have my own TARDIS). I would sing if I had a song to sing, but in lieu of singing I shall spare your eardrums and simply say, if they held upper-class twit of the year, someone would claim discrimination. It would be an open event for twits of all socioeconomic dispositions. There's a thought, yes?