Tipping End Over End

In much better spirits since my last post: there's nothing like writing a zombie story in which a stand-in antagonist gets their face ripped off. Husbandly's response was "go zombies", so that should tell you all you need to know about that particular nemesis. Actually writing it was a bit ick, because killing anyone off is fairly disgusting, yet at the same time, I finally had a flow going. I wasn't too concerned about anything other than the word count (it was a uni assignment), and the thing I'm taking a break from sketching out today doesn't currently have one. Yay. Mostly it was just fun. With more than one character to be all anxious about.

Today I should be, guess what, asleep, but why bother? I'll have a bit of a kip this afternoon, that will do. I don't have anything to do for uni until next Monday, then I'm back into two subjects all over again. I don't really want to do two subjects at once - it's draining - but I also don't want to be doing this degree until I'm ready for retirement. No thanks.

And here I have nothing much else to say. I finished reading the Earthsea Quartet, by Ursula Le Guin with much more alacrity than I expected. A Wizard of Earthsea, while good, didn't leave me enthused. Serves me right, that snap judgement, because I loved the other three. I've also gone mad online book shopping, so I have a whole pile of books wending their way to me soon. Including The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. We had a chapter as a reading for a lecture on memes, and I was pleasantly surprised at Dawkins' style. Unlike reading one of my textbooks, which I won't name here, but wow, was it dry. When I put my review up on goodreads, I got a slightly unpleasant surprise reading other people's reviews. Another reviewer considered the text as facile as it included mention of memes, a subject "not of sufficient academic rigour". Eheu.

I find that bizarre. If you're talking about internet memes, which are basically jokes and/or observations, I'd agree, but memes encompass cultural units: how to eat, how to cook, what to cook*, clothing, and much more besides. Maybe I'm being a bit too egalitarian (I certainly am about what constitutes "literature"), but I don't see the point in being particularly snobbish about (relatively) new ideas.

*I guarantee, if you're the cook in your household, there will be some things you do because you learnt to do it that way, and clearly I'm eating my lunch as I type this. The best story I ever heard was about three generations of women who would cut one corner off their legs of lamb before roasting. Going back to Grandma it was discovered that she did it because her roasting pan was a bit small. Her daughter and grand-daughter did because that's what she did.

Anyway, I want to get back to my planning, and my lunch, so this is me, signing orf.

Have a lovely day. May all of your antagonists have their faces metaphorically ripped off.

A Strong Drink and a Peer Group

Adventure! Thrills! Escapes!

Or rather, not really, but you try making fixing-the-screw-on-my-glasses-and-putting-the-lens-back-in sound interesting.

It has been a thoughtful week rather than an hilarious one. I still love my haircut, my wrist is giving me no end of gyp and small lad knows how to make microwave popcorn. None of those things led to any particular thoughts, but I have thought to mention them.

I got told by an orderly that he wasn't "...paid enough to be pleasant." Eheu. When he said it, it gave me some pause, but I could see his point. Orderlies aren't paid well. Certainly not considering they get vomited on, abused and, being the low men (and occasionally women) on the totem pole of hospital hierarchy, are ordered around, and often not nicely.

On top of this, several times this week* there has been this dialogue:

Me: Here we are again, how are you?
Other: Back to the shithole. It's not too bad ... yet.
Me: Well, you don't want to peak too soon.

And then I run away to my little lab. (*This "week" started for me last Friday, apologies for any temporal confusions.)

Granted, I've started liking my job again - I don't have to read the procedures manual every time I get something that isn't the routine get specimen/process it/put everything away, I've gotten more things right than wrong (I wasn't getting that much wrong, but I hate making mistakes) - and I have my time off, deliriously filled with things like housework, it's true, but compared to the life I was living eight months ago, it is marvellous.

That said, I would much rather be writing for a living (despite all of my current and ridiculously* crushing doubts about my ability to do that); still, the food is on the table, the roof is over our heads and we're all, pretty much, okay.

My advantage, I suppose, is that I work alone and therefore can ignore any and all politics, peccadilloes and people, if I so choose. So long as my work is done, nothing else really matters. (Others might argue with that, and they can if they like, I'll probably ignore it.)

It is a huge relief to not worry about what's been said today, asked what I'm doing (in tones of I must be doing it wrong) or having too much to do and no time to do it in. I (finally!) have my right head on about that. I have as much as I need and time left over for reading books, watching movies and possibly running away to Queensland for a couple of days in the school holidays with small lad (husbandly too if he can manage it). I believe people call it perspective. Mine's changed. Nice.

That was a fairly marvellous digression, and I'm still not even close to what I started out to say, but bear with me, will you? I might just get there and try for witty along the way.

*It's ridiculously crushing. Ridiculously. While I'm getting things into perspective, it occurred to me that I'm reading real writers' (!!!) work and immediately comparing it to what I'm managing (zilch, currently). Of course I'm nowhere near it. Der. Once again I'm trying to run before I can even turn over on to my belly. (Side note in the middle of all of these side notes - the family do last weekend involved lots of babies and smaller children than small lad; I was pleasantly reminded of all the fun things such as vomiting (baby vomit really isn't as bad as it sounds, but it is ubiquitous) and learning to crawl and walk and baby frustration (which resulted in small lad as a small baby looking at me as "Fix it, Mum! You fix everything else!") and turning over and then back again was a big achievement.)

Phew. Back to the point, which I'm sure by now we've all forgotten (but I haven't, I went back and re-read the first couple of paragraphs), the idea that you can be paid enough to be pleasant. It's a poser. In some respects. Bear with me again.

One of the things that used to drive me up the wall (and still would, if I had to put up with it) is the idea that when you're at work it should all handed to you on a plate, particularly when major changes (or even minor ones) are afoot. I can probably explain that best with the comment, "I'm not paid to think." Well you're not paid to breathe either, are you about to crash out all blue?

It's...interesting that people at work have this entitlement attitude - that you should be compensated for civility or effort. The effort part is a no-brainer - if you're paid to do "x" minimums then I suppose, she types doubtfully, the minimums are all you must do. Everything else is an extra, but why you should be ordered to apply yourself when something changes is a source of puzzlement to me. To keep doing your job you have to absorb the changes and adapt to them. As Sue Kaufman put it, "...Change is Growth and Growth is Life, which makes a pretty neat equation." In more ways than one. With this is mind, should you only develop outside of work? Should your personality only be formed away from the job? Only be affected by the people you meet?

I've certainly found the people I deal with professionally (i.e., outside of friends in the workplace) instructive in how to live in ways that friends are not. Which brings me back around to civility. One of the great liberators for me was the realisation that most people don't get out of bed in the morning to make anyone else's life difficult. Those who do usually have something else going on, and they're still in the minority. Hmm. So if I've got someone unpleasant on the phone or in person, they're either unpleasant themselves (more on that in a minute) or something has happened before the phone call, incident or conversation.

Unpleasant people, character disorders and total effing nutbags are usually more to be pitied than hated. Or perhaps empathised with. Can you imagine having to live you life constantly on guard? Constantly having to fight nearly everyone you meet because you think that's the way to live? To always be angry?

I've spent a lot of time angry, nearly all my life. Considering that start I got (in short, nasty - is it enough to say I was a foster kid? Well, I hope so, because I don't feel like getting into it), it isn't surprising about the anger. Having said that, my dearest wish is to be at peace. To not be angry; so I find myself, confronted with angry people, upset people, wanting to make them feel better, or at least less worse.

I'm certainly not paid for that - but I choose to live the way I want to rather than dictated to by a paycheck. And there's the logic fail in the attitude. If you're not paid to be anything other than the bare minimum in your duties, aren't you ceding your power (to choose, to live, to be) to your job?

As far as empathy and/or sympathy goes, it's somewhat off-putting that there are people who might read this and assume I'm fooling myself, since I fell down (In their opinion) so spectacularly when confronted with someone in genuine need. This blog probably isn't the place to start - or at least not in this entry. We can disagree on what the genuine need was, when balanced against the needs of the job and the ridiculous lying that was going on (nice and intriguing?). And for the moment I'm leaving it at that.

Some personality wobbles are fascinating, and not in the sense of looking at a new bug, although any reading this may think I'm having a shot, I'm really not. I have my moments of shit too. Anyway.

Most of the time I find people hugely entertaining; exuberantly laughing my way through my days is how I prefer it. Even crazy eyes (a subspecies of nutbag - always defensive, always have a scapegoat and often dud themselves) are wondrous in the way their minds work.

Ah-ha. Finally I come to the point. People are fabulous. Even the repugnant ones. Because after all they're just trying to get through too; first do no harm is my ethic. I could go on for pages about how fantastic, how awesome people are, just being themselves, but I'll bog down in sentiment (more than there is already?) and I'd like to pass and leave it at that.
    
"What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god!"

That'll do for now. Peer group? What's that?

Frog Takes On Lawnmower

I have an urge to run and hide this morning. I have lovely coffee-spill decoration drops down the front of my shirt. It might have been better if I'd kept to my old bad habits of wearing a lab gown everywhere, but no, I try to stay gown free on the eating and the drinking. I try to stay gown-free most of the night anyway, because the petticoats just get in the way and pants are just so practical.

I blame the shirt. It's one that has mysterious stains. (Food-related mysterious stains, not- oh never mind). I wash and scrub, until my washing machine starts chugging, iron the shirt and fail to notice the mark right between the boobies. I'm hardly likely to scrub until my fingers bleed, I don't have a washboard and I'm too big a girl for that sort of thing.

Despite appearances to the contrary, I haven't been at the alcohol swabs, unless someone wants to make me an offer.

Yesterday morning (which is still this morning to me, welcome to the disorientation of twelve-hour night shifts) I took forty minutes longer to get home than I should have. Because to wanted to...SING! So I did. Forty minutes of singing at the top of my lungs, with a wind down listening to Vivaldi. Great way to relax. Tell your friends.

Unfortunately tonight/{this} morning my voice is heading towards crackville (not Crackville, in California; only drug addicts go there). I may have the small lad's lurgy, but before the hypochondria sets in, I'll assume it's overdoing the singing.

I have the attention span of an ADD squirrel. Or a dog distracted by a squirrel while trying to get it to fetch the stick, boy, go on! It's a problem and not one to explore at four in the morning, unless I really have been at the alcohol swabs (or much more likely alcoholic facsimile from a pretty glass bottle in a special shot glass); small bananas compared to solving all of the world's problems (this should only ever be undertaken while mellow and under the influence). Two o'clock is the best time really, particularly if beer has been consumed, but let's make do.

Or we could all be kind to each other, all the time, or most thereof, but apparently not.

Oh, terrific mood, thy name is me. I had a phone call earlier, the kind where I hung up the phone and said, "And when you've finished being unpleasant, perhaps we could get on with it." Because everyone else "just does it" (no they don't), and I wouldn't. Blood Bank! Mad with power! Arbitrary rules just to shit you! Yes, you in particular! Patient safety doesn't enter into it!

So much for leaving work at work. No, wait, I am at work, so that's all right.

SQUIRREL!

As much as I like the movie Up!, the dead squirrel joke isn't much chop for very literal little people (like alliteration? Me too!). "It is funny because the squirrel is dead." and it is, for the grownups; mystifying for littlies.

For anyone who hasn't seen the movie, skip the squirrel, dog and random exclamations. If you want.

If you don't, go watch it. It's a great movie though strangley not as beautiful as Wall-E. Back to Up!, the only part that puzzles me is the bad guy. In the commentary it was said that the writers tried not to make the bad guy intrinsically evil. The odd part is the bad guy takes the prize in the Pixar universe for "Most Evil (and Believable) Villain". He's adult, ugly and twisted, and creation of talking dogs (!!!) notwithstanding, one of the most reprehensible characters in a kid's movie.

The other bone I have to pick with Up!, and since I've started I may as well, is the talking dogs. Talking dogs! Really! I want one! I want all of the dogs I have ever owned to be talking dogs! Every dog person who saw the movie (especially the lines "Can we keep him?" "No." "But he's a TALKING DOG!!" and the very well-animated Kevin's body language on the "TALKING DOG!!") wants one! Sometimes when I'm not thinking about anything, I think about how much I want a talking dog! Ever since watching this movie! Do something about that, would you?

I wish I were a rich man, ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum, all day long I'd sit on my bum, if I were a wealthy man.

Then again, I'm not sure I want to commit to the sex change.

Today is my birthday. Thank you for all the good wishes. I have no plans to do anything. Other than the ironing, I'm catching up. Finally I have myself slightly organised, while outside my windows zombies smear icky things and mumble about brains. They don't want mine, apparently it induces fits. I'll be safe come the end of the world then.

I meant to be serious there, not quite sure what happened. Just think, you too could be this mental...just...errr...maybe not. I was going to blame something, but it's much more fun to assume I'm a nutbag. Better than being a peanut (as in size of brain equals, for those who don't geddit, geddit?).

Lawnmowers: one. Frogs: a blood-smeared and speckled zero.

In Lieu of the Spew

It hasn't been an eventful few weeks.

The bathroom proceeds apace - we have tiles on the walls only wanting grout and before too much longer we will be able to enjoy the luxury of a shower without running the gauntlet from the backdoor to the shed. With barely any clothes on.

It's three a.m. in the neighbourhood and Jim has given up cardigans for cowboy boots and blue paint. In odd positions.

At home I am re-reading some of the In Death series by J.D. Robb (also known as Nora Roberts); at work I've been re-watching True Blood, Serenity and Resident Evil Extinction (Even More Gross Things Invented For Arse-Kicking By Teenage Boys). Of the three, Serenity is still my favourite.

It's three-oh-five a.m. at the airport and the cleaners are getting restless; the poker game has turned strip and no-one wants to see Big Matty naked.

The new job is going swimmingly, if I do say so myself, month three and no-one has run screaming from the room. I keep having to adjust to the idea that I'm on the ground floor. This morning when I went to leave I was thinking about having to wait for the lift. Which is odd, because when I went in to work I was thinking about how much more stuff I was taking with me these days. I can park just outside the lab - less than a minute to walk in and I'm carrying an arsenal of entertainments.

It's three-ten a.m. in the backyard and the hidden vodka has leaked into the soil.

I've signed up for a creative writing course again. This time it's through the Sydney Writer's Centre and it's online, so I am really looking forward to it. Now that I have decent sleep patterns (if not terrific - after all I am still working night shifts), I may be able to front up without falling asleep at the desk. And since I'll be at home it won't matter if I drool.

It's three-fifteen a.m. at the petrol station and the drunk man weaving along the driveway has started reciting "Do No Go Gentle Into That Good Night" flawlessly. His audience consists of a flatulent cockroach, a chip packet and fourteen cigarette butts.

I always thought the sonnet was my favourite form of poetry until I met the villanelle; having the form and its rigid structure explained by someone who knows their poetry was just icing (Mark Treddinick).

It's three-twenty a.m. in the Botanical Gardens and the vicious plant wars shower green stalks across the paths; by morning they will have dried up so their human servants will never know.

I had a plan to simply vent and vomit about some issues I've been having. Not necessarily in this blog, you understand, just to let some of it out. Instead of making myself miserable I had a chat to one of the lovelies here at work and came back thinking about a blog entry instead. So here I am. Even better that the 3G is now working again on my iPad. It was a bummer without it, especially when I was trying to finish crosswords.

It's three-twenty-five a.m. in the kebab shop and the chillies have invaded the chickpeas; they've had problems ever since the hilariously-shaped felafel became pride of place over the counter, displacing a jalapeño.

The rest of my plan for this morning (aside from the doing of work and the completing of aforementioned crosswords) is to build a fort from the empty boxes from Red Cross. Donate blood today! It's all in a good cause.

It's three-thirty a.m. in the warehouse and Big Matty is wishing he could remember where the airport, his left shoe and his underwear went. His trousers, shirt and right shoe are right where he left them.

Thank you, and good night. It's been a ripping good fun half-hour.