Milchfrömmler

dear mum,

2010-05-09T09:46:00.002+08:00

First of all Happy Mother's Day. I hope you're having fun in South Australia.

Today is also laundry day. You know, washing clothes, nothing to wear.

But luckily for me you left a cardigan on the airer. Yoink. Thanks Mum.

So thanks for your love, your ranting and (most importantly at the present moment) your wardrobe.

Love,

Jess

ow.

2010-05-01T18:24:00.002+08:00

Of all the places I expected to be at 7:30 on a Saturday morning, the emergency department wasn't all that high on the list.

Bed? Yes.

Making a coffee? Yes.

Emergency department? No.

The excruciating pain woke me up; just above the right hip and spreading out in every which direction from there.

It reduced me to a whimpering, sobbing mess.

So off to the hospital we went. In my pyjamas.

The pain was still taking my breath away so I entered the world of ill-fitting hospital gowns and identity bracelets.

They had to take my blood and they wanted to put a line in just in case hard core intravenous painkillers were the order of the day.

Yep. Cannulas.

They hurt. Like some kind of words that would thrust this blog into MA 15+ territory.

And that was the first time they tried.

Two hands and one wrist later, I was sporting a cannula. Out the side of my wrist.

The pain subsided, much to my relief.

Mum was sitting at my bedside wanting to take photos of me in an ill-fitting hospital gown.

I know, not exactly happy snap time.

So I said a potentially inappropriate joke: 'Hey look, I'm Jesus!' Holding up my hands with the two round band aids over failed cannula attempts.

She giggled. Dad looked at us funny.

If I could crack jokes, I was well enough to go, so I left the hospital with 20 minutes to spare to get to my travelography course.

I made it on time, looking like I'd just done a runner from a hospital.

Just call me Speed Racer.

token lady...

2010-04-30T18:25:00.004+08:00

...or beer bitch as one colleague endearingly named me.

Every Friday (well, most Fridays) six of us gather together and drink beer at midday. In full few of colleagues and those poor souls in the newsroom who shake their heads disparagingly and try to shield their envy, we drink.

The ritual's been going on for nigh on a year.

One of us will get impatient. Or thirsty. So they grab the box of pilsner glasses and head towards the common area.

Then we wait until the quorum has gathered, introduce the guest star (rarely are all six foundation members there on any given Friday), make the obligatory Love Boat joke at the guest star and wait for the reveal.

There has to be a reason for the beer at hand. Or it has to be a very good beer.

The reveal is the best bit. It's kind of like a beery version of Toastmasters. It forces you to convince the others that the beer before them is something awesome to behold. Or else you have to tell a bloody good story to back it up.

We've had all kinds of beer. Japanese beer made in Canada, two cartons worth of English beers, your usual Belgian or German suspects.

We've also had home brew and Emu Export, but we only talk about that when we want to dish out some shtick.

And I am the token girl. Sitting amongst some of the funniest, Irish-est, drunkest, interesting blokes you'll know. Some of the time I wish they'd shut up about the bloody cricket (thank goodness the season's over) and other times I laugh so hard at their anecdotes, impersonations and views that I quite literally cry.

We are the envy of the office.

So much some envious women have formed a wine club.

But they don't have a token guy.

unintelligible grunt

2010-04-29T22:07:00.002+08:00

Here's the bit where I should have something profound to say.

But I don't.

All profundity decided to walk away for the day. They called it a profound strike.

So... I'm just writing shit instead.

In other news, I still haven't lost the touch with grabbing an old book with random photographs from the second hand bookshop and making a corker party invitation.

Just you wait... This one? Spectacular.

Who needs facebook events when you can have one of my lovingly handcrafted invites.

on my mind

2010-04-28T20:05:00.003+08:00

I'm trying to get on a bit of a blogging kick. See if I can blog once a day (trust me, you don't need anymore than a once-a-day insight into my mind)

But here's some lolz from today.

1. I appeared in a colleague's dream.
In their dream, I was also spending a day a week working as a doctor. Apparently it's the best kind of moonlighting. I was a nice doctor for the record. Trust me, I'm a doctor (in your dreams)

But then, after the program (yes, we've shifted to real life) she came over and pointed to her eye and frowned. I was on the phone. As soon as I got off the phone, I asked what was wrong with her eye. She said it was puffy. I said, "You've got a stye, rub your eye with a gold ring." She asked me if I ever had any aspirations to study medicine.

So yeah... I just spent too many words on describing someone's dream (and real life). Moving right along....

2. Everyone loves my soup

I make chicken vegetable noodle soup that dreams are made of. That sentence doesn't really make sense and I don't care. It's that delicious.

3. Jane Austen, much like Charles Dickens is not that easy to read.
I find I need to devote my entire attention span to the very old syntax and the pussyfooting around things. Take for example in Persuasion, where Sir Uptight Conceited Father runs out of money because he's been too extravagant. Miss Austen takes five pages to explain in very convoluted 1800s terms that he must mortgage his home and rent it out in order to continue his cashed up lifestyle. Oh the shame! Just goes to show the GFC is not a new concept.

4. Dad was watching a Bon Jovi concert on Foxtel.
That fact disturbs me greatly.

5. Things you must investigate post haste.

In no particular order: QI, why Stephen Fry has lost so much weight of late, Turkey, Istanbul, Cappadocia, microstoven dishes, why I buy kitchenware when I'll be leaving the country in a month and, The Swell Season.

run

2010-04-27T22:24:00.002+08:00

You know it's time to leave Perth when:

You become Facebook friends with someone and there's that 0.333 degrees of separation that only the most isolated capital city in the world can deliver.

You can't even get a head start on shaping your own notoriety because somebody who worked with somebody who went to uni with someone you went to high school with knows you and has already told all the daggy stories they can about you.

That is more or less a perfect example of how Perth works.

You just want to back away slowly before the stoic, parochial... who am I kidding?... stuff draws you in to stay longer and longer.

Until you're stuck.

Yep, that was just a great advertisement for WA: "We rock! And you should think so too..."

You know it's time to leave Perth when you realise you need to fashion a flow chart to show how you know everyone... or more importantly how everyone knows you.

Flow chart.

Coming soon...

You know it's time to leave Perth when... you want to be you. Not known as somebody's child, grandchild, sibling, niece or nephew, 2nd best friend twice removed.

(Don't get me wrong, identity is a great thing and you're inevitably, irrevocably shaped by family and friends)

There is that liberation in knowing that no-one knows of the university or high school you went to or the suburb you live in.

Nor do they care.

They want you to bring your A-game in humanity, be the best you that you can possibly be, show them you're more than just the pigeonholes yourself and others have slotted yourself in.

Yes please.

practice

2010-04-26T15:26:00.002+08:00

"Excuse me, can I take a photo of you?"

There was joy in my household this weekend as my new camera arrived in the mail on Friday.

This camera is long awaited, so too its new lens and plain betterness.

I've been reading up on travel photography, trying to get my head around all the elements I need to keep in mind to take that superhero photo I keep banging on about.

One thing I really want to do well as far as travel photography is concerned are portraits.

The good book says it's important to treat the portrait subject with respect, ask before taking their photo, all those nice things you should do.

I was putting the camera through its paces in Freo's West End, taking some architectural detail photos amongst the wedding parties in stretch hummers having their bogan wedding portraits.

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I spotted someone dressed as a ghoul. In my head, I tried to figure out when Halloween was. Certainly not late April.

But the closer the man in the long black cloak came, the more I realised his was an Aboriginal performer, face painted with yellow and white, didge slung over his back.

I thought I'd bite the bullet, obey the good book, ask permission to take this guy's photo.

Smaller than me, with a killer swagger, he walked over to a bench and flung his coat off to reveal a chest painted much like his face.

He smelled like a combination of hard liquor, sweat and in short: a rough night.

"I just walked past that wedding party, I wished them the best of luck.

"I might go back and play them a tune while they have their photos taken."

Somehow the conversation with turned to his own love life.

He told of women who had run around behind his back.

"Yeah, the next time I find a woman, I'm gonna spear her I reckon."

That's one way to pin her down... I said, fully aware of the pun.

A peal of laughter erupted from him. He thought it was the funniest thing ever.

He then turned serious again.

"They reckon I might have a kid from one of those old missus.

"My brother saw her with this kid in the pram and he said it looked exactly like me!"

He then deliberated as to whether he really wanted to know whether the kid was his or not.

Well you'll know whether the kid is yours or not if he has a beard, I said, pointing to the beard protruding from his white and yellow face.

"A baby with a beard!" he roared with laughter. This really could be the funniest thing he'd heard all day.

"You don't have any smokes do you?"

I shrugged my shoulders, Nope, I don't smoke. Sorry.

He wandered off talking about heading back to the wedding photography session.

But not before shaking my hand.

Sometimes it's not about getting the photo that makes photography a good experience.

how to solve a cryptic crossword

2010-04-25T12:14:00.002+08:00

I was cranky yesterday afternoon.

Somehow I had missed the memo ordering all Sunday drivers to be especially aggravating on a Saturday.

Traffic was shit, shop service was bad. Welcome to Perth, where time stands still and so too do her inhabitants.

After letting out an unintelligible war cry of rage, I drove to Granma and Granpa's place, where tea and an assorted tray of biscuits are a must. Especially squashed fly biscuits.

At Granma and Granpa's you rarely need to knock on the door. Granma has already shuffled over to the door and greeted you with some witticism or another.

But today she was quiet as she opened the door carefully.

"Ssh..." she whispered, "the baby's asleep,".

The baby is her 86 year old husband taking a snooze on the sheepskin-covered couch.

We're relegated to the bedroom lest I hear his snoring.

We can leave the bedroom at 3pm and have the legendary tea and biscuits. Until then, I am regaled with stories of why my great uncle has a stutter (Freak gliding accident, apparently).

"What's the time?" she asks.

I hold my watch out to see it's three o'clock on the dot. Time to wake Granpa.

During tea and biscuits Granpa normally stays quiet. He's the strong, silent type. The still waters run deep type. He's also rather deaf.

But this time he would pipe up every so often from behind his cryptic crossword.

"Granpa does the cryptic crossword every day," says Granma. Speaking for him is her norm.

"It's not as hard as normal crosswords," rasps Granpa (he always sounds raspy, as though he hasn't spoken for a while when he talks) "you get two clues put together in the cryptic crossword."

Fair call, I thought but those two clues are still tricky.

"The LB one in the Sunday Times is the trickiest," he said.

"To complete the LB you need a thesaurus, a good atlas, the complete works of Shakespeare, a Bible and an encyclopaedia."

That explained the bottom shelf of the bookshelf. There they all were.

He read out a clue in the latest cryptic crossword.

"Book coming my way?" he asked.

Granma and I looked over at each other and shrugged.

"Tome!" he said brightly in a self-satisfied tone.

There were chuckles all around as we laughed at the dad jokeishness of it all.

"He's so clever," said Granma half taking the mickey, half complete adoration for her husband of 60-odd years.

Granpa got up.

"Oh, it's four o'clock already is it?" asked Granma, "I thought you had a shower yesterday."

"No..." was his reply.

Granma reached over to his shelf where he keeps his Columbines, crosswords and a calendar, it would appear.

She showed it to me. Every second day was highlighted yellow. Shower day. Every other yellowed day had a C for clean clothes, others had a H for washing his hair. He had his hygienic routine mapped out until August.

We chuckled and thought about the prospect of highlighting a square one day out.

Granpa returned from his shower and had a bit more of a chat just before 5 o'clock. Or bowls o'clock as it would happen to be.

Today I bought the Sunday Times. I'm going to give the LB a crack.

Just to see how I go.

dear icelandic volcano

2010-04-20T19:02:00.003+08:00

Yes, that's right, I'm one of millions, or even perhaps billions who cannot pronounce your name properly, let alone spell it.

So sorry, I could try and say it, but I'm fairly certain I'd make a mockery of the Icelandic language. And the voice of the Swedish Chef.

Anyway, where was I?

Yes.

Dear Icelandic volcano,

I know you're cranky and you're spewing stuff into the air. It's your moment in the sun, you're stealing the spotlight in the international media. And you're teaching people a few things:

a) Always have a plan B, C, D, or all the way through V.
b) Never travel farther than you can afford a taxi fare back to your humble abode.
c) Not to be so precocious as to assume you can just fly somewhere. Commercial aviation is relatively young.
d) You cannot ever make airport terminal chairs comfortable. Nor can you make them into beds.

Ok, so we've established that you've given us a few timely reminders. Lesson learnt.

Now can you please, please, please it a rest in ooh... a month at the most? I have a plane to catch.

K thx bye,

Jess.

PS. Will ask SCOSE how to say your name. They will know.
PPS. Do you have a nickname? That may be easier.

high achievers' five year plan

2010-04-18T21:37:00.003+08:00

Wow. 25.

Quarterlife. Didn't that sneak up upon us?

Anyhoo. After quite a high-achieving quarter century, I thought it only fair that I set a few goals for the next five years.

1. Have a tropical cyclone or police operation named after me

Let's face it - doesn't the phrase, "The category five Severe Tropical Cyclone Jessamy is bearing down upon the Pilbara Coast" have a rather nice ring to it? So too does, "WA Police are busily working on Operation Jessamy - the fight against underage tomfoolery."

2. Be a publisher, not a just published.

Yep, Editor-in-chief or Editor-at-large sounds awesome.

3. Fill a passport with stamps and visas

Let's be conservative and aim for 20 stamp or visas. I'm already going to make a nice dent in that one. The mid-level ultimate? Russia. Just because it's a pain in the arse to get one

4. Learn how to do something really culinary.

Blend some wine, brew some beer, make some cheese, roast coffee beans. I would love to be able to make something really awesome.

5. Take a superhero photograph

Not just a good photo, nor a great one. Not even an awesome photograph. I'm talking about the photograph. The one that gets published in Lonely Planet, National Geographic. The superhero photo. Yes, please.

looking good...

2010-04-17T14:41:00.002+08:00

Dear Pharmacy,

I am so glad I decided to get my passport photos redone with you.

As a result I look hot on my UK working visa. Absolutely awesome.

Australia Post, you can keep your ugly filter, it is no longer required.

Jess.

PS. This is my 900th post. It's only taken five or six years. Good things take time.

dear bumface,

2010-04-09T23:22:00.002+08:00

RE: interesting developments.

So... let's talk in cryptic crossword speak.

You're potentially at a crossroads. You've seen similar crossroads before.

No biggie, hey?

Except you're not so sure. Really not sure. Both options are equally enticing.

You want my opinion. I think that's dangerous. Not because I'm biased ( I am), not because I have an agenda ( I don't). But mostly because it is your decision. Not mine.

May I stop and give you one piece of advice? Do not listen to your head. Your head is far too rational on either side of the equation. The cartoon angels and devils have veritable field days and you're left without any clue or any calm. A tougher deliberation awaits when you listen to your head.

Do not listen to your heart. It is irrational, flippant, useless in times like these. It is not a matter for your heart to decide.

No, go with your gut. Go with what feels right. More importantly go with what feels right for right now. Not ten years down then track. Ten years time will sort itself out in precisely that time frame.

From my experience, real piece of mind comes from going with your gut.

the ugly filter

2010-04-06T18:50:00.002+08:00

Dear Australia Post and Polaroid,

Do you or do you not fit your passport photo cameras with an ugly filter?

I need to know it isn't just me.

Normally my face isn't so fat, my skin so blergh and the overall tone so... '80s?

I could go so far as saying these passport photos are far outweigh the badness that is drivers licence photos. In fact, they must list photographic skill as a prerequisite for jobs at the WA Department of Transport.

This isn't the first time, Australia Post and I fear it won't be the last.

Please, please rectify this, I swear your camera is broken, not me.

In the meantime, I may take my pretty little face in front of a camera without an ugly filter.

Yours in disgruntledness,

Jess

the overwhelmingly sad beauty

2010-03-21T21:30:00.002+08:00

This evening I saw the single most beautiful and sad thing ever.

It was twenty past six, I was at Mosman Beach. It's a Sunday thing - walk on the dog beach, lose myself in my own solitude. It works.

I always knew we were blessed to live in Western Australia for one thing: beach sunsets.

And I try not to take them for granted.

This evening's was perfect. I honestly cannot recall seeing anything more perfect.

There was a clear view to Rottnest Island, or at least its silhouette, among those of ships along Gage Roads.

The sun was tracking its last ten or so minutes into the ocean and there were just enough clouds to make spectacular reds, yellows, oranges and purples of every shade imaginable.

To the left there were the lights of Fremantle's inner harbour, the twinkling beacons of cranes, cranes and more cranes. It was eerily beautiful bathed in the greenish yellow shades the lighter cloud cover to the south was giving off.

And then to my right a storm was brewing further up the coast. The looming thunderclouds didn't know whether they purple or dark, dark grey. But every so often the sky would light up as the electricity couldn't contain itself any longer.

And there I was in amongst it, sand between my toes with nothing but my car keys in my pocket and my thongs in one hand. It wasn't hot, nor was it cold. There was a light breeze, but not enough to make one look windswept. Everything was right.

My reaction?

I started crying.

I honestly can't tell you why I was crying - it could have been because it was so epically beautiful, to the point of overwhelmingly beautiful

It could have also been that something so beautiful is meant to be shared. It was an amazing moment; something I'll never forget. But it will also be something I'll never be able to turn to someone and say, "Hey, remember that sunset? The one with the thunderstorm that eclipsed every other sunset?"

And that in itself was so, so sad.

panic stations

2010-03-14T15:07:00.003+08:00

Yesterday morning I was on the verge of a panic attack.

That in and of itself is concerning, I haven't had a panic attack for a good 20 months. I thought I'd gotten past the panic and anxiety.

It's another reminder that I'm very human, very vulnerable. Perhaps you're never quite cured of your demons. Wherever you go, there you are. You're no different and no less susceptible because you've moved on - both in time and place and mental position.

What made this panic attack even stranger, potentially more concerning?

I was having a panic attack in my sleep.

As vivid as losing a tooth in a dream is, so too is having a panic attack. Just as you feel the gums and the gap in your 'losing a tooth' dream, so too do you feel the instant your stomach plummets, your head spins and your thoughts become irrationally worst case scenario. It's very real, very raw, very scary.

And I can understand why I had the dream. I am simultaneously excited and petrified about my plans.

I need to relearn the tools to keep the panic attacks in dream land and not in real life. Just another thing to add to the to-do list.

drought

2010-03-12T18:54:00.003+08:00

I cannot remember the last time I needed an umbrella.

I know it's been the better part of three months.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the last time I needed an umbrella I probably would have disregarded that need and dashed wherever I needed to go. It was probably 5.45am, I needed to fetch the paper, or hop in my car. Rain makes my hair frizzy - care factor?

But it's been such a long, long time.

In the time the Thornlie tree man has been perched on a limb, staging his protest, it has not rained once.

In that time, cyclones have lashed the North West coast, and a bushfire has caused immeasurable heartache. But still - no rain here in Perth.

Christmas, New Year's, Australia Day, Labour Day, parties, road trips, heartache, work, work, work and other stuff in between. No rain.

Since it last rained, the good stuff in life has diminished rather than flourished.

And I know I shouldn't whinge, there are people facing harder things than I am, that have faced harder things than I have, that will face harder things than I could ever imagine.

But the fact remains: No rain = bad juju.

I have even left Perth for little chunks of time. Went to Canberra - no rain, hot weather. Went to Adelaide - no rain, hot weather, a pair of pandas. I wouldn't know rain if it slapped me in the face.

The only sniff of rain I've had is a song called The Rain - it's Aussie hip-hop, don't hate...

It teases with its lyrics: Hush child from the joy to the pain, it'll all wash away in the rain.

And that's it. I don't need rain because it's wet. I need rain because I need it to all be washed away.

So hush child, from the joy to the pain it'll all wash away in the rain.

le sigh

2010-03-06T16:03:00.002+08:00

I have a Hens Night to go to in just under an hour and a half.

And to tell you the truth, I cannot be arsed going.

I can never be bothered with them. In the past year, I have been to massive three hens nights, four kitchen teas and I'm sure my brain cannot remember additional pre-marital girly fests.

I don't like them.

I don't like the giggles, the lame 'how well does the bride know the groom' quiz, the penis paraphernalia (unless you can prank someone with it in the days following)and in some cases, the inevitable male stripper. Don't get me started on how tacky the male stripper thing is. I have one thing to say before I move on: a shaved scrotum is not cool. Not now, not ever.

My hate is simple: my friends never do this in our everyday, week-to-week friendship existence. Why start with the sleazy stuff now, as if to salute our soon-to-be hitched friend off with one last nod to being a single lady? Why do it in a way we never acted in the first place?

And as for kitchen teas - they're cute. Outdated but cute. I hate the 'identify the spices game'. I feel mildly awkward as two or three generations of women collide. But it's nice. And let's face it - it's always funny when Nanna makes a somewhat inappropriate remark. Plus, I love buying bakeware for my friends. It is also the only way they will ever get my banoffee pie recipe.

Please, please don't read any of this the wrong way. This isn't a feminist rant. I wouldn't call myself feminist. I am just me, trying to be the best me I possibly can be. But I think we should act authentically rather than act to some lame, two-and-a-half star American rom-com prescription of what a hens night should be.

And again, don't regard me as jealous of my engaged/married friends. In the land of ifs and/or whens I would hate my own hens night as much as anyone else's.

So here I am, an hour and a quarter before a close friend's hens night. I love her to death and I'm going because it should be fun (and did I mention I love her to death?). But I'm not looking forward to it; I have my early escape plan hatched.

I'll try not to roll my eyes.

Stop wine-ing

2010-03-02T16:19:00.003+08:00

It's March.

Yes, how time flies, blah, blah, blah.

March for me will be all about giving up one of my great loves - wine.

Why wine?

Well quite simply, when I drink wine I don't know when to stop. When I drink beer or anything else, there are warning signs when it goes a little too far.

And I don't have a cute name for this endeavour. Mostly because March is tricky to make cute.

Also because 'stop wine-ing' is self explanitory, also it's a nod to Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop.

So if you see me reaching for a glass of red this month, please, please tell me to 'Stop wine-ing'.

When I told some of my friends about this last night, they said April has to be, "It's not a Tuna' month.

Fair call, no tuna sandwiches during April.

but... i still like you

2010-02-24T16:33:00.003+08:00

Every time the three year old comes around I make her a babycino (or a chino) as she calls it. She makes sure I put a 'sweetheart' of chocolate powder on top.

It sounds like I'm a nice, caring aunty but really I'm just getting rid of the extra milk that I steamed up for my own coffee.

She always asks for a spoon, or a 'poon' as she calls it. She's three years old, hardly time to be calling in the speech therapists. I always say no. Tell her drink it like a big girl. She whinges to some other adult who gives in to her every whim and gets her a spoon from the cutlery drawer.

And when given a 'poon' to drink her chino, she inevitably makes a big mess. Every single time, without fail.

The last time she made a mess, her mum scolded her. And what did she come back with?

"But... I still like you."

You see, she must have cracked the sads the last time she was told off by an adult who told her that they still like her, but she can't keep being naughty.

She thought it would work in the reverse, it might get her out of trouble if she said that when she got told off.

The truth of the matter is that she will always make a mess. She will always get told off until she learns and her Aunty Jess will always make her chinos.

And yes, I will still like her. And she will still like me. And nothing will really change that

And that's life, right?

We adults are so much like children but as our language becomes more sophisticated we begin to shadow what we really mean. Nothing changes to the way we treat each other but our words.

little by little

2010-02-21T21:34:00.003+08:00

otherwise known as the post where I realise I'm not batshit insane.

I'm reading I book about writing at the moment. Yeah, the irony of reading a 250ish page book about writing certainly isn't lost on me; why read about writing when you could just right?

But I am and it's inspirational. It's called Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and it's not your standard here's some traditional stuff about what plot is and then what character is.

Although it's littered with early '90s references, I feel as those she's describing my procrastination, my unrealistic thoughts and more importantly she talks about Radio Station KFKD - or K-Fucked as the case may be. The theory is that this station messes with your head in stereo. One channel is telling you you're awesome, amazing and the best ever. Meanwhile exactly at the same time the other channel is saying you're crap, you can't do it and it won't work. Whatever 'it' is.

And it's more than mildly disruptive to the writing process, to the anything process.

I couldn't paint such a vivid picture of this as Anne Lamott has - but this is exactly what has happened with anything in my professional life over the past five or so years.

Like I said earlier, it's good to know I'm not batshit insane.

She says to switch of KFKD, you have to take a deep breath - funny how the difficult things are often answered so obviously.

So that's my aim - take a deep breath, turn off KFKD and get into it. Whatever it takes to get going.

from the file marked 'tired and emotional'

2010-02-19T19:19:00.003+08:00

Maybe I'm overtired, maybe I'm just thinking about life too much.

Maybe I should really stop saying maybe so freaking much.

I tend to preface my speech with, "I don't know..." and "Maybe...". There's hesitation there because I could not possibly be more definite about what's to follow , whether it's professional or personal - but I'm scared to be so definite. When I say either of those phrases in front of something, you know I really know.

It's a habit, a bad one at that. "I don't know" is my own personal "um"

So what do I know?

* I know that I'm sleep deprived because I'm frustrated with my situation. Refer to the previous post to get the drift.
* I know that caffeine doesn't help. Come 9am, I'm still no more mentally awake than at 6am.
* I know that something's got to give. Something's got to give to make life more rich, more interesting, more fulfilling.
* I know that I make the pasta bake, the tortellini pasta bake with the ricotta and homemade tomato sauce, the one that got so much praise and it still tastes delicious. But the praise isn't there with my culinary audience of les parents. I miss that appreciation. I miss the spirit in which I made it - so joyful. I miss the ahava I threw into it.

The secret ingredient really is ahava.

u ok today?

2010-02-18T16:02:00.002+08:00

My boss texted me to see how I was going. I must have given off that air of sheer frustration.

Truth be told, I was hardly panic stricken. Just busy.

That's how it is right now - busy. As one end of the to-do list dissipates, the other end grows with a vengeance.

It's gotten to the point where people preface their interruptions with "I know you don't want to be bothered but..." One of the most common cries across the office is, "Je-esssssssss". Yes, with the perfect amount of confusion and frustration, my name can have two syllables.

People actually don't envy me; they admire my patience, they certainly don't envy me.

But this is what they pay me money to do.

And I'm left wondering whether this is a temporary thing, or whether this is a permanent state of play.

So am I ok?

In the context of today, yeah. Sure, I'm fine.

In the context of this week, this month - not really.

status

2010-02-14T14:05:00.002+08:00

This weekend I got in the social pages.

It's a weird feeling - odd that someone thought you were wearing the right clothes (if only they knew!) and looked the requisite part of the party (I think 'arty glitterati was how they described the partygoers of this particular event...). And don't get me wrong - it was a great party with great people, great music and an adequate amount of alcohol. I had a blast.

And while it's nice to get your snap in the paper and it's nice having people who can be bothered flicking through the TV guide notice you; it's not exactly the be all and end all.

If my life's work was to end up in the social pages, then let's just say I haven't exactly arrived. Nowhere near. If my CV was made up of social appearances (or even social invitations!), it would be dismal.

But then I think of what really matters. I'd much rather be photographed for being at Lauren's kitchen tea (having an epic long conversation with her grandma), or at Mandy's birthday party (where the music really was abysmal), or at quiet Thursday night drinks at The Stanley (where you can wear what you want). Those are moments that matter, moments where my attendance means something to the people throwing the party. If I weren't there, wasn't invited, I'd be shattered. Absolutely bereft.

So status, parties, pictures in the paper? I can take it or leave it. I'm not being a snob, I just recognise the value that comes from time with real friends, laughing drinking, eating and just being with those I adore.

And I don't need my mug in the paper to remind me how important that is.

again with my propensity to quote dead US presidents

2010-02-09T17:29:00.003+08:00

I tend to inadvertently find awe and inspiration in the words of US presidents who have long since died.

Of course, I know it's not their words, but the words of someone else paid to write them.

But it doesn't really matter who wrote the words, does it? It's what you make of it, where you grasp the inspiration from.

So from the filed marked "Wise words from dead US Presidents('s speech writers)", here's the latest nugget of inspiration courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt. Onya Teddy!

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

I'm about to go on a limb - do something a little risky, a little unknown - and do something I really want to do, something I'm passionate about. Something that gets me back to the very basics of what I've wanted to do in my career - tell stories. Tell stories my way.

But there's fear. The good kind. The kind where it's more nervous energy than crippling anxiety. To quote William Shatner (he hasn't played a US president, has he? He's Canadian, so it almost seems wrong) in one of his spoken words:

"What are you afraid of? Failure? So am I."

Me too, William Shatner, me too.

But I'd rather give my grand plan a crack, than go through life thinking, "I had a good idea way back when."

a definition of serendipity

2010-02-08T18:05:00.003+08:00

She was curling my hair and trying to explain the concept of definition to me.

I don't know about you but someone trying to explain hair terms is kind of like someone trying to physics to me, I just don't get it. I probably never will and I'm fine with that.

The curling was going fine but she felt a propensity to chat - I think hairdressers must have an "Idle Chit Chat" unit in their Certificate IV of Hairdressing course. She started talking about her impatience for things in life.

I told her, "You just have to rely on serendipity."

When she said, "What's serendipity?" I knew I'd used too many syllables.

I'd have to explain myself.

"It's kind of like the opposite of impatience - letting the happy coincidences happen," I began.

Clearly they don't teach them philosophy for beginners at TAFE.

"Oh! I just want the serendipity to happen right now!"

Teaching a hairdresser about serendipity is kind of like teaching journalist about defined curl.

it all started with cheesecake (and words in brackets)...

2010-02-06T13:05:00.004+08:00

I knew there would be good conversations to be had when I randomly bumped into a friend from the retail (probably put me in) therapy days on my way to Medicare.

He was on his way to meet another friend from those halcyon days (read: paid drudgery) in the retail hotbox (yet again read: poorly air conditioned department store office). They were catching up for coffee and "I should come along too."

So I said I would once I sat in line at Medicare for my rebate (I'm still pondering why someone hasn't held up a Medicare branch - they have loads of monies).

On the way back (with monies firmly in my purse) they called to say they were getting coffee from Miss Maud.

"Miss Maud? Do they even do good coffee?" was my typical coffee snob response.

I was skeptical and bought Diet Coke (?! why on earth did I pick a diet soft drink) and a square of cheesecake (yep, that would explain the 'diet').

I pulled the cake tray out of its paper bag and sat down with my friends who were engaging in some gingerbread cannibalism.

I took one bite of my cheesecake and said, "That's a very '90s cheesecake."

Yes, a very '90s cheesecake. You heard (and read) right. And I got very much laughed at for saying so.

That was until I explained myself.

First of all, you may notice I said I had a square of cheesecake - that's a dead giveaway. It was that heavy kind of cheesecake with the thin jelly layer on top and the cream rosette on top.

And then I launched into this rant about how The Golden Girls ate cheesecake at least three times an episode.

Dorothy says, "I'm old and tall and live with my mum who's far cooler than me." To which the others say, "Sit down, I'll grab the cheesecake out of the fridge and we'll talk about it."

Blanche says, "I'm trying to be a cougar way ahead of my time." To which the others say, "Would you like some cheesecake?"

Rose says, "I want to tell you some long-winded nonsensical tale from my Scandinavian-American upbringing." To which the others say, "Here, have some bloody cheesecake."

Cheesecake - the super food of the early '90s.

By the way, your typical '90s cheesecake is a Boston cheesecake.

let's hear it for public transport...

2010-02-01T20:55:00.003+08:00

... if you're travelling off peak.

Ok so reasons why I have a wee little crush on public transport.

1. I get to wake up later. Ok, I lie. My job lets me wake up a little later. Only a little bit.
2. I don't have to worry about spending money on petrol once a week. Especially at the psycho expensive petrol station near work.
3. I get to listen to podcasts. I was listening to a podcast where they briefly mentioned public transport in Paris. They mentioned that they never have posters on the trains there boasting about their on-time record. And then I spotted a posted boasting just that thing on little old Transperth - using bar graphs no less. Bar Graphs! And it didn't even have different coloured bars. (Note to Transperth: next time use Venn diagrams or flow charts. I don't care if they don't represent the data as well, they look hot.)
4. Free parking. And by free parking, I mean free parking with no chance of getting a parking fine from those expletives at the City of Perth. Must pay that parking fine...
5. No utes. I hate, hate, hate tradies in utes on the freeway. Now, for the most part I don't have to deal with them.
6. Extra sleep. If I were tired, I could sleep on the train. Not so driving down the freeway.

Ok, no more train gushing. I'm done.

don't call me lady (just call me jess)

2010-01-28T20:23:00.002+08:00

Oh where do I start?

I like nicknames.

I love terms of endearment.

I like my name (even though I have to spell it all the time).

But I hate no names.

You know, the names that are so generic, so impersonal they mean nothing.

So in no particular order here are the worst:

1. Lady
I just can't begin to describe how much this grates. I am not a prissy cartoon character dog. I am not aristocracy. I am not a someone ins a shop being referred to in the third person. I am not your lady.

2. Girlfriend
Yeah, annoying in that drunk, bar, girls complementing girls in a snide way. As in when I was wearing a Priscilla Presley beehive at Deville's some girl came up and said, "Nice hair... Girlfriend." In return, I wanted to say, "Nice braces, metalmouth." But I refrained.

3. Girlie
Ok, so only my grandfather calls me this. But he also calls all his daughters and grandaughters the same thing. I can't remember the last time he said, "Hello Jess" instead of "Hello girlie".

4. Friend
I never understood the "Hey, friend" phenomenon. It reeks of bulk email/text message dressed up to sound personal. And hey, if you were my friend, you'd use my freakin' name!

So please, please, please. Just call me Jess. Really.

10 things I learnt about Adelaide

2010-01-22T21:37:00.002+08:00

1. It seems like a lo-fi Perth. Or to channel my inner Mum (sorry Mum, nothing personal) - "It's what Perth probably looked like before they knocked down all the old wonderful buildings and replaced them with boxes."

2. The grid pattern of town planning is much harder to navigate your head around. Plus it's boring. I enjoy landmarks.

3. The museum, the art gallery and Parliament House are all in a row. And they probably planned it that way. Our taxi driver waxed lyrical about them as we drove past.

4. The food is good. We went to an amazing Thai restaurant. And it wasn't amazing in a 'they do a really good pad thai' kind of way. Heck, even the work cafeteria does a mean lunch.

5. They almost certainly get Perth's recycled weather. I was apologising to South Australians for their 40 degree day yesterday. Weird.

6. They have loos with views. The ladies facilities on the seventh floor of our training building had near floor-to-ceiling windows over the basins. I'd never had such an overwhelming urge to moon suburban Adelaide. In fact, I've never really had an overwhelming urge to moon anyone or anything.

7. Their commercial television news is reminiscent of regional television news. And they let bald men present it too.

8. They have animals I'd never even heard of in their zoo. Heard of a tapir? They kind of look like an aardvark... sort of. "What's a peccary?" I hear you ask... it's a cross between a pig and a hippo but smaller and hairier. Yep, there's something in the water there.

9. They sell schooners and pints there. Except the pints are smaller than normal pints. That would explain why you call someone small (like myself) pint sized. But you could only get away with that in South Australia. I left the pub feeling confused and ever so slightly ripped off.

10. The airport is overly salubrious. Which is a miracle because there are hardly any bins. But it's clean, tidy and airy. It didn't make me want to stab myself in the face with pure airport-induced fury.

so this is christmas

2009-12-25T15:36:00.003+08:00

And I didn't want to wake up.

To be completely honest, I wanted to spew. Phlegm plus unhappiness plus the scent of boiling cauliflower does not a good feeling make.

This is pretty much the worst Christmas ever.

Last Christmas was full of anticipation and hope and this one... well it's just not.

To top it all off, I woke up with the words of an obtuse Lennon / McCartney hit stuck in my head. Damn you 720 playlist and your propensity to play In My Life as a two and a half minute filler track.

drowning

2009-12-22T21:20:00.002+08:00

Earlier this year I was camping at Yallingup.

And when in Yallingup, you swim at Yallingup Beach.

It was late afternoon, it had been a warm day and the ocean was looking inviting.

So we swam, leaped over the waves and relaxed. And as the ocean has a tendency to do, it drags you in the direction it wants you to go.

The fun was soon interrupted by big waves, the kind that pummel. The kind of waves where you can't jump over it, you can't dive under it - it just knocks you over and you arms and legs are flailing underwater and you get pulled in what seems to be every which direction until suddenly you surface and take a deep breath.

But there's only a split second before the next big wave bears down upon you and suddenly you're flailing, gulping and being belted about.

And over and over it happens again.

You honestly think you're going to drown.

But just as you think you can't handle being pummeled about any more you get grabbed by the arm and pulled out of danger. You suck down air to try and make up for what seemed like the minutes you spent underwater, helpless. You're a complete mess with hair askew and sand in all the wrong places, but you're safe.

If I had to pick a story to use as a metaphor for 2009, that would be it.

I'm still waiting to be grabbed by the arm, pulled away from danger.

I was hungry...

2009-12-21T22:55:00.002+08:00

...and you couldn't be fucked to get off the couch and help someone out.

Mental note: Must be more selfish, everyone else seems to be. It almost seems cool to be completely and utterly self-centred and self-absorbed.

Remind me to never again ask anyone to help me out. Especially if it involves someone having to get off their arse and do something nice like bring a friend dinner when that friend has been working since 7.45am.

I'm sick and tired of being taken for granted - going out of my way to do nice things for people, or just having the simple decency of thinking of someone else's needs, only to have the tables turned and have no one there for me.

I am sick to death of everyone's selfishness.

I've just had enough. It's time for someone to look after Jess.

tired

2009-12-18T22:31:00.002+08:00

I'm just tired.

I don't think it's quite a physical fatigue. It's a life fatigue.

I'm tired of being sad, I'm tired of being the crying girl, the lonely girl, the upset girl.

The girl who did nothing to deserve this, yet here she is.

The girl without her home, her best friend, her soulmate.

The girl who feels as though she's lost everything, yet feels the immense pressure to be the strong one, the mature one, the adult.

I am tired of tea and sympathy, coffee and sympathy, wine and sympathy. I am tired of cliches too easily trotted out and carelessly thought of.

I am tired of feeling bad, tired of explaining that I'm feeling bad.

I'm tired of being pulled close only to be thrust away when it's too inconvenient or too uncomfortable.

I can't bear the sheer helplessness my situation presents me with. All I can do is pray and cry and pray some more.

I just want to feel the comfort and security within my home once more. I want to be enveloped in, wrapped up in and immersed in my home. Just that one essential thing, denied.

nine things I hate and I wish would just rack off

2009-11-02T17:23:00.002+08:00

1. Christmas in November - Dear taste.com.au, what makes you think I want to start cooking Christmas food on the 2nd of November. 2nd of December maybe...
2. Funeral insurance ads - No one likes talking about dying, let alone watching an ad with black and white framed testimonials and lists of how much funeral stuff costs. Funerals are expensive, we get it.
3. Dodgy detox diet ads - no one believes you can lose weight in a healthy way by the power of lemons. People are gullible, but not that gullible.
4. Facebook suggestions - if I haven't added someone as a friend, stop suggesting I do so. Also, stop telling me to reconnect with my brother - we live in the same house! Also, not so keen on the idea of Facebook suggesting I poke my boss, just saying...
5. Cereal getting stuck to the side of your bowl - If you eat breakfast at work, you'll know what I mean - that stuff won't budge without an hour of soaking the bowl.
6. People who go through tunnels at 50 kph - It's a tunnel, not a big scary monster. You can go 80 kph. You will not die. I bet you drive slowly when grey clouds loom overhead... I know your type.
7. Crowds - People suck. Especially when they congregate and don't move.
8. Pedestrian crossings on roundabouts - Dear City of Fremantle, want to know how to kill pedestrians? Put pedestrian crossings on roundabouts but don't have great visibility all the way around. Normally I have much love for roundabouts but Freo, you have killed that love.
9. Prefacing statements with 'Can I just say...' or 'Let me just say this...' - It's a cliche. When you use a cliche too many times you become a cliche.

ten reasons why I would rather be norwegian

2009-10-22T16:12:00.002+08:00

1. Roald Dahl was of Norwegian decsent. Roald Dahl wrote about chocolate factories and giant peaches and a little and cute and super smart girl who could move things with her mind. I don't know what they put in the water in Norway (clearly something stronger than flouride) - but they rock.

2. Norway is the most liveable country in the world - Ok. So the cynical reporter in me knows that studies such as these pop up on the internet approximately every ooooooh ... two months. And let's face it - who's to believe surveys such as these when similar surveys say Sydney is the best city in the world. Pah!

3.One word: fjords. Just say that word again: fjords... Who isn't happy when they say the word fjord? Fjords are pretty, kind of like a visualisation of what those villi (fingery things in the small intestine that give it soooo much surface area). We don't have fjords in Australia. Nope. Something to do with not being near icebergs. But New Zealand has them. And sheep.

4. Isla Lund - Ok, so she's a fictional character who can't make up her mind whether she wants Rick or Victor in Casablanca. Because she's Norwegian. Ok... and it doesn't matter that the very Swedish Ingrid Bergman plays her because she's a very cool lady. Enough said.

5. Potatoes. I'm lead to believe Norwegians eat a lot of potatoes. I'm down with that.

6. It's cold. And by default that means there are no 45 degree days.

7. Norway has a motto. Yes. They have a motto. Two mottos, in fact. The Royal Motto (!) is "All for Norway! (I added the exclamation mark, as one would only exclaim such a thing). and the Eidsvoll Oath: United and loyal until the mountains of Dovre crumble. Mottos are fun. We need an Australian motto. And no, "Aussie, aussie, aussie, Oi, oi, oi!" Does not count.

8. It stays light for a long time in summer in Norway. And! They have Daylight Saving. That's forward thinking and awesome. I'm sure they have extended trading hours too.

9. Norwegians are coffee obsessed. In an average year they will drink 160 litres of the good stuff each. Norwegians are my friends.

10. Norway is equal first with Ireland, Denmark, Finland and Sweden as far as press freedom is concerned. And Australia? 16th.

don't get me wrong

2009-10-08T15:24:00.002+08:00

I'm not upset because I got the thin envelope.

Let's face it, when you get an envelope, it's going to be a fail.

Success is marked by personal contact over the phone.

Nothing good has ever come from an envelope.

And did I expect the envelope?

Yes. Yes, I did. I've had many phone call experiences and envelope fails.

I wasn't surprised.

Does it make me more determined to write and write well?

Definitely.

But what was I surprised that no one really cared that I got an envelope instead of a phone call?

Yes. There wasn't even a sense of fake disappointment for me.

I guess this just adds to the frustration of how mundane life is at the moment. Do I need the money a phone call would have brought? No. It wasn't essential. But do I need something positive to bolster my spirits, reinforce the fact that , hey I'm good at something? Yes. desperately. I need a sense of place, a sense of being. A sense that something is right and well.

So don't get me wrong I'm not disappointed at getting an envelope, just disappointed that life carries on as usual.

my head's in egypt

2009-09-28T16:14:00.002+08:00

I'll admit my head is not here.

Mostly because Perth is a rather crap place to have your head - there's not much to occupy it.

But Egypt, that's a whole other story.

My head is in the past in Egypt, and my head is in the future in Egypt.

I've been writing a lot about 1920s Egypt, which is fun and heart wrenching and challenging.

And as part of writing about 1920s Egypt I'll be spending some time next year in Egypt. I'm excited at the opportunity to spend some time somewhere completely foreign. I'm mostly excited for the adventure of it all.

I'm the first one to admit, my head's not really in the present, it's a few months in the future a few thousand kilometres away.

Oh, it's not just Egypt I'm excited about... but the many, many other places out there to discover.

the day where i fell asleep at my desk and cried for no good reason

2009-09-23T16:13:00.003+08:00

Yep.

Today sucked.

It was 8.07am on Royal Street, East Perth and I had tears welling up.

And I don't know why.

"Hey, are you here yet? I need a hug... I feel like I want to cry and I don't know why." I messaged him.

Those welled up tears turned into crocodile tears wading down the Amazon of my face. This is not a good look when you're meant to be doing vox pops.

I gathered myself and greeted the cafe owner. He asked me where'd I drank coffee the other day because I wasn't there yesterday.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that just five days ago, I was on the other side of the country, thanking my lucky stars that I didn't have to drink his horrid coffee.

Soon my Irish friend came downstairs for his daily mug and paper.

He relayed the stories of the day from the newspaper that I'd already read before 6am.

"Did you see the size of that TV? You just want to yell out to the guy in the picture, 'Watch out! That polar bear's going to eat you!'"

The boy walked past the cafe windows with a frown on his face, he was searching for me, but couldn't quite see that I was right under his nose. Literally.

We went and sat in his camo's car. Both unhappy in the fact that we had jobs, not careers and a long wait for a big adventure.

I had a headache and a neck ache. I blame too much sleep (Yes, I fell asleep at 8pm... so wrong). I took my migraine medication.

I was sitting at my desk typing an email that was soon to be the talk of the office.

But I could barely keep my eyes open. I desperately wanted a power nap but I feared the consequences of someone catching me sleeping.

So I ate some chocolate and cowboyed up.

Sometimes it's just one of those days...

what did i do today?

2009-09-22T17:44:00.003+08:00

I spent the last few days over east catching up with friends I hadn't seen for a good nine months.

The inevitable questions begin:

How's Perth?
What have you been doing?
Have you settled in ok?

The answer to the first question is: good. Perth is... good. Not fascinating, not adventurous, but good.

The answer to the last question is: I suppose. I'm a nightowl forced into a morning person's regime, I divide my time between my parents' insanely overcrowded house and my boyfriend's nice but somewhat dilapidated share house. I still haven't completely unpacked, I'm not in my own bed. My 'own bed' if we're talking in strict terms is my bed in Orange... the one my former housemate now owns. My other own bed' is in storage, where it hasn't seen the light of day for nigh on 18 months. So have I settled in ok? I guess so, considering the insane circumstances.

The middle question has me stumped. What have I been doing? Well it's a blur of sleep, work, the Graham Farmer Freeway, red wine and breakfast. Apart from that I cannot answer that in a coherent form.

This is where the blur ends. I want to start blogging again if only to have an account of what the hell I've done. Let's be clear and let's disclaim this - I may talk about what I did at work that day, but only on a superficial level. Let's face it, you'd want to tell people if you'd spent part of the day in a monster truck. I don't wish to be dooced. I just wish give people (and myself when I read back in six months time) and idea of what I do. This blog is a reflection of me, not my employer - let's get that straight from the get-go.

So.

What did I do today?

I got up insanely early. For Perth time.

However considering I was still on Eastern Standard Time from my interstate sojourn, it didn't feel nearly so brutal.

And then for work I went to an auction. Yep. A real-life sandpit's worth of dump trucks, forklifts, bulldozers and even a bus. Mining companies were offloading their gear at this unreserved auction. Yeah, you could buy a $1.8million dump truck for a low, low price.

Sure the auction items were big, but so was the auction itself. There were the American auctioneers, calling the auction like a hip hop artist crossed with a square dance caller. There were the animated auction assistants engaging with each block of bidders, staring them down in an attempt to get higher bids.

And then there were the bidders chowing down on the sausage sizzle from the Rotary barbecue and sipping hairs-on-your-chest coffee from the mobile coffee van. They were the boys bidding on the toys.

And I got to watch it all. The big bulldozers rolling past, as the bids were flashed up on the display.

Just for the record, a $26,000 bulldozer is a bargain.

there are always reasons...

2009-06-28T11:42:00.004+08:00

My reasons for not blogging over the last few month have been far and wide ranging.

They can be blamed on:

*Sleep deprivation - Living in WA, yet working on Eastern Standard Time is a little strange. My brain hurts, my body hates me. But the good news is I'm getting used to it.

*Work - I don't like writing about work - considering work is writing - and a new job tends to dominate your life until you hit your stride and the three month mark. But now the stride has been hit and life is calming down a bit, I hope this won't dominate so much.

*Migraines and crankypants - a change in medication to stop me becoming a stroke victim ended up making me the biggest ball of angry you've ever seen. Sometimes angry makes for good blogging, but not that kind of angry.

*Book stuff - grant applications chew up a lot of time, yet aren't terribly interesting to discuss. But very soon it will all be out of the way. *sighs huge sigh of relief*

Meanwhile... I have a rather large desire to listen to Burt Bacharach... or The Whitlams. But I also have the desire to watch The West Wing or Grey's Anatomy or a ye olde movie with Humphrey Bogart or Audrey Hepburn in it.

I'd also like to cook brownies but I'd also like to go down to Freo, buy a delicious crepe from the markets and wander down to the movies to see a French film.

However, the one certain thing about this afternoon is laundry - I need clothes for work, clothes to pack into my suitcase.

things jess doesn't like

2009-04-02T18:27:00.002+08:00

There's a few things I don't like. In no particular order, they are:

*Perth drivers who don't realise that the right lane on the freeway is for fast people.
*Perth driver who are overly cautious at roundabouts
*Poorly taken passport photos
*People who dawdle through shopping centres.
*Bad coffee.
*Expensive bad coffee
*Lazy people
*Video store late fees
*Sinus headaches
*Neck pain
*Snorers
*Expensive hot cross buns
*Useless car washes
*Unseasonally hot weather

Maybe tomorrow I'll put things I really like.

not-so exciting

2009-03-04T20:48:00.002+09:00

So I've started a new job and it's freaking me out.

I have to go to bed early so I can get to work early to greet four faces I barely know. Don't get me wrong, they're nice enough faces but I can think of many, many more faces I'd rather see before sunrise.

I hate big, open plan offices. I hate that feeling of 'loneliness in a big crowd'.

I think that's it. I feel incredibly lonely.

I wake up alone, go to work alone, see people I barely know and do a job that seems fairly lonely.

Then I leave work about three hours earlier than the rest of the world, go to the gym alone, then sit alone and dream about what I really want to do while I wait to see or hear from my best friend. If I'm lucky, I see him. If I don't I go to bed horrendously early so the cycle can begin all over again.

So do I like my job? It's too early to tell.

Do I like the lifestyle? No. I want to eat breakfast at a normal time. I want to make my own coffee and finish it before it goes cold (or even worse, before I have to dash off). I would rather be watching breakfast television than talking to someone's answering machine, knowing full well they won't return my call for a good hour.

I don't want to be yawning at 5pm. Even worse I don't want to wake up at 2am fretting about work and having nightmares about the day that's barely even begun. The thought of sleep right now makes me want to cry.

I hope this mood lifts, that it gets better. I'm a little scared of this being a prolonged feeling. I want to like my job, I want to do a good job.

flaws and fallacies

2009-03-01T20:56:00.002+09:00

I am not perfect.

But I am unique. I am me, the only me I know.

I like me.

Some people don't like me. In the main I'm cool with that. I don't think I go about forcing people to like me. I don't feel like I should have to either.

What troubles me isn't so much not being liked, but not fitting in.

I have enough trouble finding clothes that fit perfectly, let alone finding others to fit in with perfectly.

But when I find that fit, it is something special and precious. Dearly treasured.

Not having a fit every time is fine - there's always more to try on.

What I strongly dislike is trying to fit and then having it pointed out that I don't fit and it's all my fault (of course).

Is that my problem or theirs? Are they trying "hard enough" too? Perhaps I don't fit but I don't wish to take it upon myself as a personal problem. I am me, I have flaws. I know they're noticed but sure as hell, I'm noticing your flaws too.

If you feel uncomfortable, that's your feelings. Not mine. If you think I make you feel uncomfortable, perhaps that's more telling of yourself than of me. It's not deliberate - deal with it.

commercial anger

2009-02-07T13:01:00.002+09:00

Dear music/gaming/computing/electical megastore chain,

I find your obsessive posting of 'loss prevention officers' at your entrances offensive.

In my previous life as a human resources monkey, I know how much it costs you to post these unskilled people with a massive power trip on guard. Does something in the order of $30 per hour sound about right?

I'm offended by the fact you ask any woman toting a bag to waste their valuable time to open it for you, only to take a cursory glance that would hardly suffice as a thorough bag check.

Would you ask any bogan bloke that passes through your hallowed alarmed gates to empty his pockets upon exit, or remove his hoodie (worn in the heat of summer) to see if he's harbouring any Pantera or Hottest 100 CDs?

No, didn't think so.

Perhaps you should change tack. Instead of having a thoroughly bored person standing by a gate waiting for it to beep, perhaps you should make these 'loss prevention officers' wear plain clothes and catch these thiefs in the act. Let's face it - lots of stores are doing just fine with the beeping gates; having someone stand next to them it just a little excessive.

The thing I find most offensive is a lack of trust. Why bother inviting people to shop at your store when all you can offer them is poor service and an air of suspicion?

I am so offended that the next time I even consider walking into your store (which won't be anytime soon because your service is poor and I don't really need to waste my money on cheap CDs), I will have a handbag full of tampons and other feminine products for your 'loss prevention officers' to check.

Have a nice day,

Jess

senorita crankypants

2009-02-03T17:02:00.002+09:00

Can we just write off today? It sucks.

Perhaps the first indicator that today was going to take a turn for the worse was when I went to the most overpriced, ineffective car wash in Perth.

Now I'm one of those people who goes to the DIY carwash - it was the only option in Orange. But it turns out it's a really good option, when it's not a rip-off.

I put in some gold coins and it gave me ooh I reckon 2mins 30 secs. That gets you a quick rinse with a half-arse high pressure hose and half your car done with the foaming brush.

I had to keep feeding the stupid machine with $2 coins to get the foam off my car.

So my car is still grotty and still needs a wash. And $10 poorer.

Then the gym. Oh yes, I loooooove to punish myself.

Somewhere between arriving at the gym and leaving the gym, my phone disappeared.

Disappeared, assumed stolen. We tried calling it, it rang the first time and went to voicemail the next.

Checked back at the gym. No sign of the phone.

Some people are lame. Life isn't finder's keepers - grow some honesty.

Luckily the poor sucker won't be able to use my phone, I got the handset locked.

Tomorrow it's a trip to the cop shop to fill out a report so I can claim a new equal-value phone on insurance.

But for now, I've got a new SIM card and a very cheap phone.

But on the bright side, it appears I'll get $950 from young Kev that will go straight on my car loan. Classy.

explosive shampoo, conditioner and occasionally toothpaste

2009-02-01T12:27:00.002+09:00

I've been gallivanting across the countryside a lot recently. I would call it glamourous but there's not a lot that's really, truly glamourous about camping in the south-west or spending a few days in sultry Sydney. And no, Sydney was not sultry in a good way.

While I've been spending my time away from home my toiletries bag has become my new best inanimate friend.

There are times when toiletries bags can go very, very wrong.

Like when you're camping and your toothpaste decides to explode.

Ok, so your deodorant has a nice, gritty, minty-fresh coating but it's not really the point, is it?

I thought I'd be smart and space efficient when I went to Sydney and I bought some of those little, internationally acceptable bottles of shampoo and conditioner. They're little and cute like me, what could be the problem?

The flight back to Perth would be the problem.

Yep, that nasty surprise the next day when you retrieve your toothbrush to find that not only does it have a liberal amount of toothpaste on the handle, but a more than liberal coating of conditioner on the bristles.

Classy.

So yesterday I turned the bag inside out and gave each item a throrough rinse. The tooth brush had to go, but everything else survived the undercover assault on the toiletries. Even the five cent coin that turned a funny, blue-beige colour.

Yes, coins can turn blue-beige and I can prove it.

But the question is - what makes anything remotely liquid explode in a toiletries bag?

It's not just restricted to explosive air travel either. The amount of times I have gone on a road trip, packed my own shampoo only have a slippery mess later is unbelieveable.

The time has come for me to find a solution. How do you stop shampoo, conditioner or toothpaste from making a big, ugly mess in your suitcase?

australia day

2009-01-25T19:12:00.002+09:00

Happy Australia Day, the one day out of 365 (except in an Olympic year which is 15 days out of 366) where Western Australians act like they love being part of this Commonwealth we call Australia.

It struck me as I was driving around the South-West with my trusty companion and I spotted many, many dinky plastic Australian flags hysterically waving above windows of 4WDs and station wagons alike.

On the 26th of January, Perthites wet themselves with excitement at the prospect of seeing a big cracker night, waving their torches when the radio tells them to and getting into a bit of biffo once the anticlimactic 'big firework' has gone off.

It'll be an orgy of "We love Australia, isn't it the greatest?" while the rest of the country has a barbeque and perhaps a Hottest 100 party to celebrate yet another public holiday

Come the 27th of January, it'll be back to the same old attitude of everything being biased towards the 'Eastern States' (a curious phrase that only gets uttered with such venom this side of Kalgoorlie), empty threats of secession and a one-eyed fanaticism of any of our successful Western Australian sons or daughters.

We have a resident moody poet in Tim Winton, our resident revered sporting teams and our resident bad boy in Ben Cousins who decided to reside elsewhere. We love nothing more than to celebrate our own.

We lord our oppressive summers and isolation over other Australians like battle scars, as if it somehow makes us more manly.

In reality, it's just a bit pathetic. Like a pre-pubescent boy boasting that he ran harder, faster, longer to justify his existence in his little boy-clique.

The fact that we eagerly participate one day of the year only to snub the other 19 million people for the other 364 days is petty and shallow.

And if we really, truly loved everything about our big chunk of dry land, we'd be having that big cracker night on the first of June.

achievements

2009-01-20T21:31:00.003+09:00

I guess now's the time to debrief. And no, not debrief as in removing underwear.

As much as I hate to commit to being in a certain place (case in point: I never registered my car in NSW because I was always 'almost moving' to Melbourne or Perth or Canberra) I guess I need to write down what I achieved and did during my time in Orange.

I've been thinking about it for a long time - what I've done, what I think you should know that I've done. So in bullet points, here's what I've done in the past 18 months:

*conquered my anxiety attacks about moving - yeah, that would have to be the biggest hurdle.
*patted a giraffe
*picked cherries
*went to Melbourne not once, not twice, not thrice but FOUR times.
*developed a hatred for Sydney.
*flew in an ultra-light plane (read: lawnmower with wings)
*flew in another ultra-light plane, but this one was actually enclosed.
*floated down the Murrimbidgee River in Wagga.
*found the best coffee in the world, with the best people in the world serving it.
*saw far too many daffodils in a random village.
*missed Perth family and friends
*learned not to miss Perth family and friends (not in a nasty way, just in a 'life happens' way)
*ate some amazing food.
*drove thousands of kilometres.
*learned how an electric blanket works.
*purchased a great pair of ugg boots.
*sang a LOT of Singstar with my housemate.
*bushwalked in the Blue Mountains (if you're unfit, do NOT attempt the giant staircase)
*went to the Parkes Elvis Festival, not once but twice.
*drove on the Bathurst 1000 circuit at Mt Panorama.
*was cracked onto by drunken motorsports fans.
*interviewed a taxidermist (that was my one aim in my paid journalistic career, tick!)
*got my arm waxed for a radio story.
*met three true-blue, Aussie outback shearers.
*listened to a lot of older people rabbit on for far too long.
*saw Fred Hollows's grave.
*went on a paddleboat on the Darling River in Bourke.
*visited the Back O' Bourke.
*saw some of the most disadvantaged communities in NSW.
*witnessed the spirit of the people living in those communities.
*interviewed a nun
*saw backyard apple cider being made.
*got an education on why haybales can spontaneously combust.
*came to the conclusion that no matter how hard you try, no one whether it be Mother Nature or the Federal Government will make farmers happy.
*lived somewhere it snows in winter.
*learned that sometimes you just can't put on enough layers of clothes.
*found a family who adopted me as one of their own.
*rediscovered some amazing friends who just happened to be on the same side of the country.
*found a mentor.
*discovered the joys of Aldi (read: cheap German supermarket that's super efficient)
*signed a contract to write a book (yeah, that one's still sinking in)
*chaperoned drunk colleagues at Lismore's semi-gay bar.
*spent a lot of time on Skype.
*then subsequently didn't spend a lot of time on Skype.
*got drunk with a sizeable chunk of Orange's community while celebrating Orange's wine industry.
*wrote some great stories.
*wrote some truly crap stories.
*learned about radio station office politics. Ouch.
*worked with people who summed up the phrase 'passive-agressive' to a tee.
*met a pet cremator.
*rode a quad bike poorly.
*scraped a lot of frost off my car windscreen.
*learnt how to clean a house with Enjo and a Dyson.
*abseilled two metres to conquer my fear of 'little heights'
*abseilled down a dam wall at night because the SES people clearly knew I was sucker for punishment.
*took a lot of photos - 7000 photos for work, maybe a quarter of that for pleasure.
*met the best, authentic, real friends to spend Wednesday evenings with.
*went on a quest to find the best pub lunch deal in Orange.
*drew a flow chart of how to get from Orange to Wagga.
*spent so much time in Wagga that my friends called their spare room "Jess's room".
*went licorice bowling in Junee.
*had many, many adventures in the NSW/Victoria/ACT countryside.
*spent more weekends away from Orange than in Orange.
*learnt that it generally takes 12 hours to get from Orange to Perth. Lame.
*realised that Perth is a long way from... anywhere, really.
*grown up - in every sense of the phrase.
*thought a lot about what home really is.
*came to the conclusion that home is matter of who rather than where.

Yeah, so that's as much as I can list in one go. There's heaps more but a lot that can only be explained in anecdote form. Do I miss Orange? Like crazy (especially that best coffee in the world bit). But have I been distraught to be back in Perth? Not as much as I thought I would be.

because i have,'t done a lame quiz in so long

2009-01-11T14:58:00.003+09:00

Why aren't you going out with the person you like?
Ummmmm? I. Am.

Is it cute when you get kissed on the forehead?
It really depends on who's doing the forehead kissing. mostly cute

How many months until your birthday?
Oh three-ish.

What are you listening to?
rain, thunder, Kings of Leon and the Channel Ten news theme

Could you go out in public looking like you do now?
I did. So there.

What was on your mind mostly today?
"I'm so sad to leave... I hate packing... I'm so happy that my friend got baptised

Do you like to cuddle?
Uh... yeah!

What are best feelings in the world?
Feeling safe, hot chocolate on a freezing cold day, hugs, laying in bed during a thunderstorm, watching the lighting and counting how far away the thunder is, the feeling of adventure, that first sip of a really good coffee, great conversations, doing a good job, singing "You're the Voice" by Johhny Farnham on Singstar with your housemate, beating people at Scrabble. And brunch.

Do you like the rain?
Love it!

What did you do today?
I woke up, had breakfast with the parentals, went church, cried, went to the Lake for my friend's baptism, came back home.

If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?
Right here, just with everyone I love. Or Melbourne.

How often do you hold back from saying what you are thinking?
More than I should but less than I used to. It's a happy medium.

Did you have a good day yesterday?
Of course, I went to the Parkes Elvis Festival!

What was the highlight of today?
Going to Lake Canobolas

Does anyone call you baby?
Not unless they're being sleazy...

In the next 4 months,what are you looking forward to most?
Working on my book proposal, being with friends and family again, what hasn't happened yet.

Is your phone within a meter radius of you?
Yes, yes it is.

What is bothering you right now?
I only have a few days left in Orange, it's hot in Perth, Bill's Beans isn't open. Clearly I'm mildly agitated.

Do you wish you had the chance to tell someone something right now?
Of course!

I’ll bet you miss someone right now?
I'll bet you're the betting type...

How do you vent your anger?
The gym or writing.

Single, Crushing, In a Relationship, Married?
Um? one of the above.

Ever been called cute?
Of course, because I am little and cute.

Number 1 walks out of your life, do you go after them?
Yep.

Would they go after you?
only judging from prior experience, no.

Could you go the rest of your life without smoking a cigarette?
Yes. Most certainly

Were you happy when you woke up today?
I was relatively indifferent. It makes a change from "I'm so nervous I could vomit."

Is there a person of the opposite sex who means a lot to you?
Yessssssssss.

Are you happy with life right now?
Sort of... yeah... I suppose.

Do you hate being alone?
No, I cherish the opportunity.

Who was the last person you talked to last night before you went to bed?
I can't remember, probably Amy.

Has anyone disappointed you recently?
Of course they have but so have I.

Are you a morning person or night person?
I'm a once I've had coffee person. I'm scary without coffee. I get all weepy.

If something was wrong, who is the first person you would go to?
It depends on what kind of wrong, but probably Adam. He's a sensible, objective lad.

Are you starting to realize anything?
I look hot in a Priscilla Presley beehive wig. So much so I need to find more excuses to wear it. No-one looks good in an Elvis costume, especially if they have a beard. Bogans who continually play 'Burning Down the House' loudly from their Commodore's speakers and then hop out of their car and start dancing in their white, wet, seethrough underwear should be severely punished. Also, you don't know the great things that you have generally until it's time to leave them behind.

bittersweet

2009-01-08T16:53:00.003+09:00

My parents are a day away from Orange and I want to scream.

The realisation had dawned on me that in potentially less than a week, my life will look nothing like the life that I'm leading now.

Where I once had a job, I will no longer have one. Where I once lived in a nice place, the new alternative is not so sure.

Everything is changing and I'm so afraid my life is going in a retrograde motion - going backwards instead of forwards.

I could return to Perth and mistakenly think I've gone back to 2006 rather than forwards to 2009.

I'm meant to be sending messages to my friends telling them about my going-away party on Monday and I don't want to.

I'm meant to be packing up the rest of my room into neat little boxes and I don't have the heart to pack up this chapter of my life.

I want to be certain that I'm moving forward into something good, not something stagnant.

But I'm a fool for even contemplating that anything can be certain.

great expectations

2009-01-04T19:31:00.002+09:00

I have great expectations for 2009.

Why?

Because on paper, as at the 4th of January, I have a couple of thousand dollars in the bank, an option agreement and one week of work left.

After that, I don't really have anything solid, anything to rely on.

It's scary and yes, I am shitting myself.

But possibly, just possibly good things could come of the fact that I don't yet have a job or somewhere to live. I'm not sure how things will go in Perth.

But I do know what I'm leaving behind.

I'm leaving behind a great group of friends - the best. They're reliable, amazing people who I absolutely love each for their own reasons.

I'm leaving behind a great house and an even better housemate. My life has never been more simple than under this roof.

I'm leaving behind the best coffee in the world, and it's cheaper than coffee in Perth and served by intuitive baristas who have become great friends.

I'm leaving behind my surrogate family. I have three of the best big sisters ever. They're just great.

I'm leaving behind a place that can be spectacular in all four seasons. A green canopy of street trees in summer, all the colours of autumn, the fun of snowball fights in winter and the blossoms of spring. There's even a fifth season called 'ha ha tricked you'. It sporadically rears its ugly head with freezing cold weather in spring and summer. Best of all in each of these (four) seasons, there's a festival that encourages you to drink and eat lots.

I'm leaving behind my wanderlust, my ability to pack up the car and just go.

But I take with me a whole load of memories and experiences and lifelong friends who I know will be there for me forever.

It's only scary to leave because it's been so good.

Oh yeah, I have great expectations for this year because I'm out on a limb, in a place where I have to rely on more than just myself.

jigsaw

2008-12-29T10:51:00.002+09:00

Please indulge me the opportunity to use my life as a similie. I know it's wanky, but indulge me.

My life feels like a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. I don't have the time or patience for jigsaw puzzles. Jigsaws = lame.

When you begin a jigsaw puzzle the most sensible thing to do is find all the pieces with the smooth edges. They're the outline out your image, they're important. They give you boundaries.

Boundaries are ok. I'm cool with the edges, they're all in place.

But then comes the other 900 pieces of the puzzle. Let's be honest - it's pure guesswork from here on in.

You've got the picture on the box to tell you how it should look. But you've still got to piece it all together.

And sometimes, no matter how hard you try, it just won't fit.

And then other times, the bastard puzzle-maker has left out a piece or two so you couldn't even finish it if you wanted to.

And let's face it, a puzzle that's missing a few pieces doesn't give you the entire picture.

In that scenario you need to shrug your shoulders and say, "I've done it to the best of my ability.

"I made the most pieces of the puzzle fit together."

Or else you can write a nasty letter to the bastard puzzle-maker and demand a refund.

I'm trying as hard as I can to make the puzzle work.

unease

2008-12-23T16:05:00.002+09:00

I landed in Perth late last night. It was spectacularly clear with all the lights of suburbia glittering away like fairy lights on steroids.

I felt uneasy, but I think I always feel a little bit mentally disconcerted for the first day or so.

But this time I had a thought I couldn't shake.

What the hell am I doing?

I guess I'm just questioning moving back to Perth. I can't help but think I'll be a little... bored? I've gotten used to certain aspects of my life away from Perth - I don't want the adventure to end.

I can't help but think I'll be looking for another town or city to live in within months.

Again - what the hell am I doing?

merry christmas part two

2008-12-20T13:15:00.003+09:00

merry christmas - part one

2008-12-18T19:11:00.002+09:00

In the last week or so, I've been on a bit of a mission.

I've been trying to make people smile.

Not to get anything out of it myself, or not even to be noticed.

It's just because I like to make people (generally strangers or acquaintances) smile. I like to walk away smiling because somebody else is.

It's a fun mission.

Every day when I go to get coffee, I pass by Tony's house.

Tony is the old Italian man. If he's standing on his porch, he'll rest his walking stick and hobble over to the fence to have a chat.

Mondays, Tuesday and Wednesdays he stands on the porch and waits for the community bus to pick him up. He hops on the bus to go and see his wife. She's in one of the nursing homes in town.

Sometimes when he sees her, she's happy. Other times he's not. When she's distressed he says, "I just take-ah her for a walk in the garden. Then-ah she's calms down."

Whenever I see Tony he's happy to see me. But I wanted to push the envelope a bit further. Last week when my colleague and I walked on after chatting to Tony, I said, "I'm going to give Tony a Christmas card."

He was astounded by my generous thoughts. I was astounded by the fact that he possibly thought I had Scrooge-like tendencies.

I wrote out a Christmas card and bought a small box of chocolates for Tony to share with his wife. I popped the card and the chocolates into the mailbag each day until I saw him standing on the porch.

"Ah, hello Jess!"

He starts to hobble over and I ask him how many coffees he's had today.

"Two."

"From the stovetop?"

"Yes!"

I pull the card and gift out of the bag and his eyes light up. He tries to give me back the chocolates and I tell him they're for him to share with his wife.

He smiles some more and says, "You've got a soft-ah heart, just-ah like me."

I went on to do the mail stuff and get my coffee. He's still standing out the front, happy as Larry.

"I can't read or write-ah that well, but I read-ah your card and you've got a soft-ah heart, just like me."

He grabbed my face and kissed me lots of times on the cheek.

"I was in Syd-er-ney on the weekend. I haven't seen my sister in 52 years. She's been living in German and I moved to Australia from Italy."

"That must have made you really happy, Tony."

"Ah-yes," he said with a glint in his eye and a happy shrug of his shoulders. "I have not seen her for so long."

It was at that point that I realised that Tony makes me smile not because I made him smile, but because he's a joyful old chap who exudes sheer joy with his silver teeth and cloudy eyes.

Sometimes it's nice to get that reminder.

if life were a facebook status..

2008-12-11T15:34:00.002+09:00

... here would be some I would be thinking but not typing.

*Jess is no longer jealous
*Jess thinks some of her friends need therapy more than they need her.
*Jess will miss the kids at Bill's Beans far more than her work colleauges.
*Jess is a collection of random facts that come tumbling out at the strangest times.
*Jess MISSES you!
*Jess believes some people just need to take the leap.
*Jess is bored by student politics.
*Jess would like to think that nothing surprises her but has been proven wrong on the odd occasion.
*Jess doesn't know.
*Jess would be disillusioned with the lack of resources at work if she didn't have something better to do.
*Jess generally harbours no animosity.
*Jess is fine, thanks for asking.

the weekend

2008-12-08T16:54:00.005+09:00

Yesterday afternoon I stood at the mailbox and posted a letter.

This weekend's events resulted in standing at the mailbox posting a letter.

I felt so at peace driving to Mudgee this weekend. I was cool, calm and collected. I even took some landscape photos on the drive.

I arrived at my friend's place and he was taking one of his customary mid-afternoon naps. It seems that's what you do when you're eccentric and 57 years old.

Not to worry, it turns out he has one of the most stunning gardens ever. My camera got a bit of a workout.

Once I took the photos it seemed to still be naptime for my friend. I sat down on the couch and started reading his copy of Vanity Fair.

I was three quarters of the way through an insightful article about a Parisian taxidermy gallery rising from the ashes of a fire when he woke from his slumber.

He needed a cigarette (or five) and some coffee before he was coherent. And that was the precise moment I became a passive smoking Malboro man for the weekend.

We had the world's strongest coffee (seriously, I think I can see the additional hairs on my chest), sat on the balcony looking at a beautiful vista and shooting the breeze.

We talked about the Global Financial Crisis, how it's stupid that world debt got out of control but agreed that it had to happen. The GFC is a good thing (if you don't owe anyone anything).

Then he said, "I got your letter but I haven't read the option agreement."

What?

"Uh, yeah well that's cool. It's a very simple agreement, I've heard of 3 page contracts that aren't even binding. This isn't one of them," I managed to blurt out.

"That's good. I'm happy to sign it. It should be good."

He went on to say that he himself doesn't want the royalties of whatever came of it. He wants his cut to go towards building up a library of books, "so someone like yourself can come along and discover something they want to do."

Sweet.

So later that night we ventured to the Eastern side of the Great Dividing Range to a friend's place. They live in a valley that has something special and intruiging about it. At dinner I described it as, "the middle of nowhere yet the centre of the universe."

My friends in the valley are part of this scheme where they get backpackers to volunteer on their organic farm. This weekend they had four French backpackers. They were cooking us wood-fired pizzas.

These friends also invited some part time neighbours. A Swiss couple who have made their millions from selling up-market shower heads. I kid you not.

So at this dinner we had a former senior TV executive and his scientist wife; the Swiss millionaires, four French backpackers, a gay eccentric man and his friend who was a hairdresser but now considering opening his own art gallery. And me. A girl from Perth getting a contract signed.

It's strange how the most unconventional combination of people can end up having a fantastic evening. The Swiss man got pissed as all get out and yelled, "I need some more vine!" more times than I can remember. He also discussed the GFC with my friend and surprise, surprise the capitalist and the Marxist ended up at the same conclusion. GFC = good (for some... in the end).

At midnight I was flagging. It was time to go back to the Western side of the Great Dividing Range and sleep.

As we made the former hairdresser shut the gate, my friend grabbed me around the neck in one of those drunken hugs and said, "You're going to have a great time telling this story."

"And you're going to make a lot of money."

We finally made it back to have a drunken dessert of apple pie and super strong coffee.

"Jess, have you seen Miss Saigon?"

"Uh no?"

There was a disgruntled murmur of disapproval along the lines of, "Well it was a bit before your generation."

So on went the soundtrack. Did I mention I was flagging?

He proceeded to explain the plot.

"So it's the Vietnam war and all the Vietnamese women need money, so they're selling their pussy for like a dollar..."

Did I mention I was flagging? It was at this point I mentioned I was flagging and went to bed.

The next morning I woke up and braced myself for another strong coffee. I ended up making myself the worst cup of tea in the world.

My friend woke up feeling a little seedy after the previous evening's chatfest with the Swiss millionaire. It took a few more cigarettes to wake him up.

"So we'll go out and plant your trees, then we'll make some breakfast..."

"And then I'll grab a pen and a dollar."

"Yep."

We went out to a patch of his property near a creak and some sheer, tall cliffs. It's one of those places that are truly spectacular.

We planted two eucalypts. One either side of a similar eucalypt that had been gorwing for three years.

"We'll see how these guys go in three years."

"A lot can happen in three years."

We went back and made breakfast in his primitve gas bottle powered kitchen.

After bacon and baked beans on toast, out came the option agreement. I pulled out a 1984 dollar coin from my pocket and gave it to him. We signed the option agreement thrice. One copy for him, one copy for me and one copy for a safe place. He stuck his dollar to his copy.

That was that. For the token price of a dollar, I have bought the sole ability to create a book and/or a film out of a truly amazing story.

I'm not a confrontational person, nor am I the contract getting and signing kind of person. This has been a completely foreign thing for me to do - flying by the seat of my pants. But it was the right thing to do.

So this eventuated in my standing at the mailbox, posting my resignation letter. It kind of felt like abseiling.

But just like in abseiling, it may be scary to be hanging from such a height but you know you will make it and have a great time all the while.

sleepy sleepy sleepy

2008-11-26T19:28:00.002+09:00

So you know how I said oooh about a week ago that starting work at 6.30am requires double the caffeine but you only feel half the buzz?

Yeah, one week later and we're still in the same situation.

It was so bad I ordered a vanilla latte. I haven't ordered a vanilla latte since I was on the other side of 21!

The baristas/my new best caffeine friends decided to call today 'mix-it-up wednesday' in honour of my syrupy addition to my beverage. It seems they were as shocked at my order as I was when I preceded the word latte with vanilla.

Let's just say 'mix-it-up wednesday' will never happen again. Vanilla lattes are bad, bad and wrong.

Just going to stick to a plain latte from now on. Vanilla merely disguises the bitter coffee goodness. Mmm... coffee.

I could digress further with a rant about how those who precede their coffee order with the words 'skim' or 'soy' should be branded un-coffee drinkers.

But I'm too tired to get into that one.

2008-11-25T15:48:00.002+09:00

I was at the gym this arvo and my iPod wouldn't come to life. I had the worst workout in weeks. I guess listening to Boney M does add that certain je ne sais quoi to your workout

I'm on edge. I can't wait to have a working day that starts at 8.30am instead of 6.30am. I can't wait until I have a job where I can actually do my job. I can't wait until Christmas.

I'm spent.

I know I need to be patient. It will all be sorted soon enough. I should be relishing the feeling of being on the cusp of some rather exciting stuff. And I suppose I am by writing this, just not as much as I should be.

i honestly wish i had something exciting to write

2008-11-18T19:12:00.002+09:00

But alas, I do not.

I'm starting work at 6.30am for the rest of the week and while I get to saunter out of the office mid-afternoon, it's kind of messing with my brain.

So in short, starting work earlier means I need double the caffeine throughout the day and somehow only feel half the buzz.

Unlucky.

However, alas - now that's an exciting word...

thinking things

2008-11-15T19:21:00.002+09:00

This week has been a strangely good week. Here's a few thoughts I've been having.

*Abseiling is a fairly good analogy of faith. Before we left SES HQ on Monday night one of the elder SES statemen asked if I was religious. He then went on to say that abseiling is a good exercise in stepping out in faith. The faith factor hits home when you're 15 metres above the ground, leaning off a wall with your bum feeling the breeze. It's a good analogy of where I'm at. Above terra firma, slightly scared but excited because I know that I'll soon be on the ground and all the better for having gone over.

*Why hasn't anyone bred an onion that doesn't make you cry when you cut it? I looked like a real goose in the kitchen the other day when I was wearing my goggles while cutting an onion.

dear father christmas

2008-11-14T15:22:00.004+09:00

I've been a good girl this year. If you were trying to decide which side of the list you should put me on, may I suggest you err on the side of 'nice'? You don't need to check that twice.

Because of said good behaviour this year, may I have the following things?:

1. That copywriting job at t'internet company.
2. A house in Perth complete with nice housemates.
3. A book deal to write the epic tale.
4. Funding to research the epic tale overseas.
5. Photoshop Elements
6. Beer at Little Creatures and late night coffee at Greens.
7. Seasons 3 through 7 of The West Wing.
8. Red wine and good conversations with close friends.
9. A rogue spot of mistletoe (I suppose you can substitute mistletoe with wattle)
10. An afternoon sea breeze with a maximum of 29.
11. Cheap petrol
12. Weekend adventures
13. Replacement pet cacti
14. Rewarded passion

And Father Christmas, you'll notice that I've left the Magna-Doodle off the list. My housemate's already getting that for me.

I hope you won't mind if I don't sit on your lap because that's ever-so slightly seedy.

Merry Christmas,

Jess

slowly slowly

2008-11-13T19:44:00.003+09:00

Slowly, slowly things are gaining momentum.

I feel like I'm coming out of the wilderness of the past 15 months and it feels great to be coming back.

The last 15 months have been the hardest, most challenging, gut wrenching, emotionally and psychologically crazy time in my life. I've grown so much and learnt a lot about myself, yet I wouldn't wish my experience on anyone.

If the early 1990s were 'the recession that Australia had to have', then the past 15 months has been 'the recession that Jess had to have'. I've spent the past 15 months pushing shit up a hill. Life hasn't been easy.

But that recession is passing, much to the delight of everyone involved.

I'm being given little gifts whether they be circumstances, aquaintances or poignant conversations. On their own, they're not exciting, but put together in the bigger picture it's fantastic.

In fact, I blame a lot of this mood on Crowded House. Twice within one half an hour I heard "Better Be Home Soon", it's the third time this week I've heard the song and not from my own choosing. Ok, so one of those times was the Kasey Chambers cover version and that wasn't much of a blessing.

Things are looking up. The future is bright.

over the edge

2008-11-11T09:10:00.002+09:00

Last week I got a phone call from the local SES unit. Turns out they have memories like elephants.

Just over a month ago when I was very jetlagged I abseilled all of two metres in the SES Headquarters. The radio story ended up having the word 'wedgie' in it ooooooh at least four times I'd say.

Once I'd conquered my fear of little heights (no joke), they said, "Next time we head at to Suma Park Dam for some training, we'll let you come along abseiling."

Last week's phone call was making good on that promise. Monday night, 7.30pm. I said I'd come along, because hey, if I didn't end up abseiling at least I'd be able to see the dam (read: pond).

So I rocked up to SES HQ last night. I think they were surprised that I'd actually turfed up. To be quite honest, so was I.

I told them I wouldn't 'go over' (as they say) unless I got to wear the orange overalls. They handed me the overalls, hard, hat and gloves and off we went.

Unless you count the two metre midget abseil from a month ago, I'd never 'gone over' before. Don't get me wrong, I've had the opportunity many times before, but I've always wimped out.

I thought, "Why not go all out on your first proper abseil? Down a dam wall at night."

Yep. A night abseil. I was crapping myself just thinking about it.

But on the other hand, I was abseiling with the SES - if anyone knew how to be safe it would be them. And if anything went wrong they would at least know how to rescue me.

The SES in Orange are a rag-tag bunch of outdoorsy people and nerdy young people and the sensible elders heading up the whole operation. Think Scouts for adults and you're on the right track.

On the way to the dam I mentioned I was a little apprehensive, Blue (one of the aforementioned elders) said, "Of course you are. Our primitive human brains can't handle the concept of walking backwards over a wall."

Great. My primitive human brain was rallying against me.

So anyway, on went the harness (no promise of wedgies this time around), making sure it's tight enough. Then I got clipped onto the rope.

It was all going way too fast. No time to psych myself out of doing it.

A blue box was dragged over for me to step up and over the railing.

Going over the edge is the hardest part and not just in a primitive brain sense. The tension on the rope is at it's tightest as you're going over, so you feel as though you're not going anywhere fast.

Once you're over, it's just a matter of keeping your body at a right angle to the wall and lowering yourself.

They even got me to do that thing where you put your hands on your head and pose for a happy snap. The photo didn't really turn out, but it was good fun.

Once I got to the bottom everyone cheered, I got a few high fives. The phrase 'SES application form' came up more than once.

Next time they go abseiling, it's going to be off the back of the diving tower at the swimming pool.

I might pass on that one.

The Jess RePerthriation Project

2008-11-09T19:27:00.003+09:00

There are some things that belong in Western Australia:
1. A hatred for extended trading hours
2. A disdain for daylight saving
3. Jess
4. Spearmint milkshakes

One of these things has been missing from WA for quite some time now. Yes, Jess has spent the past year or so patting (and subsequently killing) giraffes, parking her car strangely and complaining about the cold weather in Central West NSW.

RePerthriation is kind of like the word 'repatriation'. Except Jess isn't a refugee, she's just on the wrong side of the country.

It's time to bring Jess back to the southern suburbs of Perth where she belongs.

We're asking you to lobby your boss to give her a job. Beg your housemates and your landlord to add her to your lease. And make room in your heart for the safe return of Jess to Western Australia.

what reagan said

2008-11-04T18:45:00.003+09:00

On my Facebook, I have a quote from Ronald Reagan in that random space they give you to write something.

The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.

I don't really care one way or the other about Ronald Reagan. It's what he said (or what his speechwriter wrote) and the situation he said it in that made me want to put it in that random space.

I found the quote while I was in a bookshop in Canberra. I was killing time and I flicked through a book of great speeches. Ronald Reagan's speech in response to the Challenger spaceshuttle disaster was one of those speeches. I read it, because I think it's interesting to see how leaders react in times of crisis.

"We've grown used to wonders in this century, it's hard to dazzle us," he says.

And that's true. Although, that's last century it still rings true. Nothing surprises us anymore.

But it's the part where Reagan explains to "the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff" that he says that remarkable sentence.

Put simply, the future doesn't belong to those who play it safe. It belongs to those who try to do the impossible, the scary, the daring. It belongs to them despite the fact that they may stumble, fail or, even die in that act.

I'd rather be brave than be fainthearted.

learning to shut up.

2008-11-03T18:30:00.002+09:00

I'm not the world's most talkative person. Far from it.

But the bulk of the time that I'm not talking, my internal monologue is going a mile a minute. I just cannot shut up.

I just couldn't settle this evening. I was at home by myself, thinking far too much.

I couldn't stop thinking. It was time for dinner and time for the news. But I didn't want to watch the news. I wanted to calm down, stop thinking. Stop needing to think.

We have some Nooma DVDs lying around the TV. I grab one and put it on just to have something different happening.

The title of this Nooma was called "Noise". It talks about how we have so much noise in our day to day life that we forget to listen. We are uncomfortable with silence.

The still, small voice is rarely audible with the TV blaring in the background.

Once the short film was over I went out of my house and into my car. I was driving to the mountain just outside of town.

I was silent, the radio was off. I was trying to switch off the white noise in my head. Every time a thought popped into my head, I told myself to shut up and listen.

When I let myself listen, I could hear. It wasn't easy, but I listened. I'm glad I took the time to listen. Sad that I hadn't done so earlier.

Amazing what happens when we just shut up.

on the road

2008-11-02T17:31:00.002+09:00

My car is filthy. On Saturday morning it was dirty, the usual bird crap scenario. Everytime I see bird crap on my car I hear the office cleaner's voice in my head lecturing me about how 'you'll wreck your duco if you don't clean your car.' I have no idea what duco really is, I just know how to spell it. I don't which is worse.

But anyway, now my car is filthy. As in bird crap with the added extra of red dust all over.

My car is filthy because I went to Mudgee on an urgent mission. Convince someone to let me tell a story. It's a story that's completely captivated me, along with everyone else I've mentioned it to. It just hasn't left me alone and I want to tell the story.

After a possible hiccup earlier this week which prompted this urgent weekend trip, it's mission accomplished. I can research this story further and tell it.

My car is filthy and I am ecstatic. It was worth it.

things I know

2008-10-31T19:07:00.002+09:00

There are many things I know, some I have learnt just recently. Let me share them with you.

Sydneysiders are lame
I have a strong, strong dislike for people who live in Sydney. Let me clarify that. I don't hate people who were born in Sydney or lived (past tense) in Sydney. I just hate those who live in Sydney now, commute from Sydney, live their Sydney life in not Sydney. Sydneysiders who come to Orange (ok, I won't limit it just to Orange) and talk about lame Sydney stuff. I don't care where you club in Sydney, I don't care about your bag/frock/shoe obsession, I don't care whether you live(d) in the Inner West or North Shore (cos no other Sydneysiders make such a big deal about where they live). I just don't care. Sydney is overrated and most certainly not the centre of the universe.

People matter
I interviewed a woman whose son was killed in a car crash six years ago. She was talking to year 11 kids about road safety. Her story was just one story that belongs to many bereaved people. But she said one really poignant thing: "everything you thought was important; it's not important, people are important." It's been one of those weeks where I wish I had have been in Perth. Felt I should have been in Perth. Actually felt guilty for not being in Perth. People matter, and really what else should matter? I feel guilty for not being where the people who matter to me are. Incredibly guilty.

The gym is good
I've been going to the gym of late because... well I live about 100 metres away from the gym and it sure beats sitting around at home after work and I feel as though I have some semblance of fitness. There's nothing quite like cranking up the iPod and going on the cross-trainer.

Stupid stories get the most praise
The lamest story I did this week was a quick fix story that I did to meet a deadline. It got Editor's Choice. And while it was funny (and you get to hear me getting my arms waxed), it wasn't a ground breaking, life changing story. I hate the fact that I have to make an idiot of myself to do 'what's considered to be a good story.' A previous story of mine that got Editor's Choice involved me talking about getting a wedgie.

There's no time like the present
I know this, I've just got to put this into action. I'm packing up my belongings in Orange for a reason. That reason is that there's no good reason to stay and at least two other places I'd rather be. It's time to draw a line in the sand and move on from Orange.

It's saving, not savings
I know I'm a grammar nazi to the extreme sometimes. But please, please, please it's Daylight Saving, not Daylight Savings.

to do list

2008-10-30T18:21:00.002+09:00

1. Quit job.
2. Move.
3. Start writing.

The whole square peg - round hole thing cannot be emphasised any further than when you're flat out at work, writing, editing what should be fascinating and exciting stories and being completely and utterly bored by it all.

While I enjoy each of the different portions of my job on their own, I don't love them put together.

I love writing, but let's be frank, I hate writing to a style guide. Hate it with a passion. The first year of my job saw this blog fall by the wayside because I spent so much time writing. Being paid to write stuff you don't necessarily have a passion for sucks your passion for writing in general.

I like taking photos, but after taking nearly 7000 photos in 15 months, I go somewhere on the weekend, take my camera with me and barely take any photos.

The rest of my job? I can take it or leave it.

I was told that everyone could see what I should be except for me. I was so worried trying to find out what I was made to be that I'd neglected to ask anyone's advice. It just goes to show that there are occasions where people know you better than yourself.

I've never felt so much relief as the moment someone enlightened me as to what I should be (and I actually agreed and got excited). Imagine how encouraged I felt when they said I'm actually good at it.

I wish I'd been told and encouraged sooner, but I'm glad I've been told at all.

Now I have something to work toward. Something I'll enjoy working toward, instead of feeling second-rate about something I'm mediocre at.

I've been reading a book which makes the assertion that God is really happy with us when we're doing what he created us to do. I think I'm on the way to doing that.

I want to set the world on fire with what I do.

from the file marked 'wtf?'

2008-10-28T19:14:00.002+09:00

Every day I walk down the street to grab a coffee and collect/post the mail for work (you'll notice my priorities there). Actually I lie. Every day since it hasn't been freezing/blustery/snowing/sleeting/cooooold I walk down the street to grab coffee.

Only about 10 per cent of the time I see this random shoe nailed to a post. I should look up more.

30 per cent of the time I see an old Italian man waiting outside one of the houses for family or friends to pick him up. I always say hello because I know he's probably as lonely as I am. He replies with, "It's a love-er-ly day, isn't it?". If I've had caffeine, I normally agree with him. If I haven't, I tell him that it's still a bit cold.

Wandering a couple of hundred metres down McLachlan Street is nice. It clears my head. Only then does my day really start.

the prodigal daughter

2008-10-27T17:54:00.004+09:00

A wave of melancholia washes over me. Unlike swimming in the Indian Ocean, the Sea of Doubt and Despair can be rather dangerous.

Where I would face waves head on and bounce over them or duck under them in the Indian Ocean, the breaks in this other sea are another matter entirely. In this scary sea, there's hardly time between waves to catch your breath, brace yourself and make your decision: bounce or duck?

I've been treading water for so long. My legs have started to tire. Do I give up and just slip under or do I continue treading water?

If I came back home tomorrow, unemployed with a couple of thousands dollars to my name, and a plot for a bestselling book, would you blame me?

If I threw away what I once thought was a dream job with a reputable organisation because 'it's not me', would you blame me?

Would you make me act like a naughty dog with its tail between its legs? Make me pay penance for my indecision, lack of ability to work within a timeframe.

Or would you welcome me back with open arms, be glad for me to be 'here' instead of 'there'?

It's time to get out of the water.

big girls don't cry

2008-10-26T19:15:00.003+09:00

I was walking across the same carpark where I discovered my newfound adulthood.

This time it wasn't a walk of self-discovery, rather it was an indignant stride of self-destruction.

My throat was getting sore from holding it all back, being brave and trying desperately not to fall apart.

I had made it through a 45 minute drive with work colleagues, after a lunch full of trying to be Miss Manners.

Big girls don't cry. Not in front of your boss. Not in front of your boss for the third or fourth time this year.

I made it to the video store, through the supermarket and through various department stores without cracking.

Big girls don't cry. Not in the presence of strangers.

I made it back to my house where my housemate, her other half and his kid were lounging around. Normally I'm ok to be sociable. Not that day, certainly not on the verge of tears.

I made it to the shower and let it all out.

Big girls don't cry until they hit the shower where fresh water washes away salt water as if it was never there in the first place.

God has a lot to answer for when trying to teach the importance of patience.

dear 2008,

2008-10-25T14:42:00.004+08:00

Please, please, please just fuck off.

You've been nothing but trouble since the moment you arrived and I have the sneaking suspiscion you'll have more of the same right until the bitter end.

I know it's only the end of October but please hurry up, don't drag your feet and for goodness sake, don't come back. Ever.

When the clock strikes midnight on the 1st of January 2009, I will be partying harder than ever before just to see the back of you.

And yes 2008, I recognise you are not an animate object but a mere abstract way of indexing life. If you were an animate object I would have stabbed you in the face long ago.

Honestly 2008, for the sake of everyone's mental health just go away.

mmm... wine!

2008-10-24T18:56:00.002+08:00

For everything about Orange that is twee, boring and really, really, really cold it does have a few saving graces.

One of those is Wine Week. Wine Week is October's answer to FOOD Week in April. But if you ask me, they're both pretty much the same thing, just the focus is slightly more on one than the other depending on what week it is.

But this week is Wine Week and the highlight of cheap events (ie. events that aren't snobby dinners with $100+ price tags) is the Night Markets.

It's like a farmer's market with but with wine and gourmet food instead. You enter for a gold coin donation, buy a glass (or if you're canny like one of my friends, byo "taste Orange" branded glass you got from previous Wine and/or Food Week events) and then spend the rest of the night going to different winery stalls getting your glass filled and buying food to go along with it.

It's way better than a Farmer's Market.

There's a nice sense of community as everyone wanders from stall to stall, with their faces getting slight tints of red according to how many glasses they've had. It's ok, they're just happy.

Here's what I had at the Night Markets, just to make you jealous:

Rolling Semillion Blanc Sauvignon
Manners and Borg sausage in a baguette with yummy relish.
Wagyu beef pie - best. pie. ever. It was my first time having Wagyu beef, and it was the best way to have Wagyu beef.
Canobolas Smith Cabernet Merlot - lovely, smooth red. Made me happy.
Mayfield coffee and chocolate mousse
Canobolas Smith Melliodora dessert wine

It was a good time to go with a group of friends and eat good food and drink good wine without being in a restaurant setting.

I love night markets. I wish we could have them every Friday night. My bank balance is probably glad we don't have it every Friday night, so is my waistline (gym membership or otherwise).

view from my desk

2008-10-23T15:39:00.010+08:00

I thought I'd give you all a wee virtual tour of the place I spend five days a week.

Welcome to my desk, this is my favourite corner of it:

You'll note a few important features. The first one being a Bill's Beans cup...

Bill makes the best coffee in the world, or at least Orange.

Next door to that is my 'mine' mug, cos it's mine, not yours. It's there for all the peppermint tea and rooibos tea I drink once I'm done with the coffee

Also, my fave pic(s) at the moment from my friends's wedding. They got a photo booth and we all took way too many photos. I love this one because we're pulling muppet-like expressions.

Also, another prized posession is my Parkes Elvis Festival media pass. It just reminds me of a very fun time.

And not cool enough to make it into the 'cool corner' of my desk, but cool nonetheless are the following:

My Kawaii Not flippy thingy of funny cartoons.

Coffee hotline for Bill's Beans.

The wall of shame - this is where photocopies of people in the office appearing in local newspapers get stuck. I do not feature on the wall of shame.

So that's my desk, etc. Not so exciting, really.

hey you. yes, you.

2008-10-22T18:13:00.003+08:00

Grow some perspective. And don't stop until you realise that contrary to popular (read: your own) belief, the world doesn't revolve around you. It never will, nor should it.

Not everything needs to be a quick and swift rise. Some things need to be worked at, earned. Boredom is not an excuse - don't use it. Fear of being a 'shitkicker' is not an excuse. You are not too good for anything. Grow some humility. Fast.

Learn that people don't call because they don't care, but because they care far too much. Caring can have painful side effects.

Think. Think hard. It's not all about you.

vegies and decision making

2008-10-20T18:27:00.003+08:00

I was walking back to my car with a trolley pull of vegetables (!) this afternoon and I was shocked to discover that this is probably a good indicator that I'm an adult.

Holy crap! I pay bills, live not only out of home, but far, far, away from home, do my own tax, and it would seem I also buy vegies. And not the frozen sort either.

This overwhelming sense of responsibility is not as frightening as it sounds. In fact, it's rather comforting.

My vegie-buying self-satisfaction is just another way in which I feel ok about not moving back to Perth for the time being. Do I want to live in Perth again? Someday, yes. But not today, or some time to come. Do I understand that this is an unpopular decision? Yes! Of course it would be unpopular for everyone in Perth - but until I come back permanently(it could be a long while), we'll always have Christmas and numerous weddings of friends and family members. Also, you could visit the "East Coast" (but just don't call it that while you're here, okay?) once in a while, pop in, see what life's been like for me for the past year or so.

Can I explain why I've spent the past year trying so, so, so hard getting back Perth, only to succeed and not want it anymore? Yes. Can I explain it and future plans without it sounding vague? Not really.

It's hard to explain, but one day you'll have that same sense of responsibility and satisfaction walking back to your car with a trolley full of vegies, knowing you've made the right decision.

And it'll be all the sweeter when you taste the vegies on a pizza that night for dinner.

Okay, so I made a pizza with ham on it, too. But don't judge me, it was lite ham!

i am not

2008-10-14T18:44:00.002+08:00

I'm not a cartographer but I can draw a fairly good mud map of Fremantle.

I'm not a connoisseur but I'd like to think I can pick a good coffee and a good beer a mile off.

I'm not coming "home" to Perth but I'd like to think in the near future I will make myself a home.

I feel an overwhelming pressure from somewhere to "find myself", whatever that means. The thing is, I don't need to. I know where I am both physically and emotionally. Case closed. I'd rather be discovered, dusted off, polished, held in the light and told, "wow, you're really something."

I know where I am but it's a strange place to be with an odd sense of confidence.

genetics, etc.

2008-10-13T17:58:00.002+08:00

Yesterday I met a man I hadn't seen since I was nine.

When I was nine, I thought he was rather strange. He's still strange now but he makes me make more sense. It's genetics.

I've always felt like I never quite fit into my staid fifth-generation Fremantle side of the family. I swear their criminal ancestors contain more excitement and personality.

My South Australian family are loud, lots of fun but strictly a 'so what have you done this year?' Christmas affair.

But yesterday, I met someone related to me who didn't make me feel like the odd one out.

Dad's cousin owns a 'wog bar' in an old convent in Melbourne. It's on the second floor so you have to ask someone where the stairs are to get there.

We asked, we walked up the stairs and found ourselves in an alternate universe where Geelong Cats paraphenalia collided with Labor Party ephemera from years gone by.

There was no-one home. So we walked back down the stairs. By the bottom step we heard a man singing.

"I think that's him," said my friends. It could only be my relative.

"What are you here for?" he asked.

"To be refreshed. And also heckle you for supporting Geelong," I said.

After establishing that I went for West Coast and the heckling that came after it, we all went back upstairs. He still didn't quite know who I was but he was cottoning on.

As we walked back into the alternate Ablett universe, he pointed to an advertorial from the Good Weekend that he'd stuck to the door. "Kerry Armstrong! What's happened? Myth-busting mum?"

The day before when I'd seen the advertorial with Kerry Armstrong (along with ghost writer) endorsing Coca-Cola and 'debunking myths' about it, I desperately wanted to mock it, too.

I finally fessed up that we were related, and he thought it was pretty cool.

He then asked, "So what will you have?"

After that song and dance about Kerry Armstrong, we couldn't help but say, "Coca-Cola."

But it was that moment of knowing we were related and had a similar sense of humor (and the ability to take the mickey out of one another's football teams - a true show of family) that made sense.

He stuck portraits and posters and newspaper headlines in his cafe like I stuck postcards, posters and beer coasters on my bedroom door in Perth. I knew I got my tendancy to make a scattered collage of thoughts, funnies and themes on flat surfaces from somewhere.

It just took a while to realise that it could very possibly be genetic.

In a good way.

art. Meh.

2008-10-11T13:49:00.002+08:00

ahh. Melbourne in spring. What better time to have a wanky arts festival? I've just escaped from and exhibition which claims to be showcasing something to do with audio art. Imagine if you will 100 pairs of sennheiser headphones hanging from the ceiling of the art space. Whatever an art space is. Their each playing random high pitched noises or other sounds that human ears should never hear. I know there's others in there right now who are captivated but all i can think about is how much it would cost to have 100 pairs of headphones. also where have those headphones been? perhaps i'm not cultured enough...

tuesday masquerading as monday

2008-10-07T18:39:00.002+08:00

It was the Tuesday after the long weekend that felt like a Monday.

For me, Tuesdays have always had more of a Monday feel than Monday itself. But this Tuesday was spectacularly Monday-like.

At least I'm safe in the knowledge that tomorrow's Wednesday. It's nothing like Monday. Or Tuesday acting like Monday for that matter.

the long weekend of unknown cause

2008-10-06T13:39:00.002+08:00

This weekend was a long weekend. It's four o'clock on Monday afternoon so I guess the present tense still applies. This weekend is a long weekend. Can I tell you what this long weekend was in honour of?

Short answer, no.

I know that it's not the Queen's birthday because that's earlier in the New South Welsh year. It's not Foundation Day because New South Wales was technically founded on Australia Day (that's what you get for saying you're "The First State" on New South Welsh numberplates circa mid-'90s
, which by the way, NSW might be the first colony, but a little thing called Federation means that every state is the first state. I really must stop being a nerd, close these brackets and actually figure out what this public holiday is for). It could very possibly be Labour Day because that's the only possible generic public holiday I can think of.

Perhaps looking it up might produce an answer.

Ah ha! By the power invested by me by Google, it is Labour Day. I'm not too sure what we did to deserve it, but thanks!

Anyhoo, I spent my non-descript public holiday weekend in our Nation's Capital, looking at flowers. And other stuff, too.

I went to Floriade which as far as I can tell is Canberrans using up all of those primary school fundraising drive bulbs to plant pictures of things you can't make out because you're looking at it from ground level.

But seriously, pretty flowers. I just really wish I could see the picture they were supposed to be making up.

I witnessed a strange phenomenon at Floriade, something I'm convinced I won't witness for some time to come.

It's the 'the size of my camera equates to the perceived genetalia size' phenomenon. You may recognise this phenomenon as being similar to the 'size of my Holden or Ford V8 (or Subaru if you live in Orange) equates to the perceived genetalia size' phenomenon. If you're toting a piddly little 3x zoom 8 megapixel camera the size of your mobile phone, you were considered lightweight, nay sneered upon by your fellow tourists. Carry a 'prosumer', not quite SLR camera and you might have a tiny bit of street cred, this is the equivalent of driving a Camry. But if you're bending over a tulip with a macro lens, waiting for the light to be 'just right', ready to whip off the macro lens to your normal lens to get the perfect family happy snap; then you're effectively driving a Commodore complete with spoiler, skirting and doof-doof stereo. Oh yeah, and the fact that you're taking a family happy-snap? You've just slapped a 'Baby on board' sign on that wanky 'car' of yours.

I also went to the National Gallery of Australia. It was a strange experience going through the Australia Art section and see areas devoted to "Colonial New South Wales", "Colonial Victoria", "Colonial Tasmania" and, "Colonial South Australia".

What the hell happened to Colonial Western Australia, Colonial Queensland and Colonial Northern Territory? Maybe those "colonial" landscapes differed too much from the gum trees and green paddocks that "colonial" life should have looked like. Whatever, now I'm just ranting.

There were more flowers to be had at the Australian War Memorial. Long walls of names with poppies beside them to signify that someone knew them, loved them and appreciated the effort they went to. The memorial has an amazing sense of symmetry to it.

A trip to Black Mountain and the Telstra Tower was the only tourist attraction I had to pay money to get into. Yep. Everything else was free. The view was beautiful, it made Canberra look like an ant city. Oddly enough, I could feel my brain melting ever-so slightly after being so close to so many mobile phone/AM/FM/television transmitters.

But now with my brain slightly melted I find myself back in Orange where it's the windiest I've ever seen. Very strange.

mangoes and moving

2008-10-01T15:45:00.002+08:00

It was the moment I'd been waiting for since the third, maybe the fourth time it snowed in Orange.

No, not the moment there was enough snow for a snowball fight (a snowball to the eye really hurts, by the way.).

It was the moment Harris Farm Markets started advertised mangoes for 99 cents each.

That's when you know summer is well on its way when cheap mangoes hit the cheap fruit and veg shops.

Yum. I love the taste and smell of mangoes. I asked a colleague if I could sniff her mango before I bought five mangoes of my very own.

It's almost official, I'm moving! The wheres and whens are still to be decided but I'm moving on from Orange. It's a nice feeling.

my friend has three mothers-in-law

2008-09-29T14:51:00.002+08:00

Weddings are strange beasts.

Some friends of mine got married on the weekend. She's a wedding photographer by trade, he once had a career as a wedding DJ - needless the say, they had the situation sussed and the whole thing went smoothly (if you don't count rain).

Everything was just so - from the picturesque South-West farm, to the ever-so slightly mismatched cups and saucers for the "English afternoon tea' after the ceremony.

I found the wedding ceremony disturbingly twee. I'm not sure whether it was because I didn't know many fellow guests, but it just wasn't fun. Far too formal. But if it means something for them, then good on them.

The reception, however, that was fun. The food was ok - they didn't do that annoying thing where they give half the table the beef dish and the other half the fish dish - they had a buffet. Guess whose table got called to the buffet last? Yep. I don't mind potato salad and bread rolls.

And although the reception had a quirky take on the 'disposable camera on each table' by having a photo booth, the real highlight was the speeches. Yep, there was a toast to the bride's parents, a toast to the bride's parents and a toast to the groom's parents.

I didn't do a typo there. There were two lots of toasts to the bride's parents. The bride has two mums in an overly politically correct Play School kind of way.

So there was a toast to her mums and a toast to her dad and step mum (who by the way introduced herself as the 'evil step mother').

Now families are interesting organisms and they're take on many different shapes and forms. The bride's family refer to themselves as a motley crew. But they love and care for one another so it motley yet functional.

All I know is my friend now has three mothers-in-law. Unlucky.

At least they all seemed to get along on the night.

I was seated on the table with three lots of newlyweds, so every second sentence began with, "At my wedding...". I can't help but think that weddings are a colossal waste of money for what you get in return for those thousands and thousands of dollars. There's clothes you'll never wear again, people you have to (but don't necessarily want to) invite, who inevitably get shit-faced and make a complete fool of themselves. And all those little things - place cards, invitations, those little gifty things that always include almonds in some shape or form.

Wouldn't it be more special to be standing there in a way you feel comfortable, with those you really want to share the moment with, eating food you actually like? You can keep the copious amounts of booze though, after all it is a cause for celebration.

The whole occasion, even the thought of it makes every fibre of my being want to elope.

photo booth

2008-09-23T18:21:00.003+08:00

Once upon a time a girl with long raven hair sat down in a photo booth. She had three pieces of paper on her lap that she'd prepared earlier with a different word on each piece.

She put the coins in the machine, held the first piece of paper up making sure it showed up properly on the screen. Four flashes later and the booth imprinted the special message with her smiling face behind each piece of paper. The message was simple and pure.

The raven hair is now shorter, the girl is older and wiser. She's a little world weary and bruised. But if she went into a photo booth again she'd use the same three pieces of paper with the same three words. In fact, she'd add a fourth piece of paper with an additional word: still, despite, because.

The message would still be as simple as when the girl with the long raven hair photographed it.

perf is so boring

2008-09-22T13:51:00.002+08:00

Yes, in the words of Rose Porteous and immortalised onto a T-shirt that briefly sold in mid-2004 - "Perf is so boring".

At least it is on a sunny Monday arvo when everyone else is either working or on prac (read: working for nada, suckers!).

Boredom makes me wanna stab myself in the face with a blunt object. The blunt object alleviates the boredom longer than a sharp object.

So I'm sitting on the couch, waiting for lunch to cook, listening to my colleagues in Dubbo wash their car for $3. It's riveting listening to people describe the fun of wielding a foaming brush on a hatchback. Just in case you don't believe me, it's truly riveting.

Here's the thing, I don't think it's Perth that is making me bored, more the fact that it's Monday.

Monday is not fun-friendly until 8pm when Australian Story comes on. Bring on Belinda Neal trying (in vain) to resurrect her image.

am i happy?

2008-09-21T12:29:00.002+08:00

with you, yes.

homecoming

2008-09-13T16:53:00.004+08:00

Sleep's a rare luxury at the moment. Since Thursday night I think I've had about 5 hours sleep.

It's been a blur since Thursday night dinner in Orange to waking up insanely early to spend four hours on a coach getting a driving tour of the baby-boomer commercial stations of the Central West, Blue Mountains and Western Sydney. I'll have you know the highlight was going down the M4 with WS-FM's 'Nine at nine from 1989' blaring with The B-52's Love Shack. That song doesn't sound quite right on the AM side of the day.

Next came the taxi drive from Central Station to the airport. For once I had a chatty taxi driver who didn't liberally apply the accelerator and the brake as if his life depended on it. Oddly enough he once lived in Orange. He told me that I should travel and explore the world. He was the third person in the space of a week to give that sage advice.

I don't mind waiting in airports on one condition, the flight isn't delayed.

When you have three hours to wait for your flight to board, there's only one thing you should do, upgrade your mobile phone. I did just that - I have a new phone, and I lowered my cap AND I didn't have to pay for either pleasure. Jess - 1 : Phone company - Nil.

Luckily enough, I pre-paid a pass to the VirginBlue lounge so I could drink coffee, beer, read newspapers and magazines away from the throngs of air travellers. I'm glad for that small luxury.

My flight was delayed for an hour - that's stock standard behaviour for flights departing from Sydney Airport. Nonetheless it's an annoying habit to fall into.

My daytime flight to Perth made me come to the following conclusions:

Applying deodorant should be compulsory for every passenger before boarding a flight.

Making children under 3 fly is another form of child abuse.

It is also a slow, cruel form of torture for your fellow passengers.

It was strange to be see the Great Australian Bight from 11km above sea level and then watch the strange lunar-like surface of the Nullarbor meld into the geometric paddock patterns in varying shades of green.

It's always slightly disarming to arrive back in Perth after a long absence. It's strange to see every car numberplate look the same as mine in Orange and not be in a minority group. It's strange to have gale force winds knock my hair back into the 'windswept and interesting' look I sported for the previous 22 years. It's strange to not feel cold. It's incredibly strange to come back and know the place like the back of your hand yet feel like an impostor.

There are things that feel nice and normal like friends and Bright Ale and Little Creatures and bubble tea and tall, straggly eucalypts. While it's nice to see and taste and experience those things again, it's temporary. I know I have to return to my half-life and be half the me I know.

At this stage Perth doesn't feel like home anymore - I can't describe why or how that is, when you try too hard to come back you begin to question whether it's worth it. Orange certainly isn't home - but that's because I resist making it home - over my dead body would I ever call Orange home.

My quarterlife crisis is based on this whole idea of what home is. I haven't nutted that one out. But the nearest thing I can equate home to is someone who makes you feel safe, understood, cared for and ultimately loved unconditionally; someone you can always come back to. For me, my home is messy, untidy, confusing, gut-wrenching and difficult. But home it is, and that's where my heart lies.

I had a strange homecoming. For all the mess and confusion, I had a wave of safety, understanding, care and nuturing come over me. I wish I could be home more often. We'll see.

end of the world?

2008-09-09T14:56:00.002+08:00

Guaranteed to be fodder for mundane afternoon radio programs across the world is "Don't panic, we're not going to die... or are we?" story about European phycists messing around with smashing atoms to try and recreate the big bang.

While my mottto is 'Now children, don't smash anything that you can't see with the naked eye," some people are get seriously worried, saying the world might end.

But let's face it, people said that aeroplanes were going to fall at of the sky and things were going to implode when the clock stuck Y2K (tee hee, that sounds rather antiquated!).

I've never quite trusted scientists, but I think that's because I'm crap at science rather actually harbouring any ill-will towards them.

But just in case the world suddenly explodes and all they can save is Google's mega-servers, let the following be known:

I still have those beautiful red shoes and the matching beautiful red sore on my foot.
It's still bloody cold in Orange
I'm still hopelessly in love with someone who is hopelessly in love with himself.
I still crave a meaning and a purpose.
I still want to get out of Orange, write a book, find a meaningful job and have brunch with friends. Often.

However much I'm wary of scientists, these smashing experiments are happening in Switzerland and as far as I'm aware nothing bad has ever come out of Switzerland. And as Mat of Melbourne has just informed us through the news.com.au message thread for this news story:

Ummm, this is not the first time this experiment has been carried out, and I
didn't seeor hear about the first complex disappear into a black hole under the
Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland.
Well done Mat, you're such a smart cookie that you don't need an extra 'T' at the end of your name.
And if the world doesn't implode, explode or merely come to an end in a big bang tomorrow, I'll see you same time, same place.

2008-09-08T17:03:00.002+08:00

It's a sad state of affairs blogging with Home and Away in the background.

My housemate's out at the moment, therefore the TV has become the surrogate housemate.

It won't be so sad in half an hour when Border Security's on.

I wish I could pull out some funny witticisms. Unfortunately I pulled them all out when I rewrote my profile for work last week. Lame, I know. Changing my profile and revelling in the glory of talking about myself in the third person for all the online world to see.

Lame. Totally lame.

But at 4.30pm last Thursday afternoon I was hopelessly bored. It seemed like a good enough thing to do.

I got to talk about myself (in the first person) today. Employer funded psych sessions are fun like that. It's funny, but it's the first time ever that I've been completely honest. It's as if being an anonymous person in a rather anonymous location dealing with problems that are thousands of kilometres away has changed everything.

It's strange - you would think that being so far away from your problems would make them easier to deal with.

It's the opposite. Being so far away merely delays the inevitable. It's like knowing that you're going to crash but you can't quite brace yourself for the impact.

My present is passable. Boring, dull, cold, yet passable. My past or my 'home' (someone remind me what exactly home means) isn't much to look forward to - conflicts, invisibility. Blergh.

My future is there. Just sitting. A void.

Something's gotta give.

and she's back

2008-09-07T11:35:00.003+08:00

Ok, so after a year of not blogging. I re-entered the blogosphere.

Why?

I just need to. It's some form of super-catharsis.

I need to explore where I am, what on earth I'm doing. Maybe have a few funny posts along the way.

Right now I can tell you I have a beautiful pair of red shoes and a beautiful red blister on my right foot to match it.

I want to write a book, have a job that makes a difference and have friends that have brunch on Sunday mornings.

Ok, so I have brunch friends already. Yay for that.

I love brunch. It's lame and oh-so white to love brunch but I love brunch.

But I need to escape this fun yet ultimately meaningless job. I feel like I'm doing the job and myself a disservice for still being in it.

The book - that's just putting an amazing story I once heard into the form it should have always been it. I love the fact that I've been privileged enough to hear a story that's worth telling.

It's just the job - anyone know of a meaningful job?

quarterlife crisis

2008-09-06T13:56:00.002+08:00

It's three to four on a random Saturday afternoon in the town unfortunately named after a prince, not a colour or a fruit.

I'm faced with the brutally harsh question - what the hell am I doing here?

It's not a slur on the town itself, it has charming roundabouts, the coldest winters and some nice people.

The heres and nows just don't seem right. I should be somewhere else doing something different.

But the somewhere and the something are a mystery.

There's a deep seated feeling of a lack of kinship, or to turn that around I am incredibly lonely.

It was a huge decision to come here over a year ago. I almost felt compelled to do it. It being the overcoming of fears, proving a point that I could make it.

And make it I did. Point proven.

But now I deal with the insecurities involed in deciding where the story goes from here.

I am shit scared.

More specifically, I'm shit scared I'm not good enough to get out of here.

Perhaps that's a product of being knocked about a bit and having what precious little ego I had deeply bruised one time too many.

And if I did go onto to that something somewhere different, will it necessarily be the something somewhere different that's required?

I feel like I don't know enough about myself to make such informed choices.

Making the journey alone and having the responsibility lie wholly and solely on me is the scariest part of all.

RIP Mainy

2007-10-01T18:58:00.000+08:00

So I got a text message from Adam this morning saying "Chris Mainwaring died last night".

Most of you at this stage have a clueless look on your face, or you're thinking of the many ways you could take the piss outta me right now.

Ok, so I wasn't one of those tragics who cried when they found out. I was more of the 'surely, you're kidding' school.

For people who have grown up or lived in Perth, Chris Mainwaring is one of those people who was just there, creating part of the Perth experience in the 1990s. Footage of him leaping off the bench at the end of a victorious grandfinal is synonymous with the West Coast Eagles of that era.

Once he left football, we still got to catch up with Mainy on the TV where he was a sports reporter and reader. The weekend will seem that little bit more empty without Mainy to tell us who won what and how much by.

Rumours are already flying about the cause of Mainy's death. It's kind of irrelevant. He's dead and he was a good bloke, he was practically a Perth icon. It's gonna be a different place without him.

RIP Mainy, hope you're wearing the #3 with pride somewhere.

new rules for bagging perth

2007-09-30T15:25:00.000+08:00

I've been stuck in a bit a quagmire. I think quagmire is the right word. I can't be bothered looking it up on dictionary.com

I'm doing the share-house flatmate thing. I don't mind it. My housemate is great. My rent is cheap.

But like most of the other people in the office, she's a Sydneysider. By that fact alone nothing exists or makes sense outside of the Sydney bubble.

But she thinks Perth is weird. She's never been there, she probably wouldn't know anything about Perth, had it not been for Triple J singing the praises of many Perth bands over the past few years.

She thinks it's weird to the point of bagging it out.

She's so much of a Sydneysider that no-one's let her in on the rules about bagging Perth.

So just for the record, the rules are:

You can bag Perth if you live there or have grown up there
You can't bag Perth if you've never lived there. You can smile and nod and proceed to drag out an excuse as to why you haven't bothered to make it to the other side of the country, yet you've made it to Europe/Asia/America and loved it so much.
You can't bag Perth if you're not currently living there. You must relay fond and nostalgic memories of it and act like the WA Tourism Board.

So there you go, I just thought I'd put it out there. You can't expect everyone to know the rules. But now everyone does. No excuses now.

who don't people say things like they're written here?

2007-09-21T17:56:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I was driving to Cowra with big Bruiser the rural reporter and Mum (miss ya already!) to do a story on a Japanese garden (watch my work site - it'll be a corker with a corresponding radio story).

Well I wasn't driving. I was in the passenger seat, but you'll be pleased to know I drove later that day.

I've gotten to the point where I feel I may mispronounce something that I resort to situations like so:

*insert pointing at road sign here*
"Hey Bruiser, how do pronounce that place there? The one 45 kilometres away."

Turns out it was different to how I'd pronounce it. But Bruiser gave me points for trying.

I noticed it again when I was watching the local news and a place that shares its name with a WA town was in the news. I was waiting with baited breath to see how they'd pronounce this one.

Different again. Yuckily different.

So just for the Perthites and other hangers-on I've compiled a list of NSW places names for you to think about how they'd be pronounced. You'll be surprised at how they're actually said.

Canowindra
Collie
Mandurama
Kenna
Canobolas
Cudal

If you squint, you may be able to read how they're said.

* Ca-noun-dra
* Coe-lie
* Man-DUE-rah-mah
* Ca-knob-lass
* Kew-dull

it's been a while but my internet's been broken...

2007-09-17T19:34:00.000+08:00

and I've moved and a week later I was uprooted to go to training, and then I had to actually do my job and find somewhere to live.

So now I've completed all of the above and given them a hearty tick, I can now add blogging back to the list of things I can do on a normal because now I have normal(ish) days again.

Work is good. I Like my job, office politics (as in real office politics) are a strange new beast to me.

Skype is a godsend. So is actually having an address to that Perthites who feel sorry for me can send me copies of The West with bottle of Bright Ale so I can drown my New South Welshsorrows whilst reading Inside Cover.

No really. Life here is good. Just different.

And colder. Markedly colder.

citric nuances

2007-08-16T17:42:00.000+08:00

Dear Perthites (for that is what you are, or you are named as of... now!),

Orange is a strange place. There are definitely no citrus fruits. Anywhere. Really, I checked.

There are lots of other crazy facts that will spin your crazy little heads out (I love your collective crazy little heads, by the way). I will dispense these facts in point form:

It is colder here than in Iceland. Yesterday it got up to 12 degrees. In Reyjavik, it was 13. I guess this fits in with the pseudo-conspiracy theory that I am Bjork.
Street parking is strange. You need to park backwards at a 45 degree angle in some places. I am yet to try this. I am scared.
People really have no awareness of AFL. I wore my Eagles scarf on two consecutive days this week. Number of comments: 0. I guess it's better than Sydney Swans comments.
There are self-service checkouts at Big W! It's fun except for the annoying British voice that tells you to do everything. But the novelty factor is very high. If you ever visit Orange, it's on the top of the to-do list.
All of the pubs advertise either XXXX or Tooheys. For that reason, I haven't set foot in a pub yet.
Local TV news is just like WIN or GWN news. But much, much worse.
The Myer store here is bigger than the one in Freo - that's no mean feat.
The little green man takes so long at intersections that jaywalking is inevitable.
The Daily Telegraph is Sydney's answer to The West Australian minus the two best bits - Inside Cover and Today.
People don't seem to die or give birth much over here - or at least they don't tend to announce it in the newspaper. That's the third best bit of the newspaper!
Nothing is pronounced phoenetically. It makes me afraid to say stuff.

new beginnings, trying not to freak out

2007-08-12T16:10:00.000+08:00

Ok. So this is the tearful "I wanna go home post". It had to happen soon enough.

I don't mind Orange. It's a nice place. Very pretty with the nice old buildings and whatnot.

People here are friendly. I've already made four - count them four friends.

I've had the shocked "You came here from Perth" expression used a million times today.

I've lost count of the times that tears have welled up in my eyes over the past 48 hours. As much as it wasn't as scary an experience as Karratha, this isn't easy by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm in an apartment (read: motel room with a kitchen) by myself and I'm driving myself completely insane.

When I'm not crying, I'm trembling and when that's not happening, I'm scared of the crying and trembling that's to come.

Orange will be my home for at least the next six months, but Perth is running through my veins. I can't and don't want to let go of that for fear that I may lose friends, memories and important milestones. My past is there and I'm scared that my future isn't.

I miss you all so much. If I could split myself in two and be in Perth and Orange and not feel any sort of discombobulation, I would do it in an instant. The opportunity is right here, right now but the homeliness, the friends and the dependability hasn't arrived yet.

One of the things with anxiety attacks is that your flight or fight reflex goes into overdrive. I'm not a fighter so I feel like I have to escape. I know it's just a primal urge (minds out of the gutter, please) and that it's really not going to help to be so edgy - nothing's going to leap out and attack me.

But the fact remains - I'm here, I'm alone; to me that's the scariest thing ever.

If you're the praying type, please pray for me. If that's not your bag, keep me in your thoughts - I need both of them.

dear new south welshpeople...

2007-08-08T00:10:00.000+08:00

Hi! My name is Jess and in just a few short days, I will be joining your ranks as a new resident of your state. I come from a wee little town a long way away called Perth. I'm not sure if you're aware of it, after all, Sydney is the centre of the universe (although Melbourne would like to think that they are).

Here are some handy things you should know before my arrival:

1. In Perth, when we go to the pub, we ask for a pint or a middie. I hear you crazy kids have a strange medium called a schooner. Perhaps this is because:
a) you are too cadbury to drink half a litre of beer at a time;
b) you named the glass a schooner in the hope of making funny puns like 'schooner diving'; or
c) you want to confuse West Australians.

2. In WA, we are fanatic about AFL. We like to call it football This means that:
a) When I say football, I mean football , not rubgy.
b) I will talk about the Eagles and mean the West Coast Eagles, not the Manly Sea Eagles.
c) I will always say a good game is a fast game, and that's why football is better than rugby everytime.
d) I have no idea what the difference between Union and League is.

3. I'm used to sunsets over the beach and the ocean being Indian. Considering, I will be living in an inland city, it won't really bother me.

4. Because I'm from WA, I will bring with me a strange habit of abbraviating names and adding 'o' to the end of it. Such examples are:
a) Freo
b) Rotto
c) Busso
d) Gero

Please enjoy this cultural lesson and remember, be alert, but not alarmed - I only come from the other side of the country.

love,

Jess.