October 31, 2007

E ven after all my sound advice, even after all my hints about how to handle this breakup, G has instead decided that stalking and harassing the ex is the way to win his affections. I bet he is starting to wish that their paths never crossed, I bet he is starting to wish that he had run in the opposite direction with his tail between his legs when she had hinted at seeing him once more but that will teach him for breaking up with a girl through a text message. Yeah. That guy deserves everything he gets.

Being on the receiving end of a breakup is probably one of the worst things to experience, especially if you were pretty much into the person you were dating. Over the years I have complied my own list of break up rules to adhere to and these are as follows;

Rule No.1 - Don't call your ex. Don't sms your ex and sure as hell don't send them soppy love letters telling them how much you miss them and how much your world has been turned asunder since they walked away from you and the little bubble you had both created. No-body likes a desperate person and it sure as hell isn't attractive so don't try to guilt them into taking you back for a second chance. It will only make them want to get away from you that much faster.

Rule No.2 - Remove all traces of your ex from your home and most especially all those photos that made you look so cute together. Seeing those pictures will only make you dwell and when you dwell you will only get upset so it's best that you just remove his presence as much as you possibly can. Rearrange the house if that helps. Fill your new found space with all those things that make you happy.

Rule No.3 - Don't rebound with someone else, no matter how cool you are with the breakup. Instead take some time out before you leap into someone else's arms because although human contact is comforting and it might make you feel slightly better at the time, this feeling is fleeting and when it wears off, you will be back at square one and probably attached to someone who now thinks they are in love with you. Yuck.

Rule No.4 - Don't get drunk but if you must, make sure you have friends around you at all times who will understand your sudden outbursts of pain and are there to hold your hair when you eventually throw up your guts. Drinking might feel good at the time but it doesn't always dull the pain in your heart.

Rule No.5 - Don't agree to be friends with the Ex as a way of thinking that this will be a way to worm yourself into their life again. The friends line is only being thrown to make themselves feel less guilty about dumping you and isn't actually geniune so tell them that you will think about it when this has all been said and done. By the end of it you probably won't want to be friends and you will feel good about not making any promises.

To be continued ....

October 31, 2007

E verything right now is pissing me off. The fact that dentists charge an arm and a leg to repair teeth, the fact that even with a private health fund that I contribute nearly $1500 a year too, I hardly receive much benefit. The fact that even though I pay private health, I still have to pay a medicare levy (1.5% of my annual income, before tax) and pay ambulance cover twice because I have an electricity account in my name. What also pisses me off right now is the fact that Labor party and the Liberals are having petty squabbles over who will be better at running our country when neither of them are being fair to the average joe who is still paying ridiculous prices for fresh fruit and vegetables (no wonder we are a nation of rotting teeth and poor dental hygiene) and who is still paying ridiculous prices for petrol ($1.27 a litre!? Are you fucking kidding me!?!). It pisses me off that they get to claim pretty much everything as a tax deduction when I can't do the same for all of my childcare. After all I can't work without childcare, can I?

Yeah, there's a lot today that pisses me off today and I feel so much better for getting that off my chest.

October 27, 2007

I never actually planned on being in my current line of employment - I figured a cushy office job was the one for me - and it was actually sheer luck that I even bothered applying for a job which would bring me to closer to the one I am now employed in.

I was on the rebound from my previous place of employment as a sales assistant at a newsagency but had been given the flick after 7 months of working there and although I wanted to work desperately again, I was also in half a mind to just go back to being a at home mother when the employment agency called me one day to attend an interview that very afternoon for a data entry position. I almost never made it. I vaguely recall being in one of my famous dark moods that day, was seriously depressed and the last thing I wanted to do was dress up nicely for some stranger who was going to ask me a thousand questions that would relate back to the position they were offering. But I turned up for the interview and I was personally interviewed by the Plant Engineer himself and afterward I actually felt relieved that I had bothered to go along afterall. I didn't think I did too badly but I wasn't holding my breath for a call back. That very afternoon however I was contacted by the employment agency and was offered the position over the phone and I remember dancing around the lounge room like a lunatic thinking that finally I was being given a chance.

Even now it feels somewhat strange to be pursuing a career that had never crossed my mind previously and yet it really seems to fit, unlike other jobs I have considered in the past. It was a fork in the road that I wasn't quite looking for but just suddenly appeared one day out of the blue and once I started walking down it, the path felt just right beneath my feet so I kept following it.

October 23, 2007

In just under 3 months, our Maintenance Supervisor has managed to alienate nearly half of the maintenance crew and as you can imagine, this makes for unpleasant working conditions. Conflict between workers in the workplace is bad. Conflict between workers in a maintenance workshop is much, much worse. Afterall these are the people who you need to send out onto jobs and for them to be completed. Can you imagine being a person who is despised by your own crew trying to send out workers to a job? It's an eye opener let me tell you.

Our last Maintenance Supervisor was a fairly top bloke, easy going, helped out anyone who would ask and even though he was the boss out in the workshop, he never acted like he was more important than anyone else. Unfortunately he was diagnosed with Cancer, about 2 months shy of his retirement and just a couple of weeks short of him taking another overseas holiday with his wife. We all knew he was going to leave eventually but we had hoped that we would be waving him farewell from some huge celebration in his honour and never like this.

So as you can imagine we were all a little shocked, to say the least, about the new Maintenance Supervisor taking over the reins only a couple of weeks into his new role and by himself. We of course knew it was going to happen, we had already resigned ourselves to the fact that he wouldn't be like the bloke who's job he was taking over, but we at least assumed he would do a fair enough job to say the least.

Unfortunately for him, unfortunately for us, he decided to start his new job off by throwing his weight around which in my opinion was a pretty stupid thing to do. It was already obvious that he was a person with some authority now, he was given the job after all, but he must of thought he needed to cement that opinion in our brains indefinately and figured the best way of doing this was to puff out the ole chest and breathe fire at his crew. All he has managed to do in the end was lose all the respect that he had gained over the little time that he has worked for this company and pissed a lot of our workers off instead. It's a little disappointing actually because apart from this conflict going on, the workshop is actually a decent place to work. Now I have to deal with disgruntled employees not wanting to complete tasks because of their personel opinion of the Maintenance Supervisor and that affects my work which in turn pisses me off.

Sometimes boys act like such twots and it takes all my strength not to reach over and clip them behind the ears.

October 21, 2007

I no longer worry about the weekend passing by too quickly and when Monday finally rolls around, I simply shrug my shoulders in acceptance. I guess that I am fully rejuvenated from my time off and to top it off, I'll be going on another jaunt quite soon, for four whole days. We booked it a couple of months ago, after I went through one of my ”I need some frigging time away from work that doesn't involve work or shit shall hit the fan” and the Beloved promptly agreed. More out of sheer fear of what would happen if he had of disagreed than anything else. But that's okay. He has to live with me after all.

G is constantly messaging me about her recent relationship break-up. The said guy broke up with her through a text message (Is that any better or worse than a post-it?) last week and I haven't heard the end of it. She is literally stalking the poor guy by messaging him all the time, phoning his house whenever he may be home, phoning his mobile at odd hours and the only solace the poor fella can find is at work and only because she isn't sure about calling there. I keep telling her to play it cool, to let him go and to see what the future may bring but she is relentless in this and just won't give up. After all it is so damn sexy when a girl who has just been dumped decides to stalk her ex and smother him with guilt filled messages to win his heart. Yeah, I don't understand her logic either.

I have finished 'The further adventures of a Londan call girl and am quite sad to be putting it down.I was just starting to get to know Belle, to find she actually is quite likeable as well as intelligent, when the book promptly finishes and once again, I”m left hanging. I love the way it's reads though, the way she writes so straight to the point and uncensored. I'm hugely envious of how she writes so little yet says so much in those few paragraphs. A definate read again book and one I'll be passing onto the Beloved. If only to see the look of shock on his face when he reads the call girl entries.

Speaking of books, the Beloved and I are counting down the days till Terry Goodkind releases Confessor, supposedly the last book in the 'Sword of Truth' series. The best thing about these books is guessing how the main character Richard, is going to get his ass out of the latest mess he has put himself in because all the problems he has had to solve have been complex riddles that only the truly clever can solve. I might have to refresh my memory with Phantom before the last book comes out in November though I probably will just swear and curse as much as I did the first time round about certain characters who brang about Chainfire to begin with. If you like complex sci-fi books that make you think than these are must reads.

October 19, 2007

October 16, 2007

E very now and again I'll run into someone I knew from high school and almost always they remember me. That probably has something to do with the fact that I haven't changed much over the past ten or so years, apart from looking older, sometimes frumpier yet slightly more confident then I was back then. High school wasn't exactly the best time of my life, I afterall was an outcast with some friends who were more so aquaintances searching for my place in the world yet never really finding it. I wasn't overly confident in myself and I hid behind a lot of aggression so people wouldn't delve too deeply into my life which was poor by most people's standards and mostly lonely.

When I went to high school it mattered if you had no money, it mattered if your parents were separated and it mattered if you didn't fit in with whatever was cool and I never fitted in anywhere.

So whenever I come across people that knew me back then I am once again thrown back into that time of my life where I was an unpopular and boring little kid who always sat on the edges of other people friendships, always looking in yet never quite belonging and I hate feeling like that. It makes me want to go out and do something fantastic so I can jog my memory as to why I shouldn't care about what happened back then and how great my life is now but it never seems like it is enough. I could win the lotto and own the biggest house on the block but it would never be enough to erase the bitterness of high school. It is just one of those demons that will have to journey with me..

October 15, 2007

B eing back at work was summed up in one word. Weird. If I'm away from the place for longer than a couple of days I somehow feel like I am suddenly out of the loop and I have to walk around on eggshells until I figure out where my place is again. I'm still walking on eggshells however. It seems we have had a few hiccups in my absence which have absolutely nothing to do with me yet I sort of figured they would happen anyway. I did nothing about it nor did I say anything. I'd rather just watch shit hit the fan and duck for cover. I have to get my kicks from somewhere.

Apparently the air conditioner broke down all of last week and after experiencing that a couple of times, I'm glad I missed it. I had a nice pile of paper work to greet me, along with half the crap which is stored indefinately on top of the filing cabinets in the office, which had been relocated onto my own desk. The only way to access the air con is to get on top of the filing cabinets and so all the crap was temporarily relocated to my desk. It was once again relocated back to it's previous home with a few growls under my breath and a few kicks at the filing cabinets . I don't mind sharing my desk space but I do mind when people don't pick up after themselves.

I lost a little bit of weight whilst on holidays and although I am not over weight, I'm trying to retain this healthy figure of mine and so that means no Mars Bars in the Office, no food in the Office period actually, and lots of healthy foods instead, like muesli for breakfast, fruit for lunch with salad sandwiches and yogurt in the afternoons. So far I suck because I cheated and I ate an entire packet of Tim Tams yesterday. All by myself. I swear you leave any other type of chocolate in the fridge and I won't eat it but as soon as it is a packet of chocolate coated biscuits, either mint slices or tim tams, I just can't help myself. I drink my coffee, or I have my glass of milk and I just remember how fantastic chocolate biscuits taste with them.

So back to the drawing board tomorrow and for once, in a long time, I am actually looking forward to work.

October 12, 2007

I finally bit the bullet yesterday and decided to purchase my next hair brush from a reputable hairdresser. It cost me $25 and although I agree this is a ridiculous amount to hand over for a bit of plastic with some brisels, I figured it was worth it if it treated my hair any better than all the other brushes I have previously used. So far I'm loving how soft it leaves my hair after a few strokes but I'm beginning to realise that I'll need another trim if I'm to keep this unruly mane under control this Summer.

I also need a new camera and yes I am aware thatI keep whinging about it.

October 08, 2007

Whenever Sunday rolls around I picture people meeting up with family members or friends, taking a light leisurely stroll at the public gardens or around the block, before sitting down to eat a light breakfast of bacon and eggs, washed down with a cup of tea. I mostly imagine the conversation is friendly, with some light banter thrown in, but it is always pleasant and when they all part ways, polite kisses and hugs are shared as well as promises to this again soon.

The Sunday Lunch with G was nothing like that.

For starters we had lunch at Sizzler and I only agreed to go there because it was probably the only air condtioned building that was open on a Sunday, which didn't include the incessant noise of pokie machines. As it was I wasn't too fond of the choice, less than fond when we discovered the night before that the Beloved's mother got a little food poisioning from a Sizzler down in Brisvegas. And on top of that, I'm not a big fan of the whole buffet style restuarants. I eat in small portions at random intervals through out the day so unless I was planning on camping out at the restaurant for the rest of the afternoon, I knew I wouldn't get my money's worth. I drank two big glasses of soda whilst I was there and had two servings of dessert to help make me feel a little less guilty at spending wasting my money there. I feel slightly less annoyed now but also a little fatter for it.

So even before we had scrounged up our food, G was filling me in on everything her parents were doing to stop her from obtaining the kids again. Her folks are meant to be religious, Mormons in fact, yet they have no trouble with lying to government agencies and even the very courts themselves, to get what they want which is the family payments so they can live off the government benefits for the rest of their days. I'm half tempted to get their number from G just so I can preach down their throats and through their ears that that God will punish them for all their lies to see if somehow they will wake up to their senses and see the stupidity and the absolutely cruelty of seperating a child/children from it's biological parent(s) when the parent has done nothing to warrant it other than them wanting to start a new life, without them controlling her and the way she lives it. But the logical part of my brain often kicks in and tells me that it will only make the situation worse and that they will eventually get their just desserts and I'll be there nodding my head in quiet satisfaction that there is in fact such a thing as karma. Every dog has it's day after all.

But I do digress...

As you might of imagined, the lunch was a huge bitchfest and a catch up on all the things that have happened since we last saw one another, which was some months ago. She is becoming less self centered it seems and actually wants to discuss other things other than the things that revolve in her little universe but I take everything she says with a grain of salt these days and I'm only too happy to keep the conversation light and carefree. She has no real concept of how far I have come with my life, with my job, with my relationship with the Beloved, with being a mother and honestly, that doesn't concern her. All that she really cares about is everything that effects her and her bubble around her and it's a little sad. I think the only reason I tolerate as much as I do thus far is because I pity her. She has no real goals, dreams or hopes that she wants to achieve before she dies and it suits hers to live day by day, from pay cheque to pay cheque, and never planning anything but what she is doing now, 20 years on down the track.

So I don't hate her anymore, even if she did steal that money from my flat so long ago and I'm finally learning to let go of my own annoyance of her behaviour. So overall lunch wasn't a bad thing and I might do it again when I haven't anything better to do.

October 06, 2007

The meeting the parents wasn't half as bad as I originally thought it would be and I won't even mind doing it again. None of the past was rehashed and they seem content that their son is happy and in a stable environment that doesn't revolve around religion. Long story. It's good to be home again though, sleeping in my bed, playing on the computer and enjoying all the creature comforts of your own pad. I truly dislike being a guest in a persons home because you have watch how much water you use when you shower (if applicable), pick up after yourself and you can't exactly hog the television either. I would of felt more comfortable if we had of rented a place for a couple of nights but it wouldn't of been cost effective for our current budget and it would have seemed a little insulting if we had of stayed else where when they had a perfectly good bed and room for us to use.

The beloved's parents were lovely, polite and strangely homely. They weren't in your face with questions, questions, questions but they were a little curious about me. Not that I really informed them of too much of who I was and what I was about, as I am a quiet and reserved person until you get to know me real well, but I started to loosen up towards the end which I think they were relieved to see.

Lucky for me though most of the attention and conversation was reflected back onto either Richard (as a naughty child), his father (who under went an operation for some collapsed arteries not too long ago) or other members of the family who live less than perfect lives.

So we did some walking along the beach and esplande, visited the shops for a little retail therapy, went out on the beloved's parent's boat for a spot of fishing and enjoyed the salt air and sea breeze. It was definitely a nice change from the same old, same old that we get to experience here every day but it made me appreciate the familarity of home. I've always said that I disliked the idea of living so close to the sea, after experiencing the beach up here and hating how it is always so windy and blowy, driving me nuts and making me feel like I need to shower even though I haven't swum in the salty sea, but after visiting the Bay, it definitely kindled a want to visit there again.

It appears that I shall be dining at Sizzler tomorrow with that girl who is truly not a friend but whom I keep in contact with still. You remember the one who moved back from South Australia and lives off government benefits? Well a few changes have happened in her life since I last wrote of her and one of them being that her parents are taking her to court over custody of her children whom are in her parents possession after obtaining a court order to have them taken back to South Australia. So currently she is living with her ex husband and his new wife and they are trying to gain custody of the children and bring them back to Queensland. I'm not even sure why it is taking so long, nor why the court is favouring the grandparents but it is truly a scary thing to watch. The children's mother has done nothing bad against the children, hasn't neglected them, hasn't abused them, yet they can just take them off her because the grandparents want the government benefits instead. It's disgusting how this actual legal. A child belongs with it's mother or father if they are obviously caring for it properly.

Anyway she sent me a message a little while ago wanting to catch up and since the beloved is at home tomorrow, watching his car racing all day, I thought I may as well slip out for a spot of something different and figured lunch would be nice. It's not often I get out to eat lunch without the kid in tow behind me and when the opportunity arises, you basically grab it by the horns. Otherwise I would be spending all day either reading or playing on the computer and I can do that anytime.

I wonder if this lunch will turn into a bitchfest?

October 01, 2007

Although I've known about us going to see Richard's parents when we went on holidays in October, some part of my mind was obviously playing tricks on me because it's only now starting to sink in that I am actually going to officially meet his parents and though this is meant to be a momentous occasion and one that is most likely celebrated, instead it feels like I'm attending my own funeral. Afterall I won't just be going as Richard's girlfriend, I'll also be seen as the girl who came between their son and their ex daughter in law. So I'm not exactly expecting a warm reception from them, even though a year and a half has passed since this all occurred, but I've planned for the worst and am expecting nothing special out of it other than to be polite and respectful hello. Unfortunately Richard see's it as some kind of happy reunion, like they will instantly fall in love with me the way that he has but I'm a realist and parents never fall in love with me. They simply tolerate my presence until my partner at the time grows bored with me or I with them. Unfortunately for them, yet fortunately for me, I haven't grown bored with the beloved. I've been angry at him, hurt by him and frustrated by him but never bored by him so I guess they will have to deal with the fact that I will be around for a long time yet.

And I usually love going on long car trips, getting to stare dreamingly outside the window whilst running some type of scenario inside my head (my favourite being me upon a wild mustang riding the hills and chasing some imaginary adventure), packing lots of candy into my bag to keep me sane and pleading to stop at nearly every service station just so I can load up with souveniors, yet all I can think about now is the fact that the further we travel tomorrow, the closer we get to seeing his parents and how Zac will be whilst we are there and will I be ignored or politely spoken to. It's enough to make a girl want to just call it quits now and find some type of excuse not to go but Richard has been looking forward to this trip for months and to go back on my word now would be like cutting out a piece of my heart and tossing it away. It's important to him and so therefore it is important that I make sure we go. Now let's just keep our fingers crossed for an uneventful trip and some truly fantastic photos of the sights and sounds of a different town. I still haven't managed to squeeze in buying a new camera but I'm hoping to get that sorted out before Christmas.

I'm also hoping to catch up with an old friend whilst we are down that way, one I haven't seen in quite some time and due to a recent phone number change, haven't spoken to either. I know where she works, or at least where she used to work nine months ago so here's to hoping that she hasn't left or if she has, that she is still somewhere in the area. She always has some interesting stories to tell and I'm in need of a different story, especially if it means I don't have to sit there and offer any type of support or encouragement because I'm all out of that right now. (I'ts my holiday and I'll whine if I want to).

This is probably my cue to get offline and get some much needed sleep if we are to leave early in the morning and I like nothing better than being well rested when being on the road. Mostly so I can enjoy the experience of doing something that I don't do every day. I'll be back in a few days so I'll catch up with you all then.