Not a good day and not a bad day. Just a weird day. Feeling a little odd. Mentally not all there in some regards I suspect. Fought with CF over a silly mistake I made and tried to re-write history on. Bloody annoying and from now on she can do all the ‘touchy feely being nice to people’ stuff and I can go back to being a bastard. Never drift out of your comfort zone *grin*. Only people I am nice to are the ones I like and there ain’t many of those.

And bloody Telstra are arseholes. Lying arseholes at that. Bloody cable connection was down from Saturday to this morning and then I ended up with a new IP address when it came back – thank god for dyndns. I spent 30 minutes on hold last night only to be told by some dumb-arse yuppie that there wasn’t a problem. When I patiently explained that a) yes there was a problem and b) had been one since Saturday he asked me if I had rebooted my machine!?! So after I explained that not only could I spell my name but I could also find my arse with both hands he then claimed there might be a problem but only with a small number of customers. So I said that I guessed that I might be one of the customers. He said no because he was showing a connected session for me. Then I explained that might be so but the bloody DHCP server wasn’t giving me an IP address – session or no session. This flummoxed him and he couldn’t give me an answer. And of course no Service Levels – so no money back either. Bloody annoying. And to think I am even a shareholder *lol*.

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My great aunt died on Saturday. Haven’t thought about it much. It was very sudden – though she was quite old – in her nineties. She was quite active and capable and then about three weeks ago had a stroke and was pretty much incapacitated from then until she died. In some ways she was such an independent woman that dying after having to experience all that incapacity was probably a relief for her. I don’t know how I feel.

Perhaps it’s contributing to my melancholy. That and watching AH on the weekend. Looking back at life again. Looking at things that came to pass. Things set in motion, things as they have become resolved or not resolved. Fuck me things I can’t let go.

Here

I’m always going to love you here
in this place I remember last at night

I’ll always come back to you here
in this place I can’t let go

I’ve always been here
in this place, this little twisted part of my soul

Goddamn I’m always here.

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Had a long weekend. Am absolutely exhausted. Went up to AH’s new place in Greta in the Hunter Valley and spent the weekend being relaxed. Sat around Saturday night and drank, ate and chatted. Toured wineries on Sunday and then had a big bash on Sunday night – 16 people and a huge collection of alcohol and food. So things were BBQ’ed, salad’ed, uncorked, unscrewed and downright guzzled. Had a hilarious game of Charades in which 12 very drunk people tried to guess some very tricky things- The Unbearable Lightness of Being done in Charades? Ain’t easy. A Country Practice? Just think about the syllables in that one. Was an odd bunch of people too. AH’s ex K was there with her mate Becs, a whole lot of PWC consultant types that are mates of AHs, AH’s old housemate (and his two German Shepherds) and a collection of partners, hangers on, housemates and miscellaneous alcho’s who meander out of the woodwork when they here the words ‘winery tour’.

Strikes me more and more that AH is sad – really sad. I think he is still in love with his ex. Working on his new house you could almost see his need to find someone to share it with. And the plan has been torpedoed. When I went to bed she was lying next to him on his bed just watching him sleep. Was one of the saddest things I think I’ve ever seen. He is such a kind and gentle guy. I mean he’s virtually a saint and women fall over themselves to be with the boy – though I suspect he’s almost oblivious to the attention a lot of the time.

Jesus you’d think by your late twenties you’d be working some of this crap out. But no joy. And then you realise fucking this stuff up is part of the human condition and that we humans mess up relationships well into our dotage. And of course Lu and I fought twice on the trip. Yep you guessed it. In the car on the way up and in the car on the way back. Something about putting volatile people in confined spaces with stressful (driving) conditions that makes for a little ticking timebomb. Both times the arguments were about sod all and we were both laughing shortly about how stupid the argument was. But it is stressful and we spent quite a few kms staring out the window and glaring at each other occasionally.

I’m signing off for the weekend. A good weekend with melancholy overtures. Nature of the play I guess.

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And the road travels on,
but I

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Went to see PJ Harvey last night. Polly Jean, as always, rocks. Looking damn skinny though. She sang a lot of new stuff, some stuff off Stories from the City, Stories from The Sea and the occasional bit of older stuff. Lu was very, very happy with the gig. She loves PJ. Only surpassed by her passion for Mike Patton. She (and G) would go and see Mike Patton doing his laundry. So was a good choice and made her very happy. Another win as it were. Even I bopped along to a few things *grin*. Though Lu prefers the earlier stuff much more than I do – mostly the very angry feminist chick rock stuff – whereas I pretty much like most of the things off SFTC, SFTS onward. And the woman keeps re-inventing herself. Some of the new stuff was vey ‘old school PJ’ with added twists. Very interesting. Looking forward to hearing the new album. So it was a good night. And they have Kraftwerk playing at the Enmore tonight. Weird. Kraftwerk. Odd people.

Going okay today. Tired and working hard too. Just finished rewriting the companies website because it was shite (which is a technical term meaning totally crap). Some of the lessons learnt in the past have proved most useful to adjusting the site. It now looks considerably better than before and should be considerably easier to maintain. Still a shitload of work to do though because of stupid JS additions and a very weird ASP based contact form. Must work out how that works next and butcher – err – fix it.

Reading: Timesheeting software manual

Listening to: New Model Army, PJ, Nick Cave, Fine Young Cannibals

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Our bloody microwave link is down again at work. Which means no phones, no mail, no Internet. Which also means no IM which results in me having to actually do some work every now and again *grin* kidding actually it is annoying because chatting is my break from work and allows me to reset my brain. Currently brain is not reset and the day dragged on. Had to work Sunday night so it already feels like Tuesday even though it’s only Monday. It is going to be a looong week I suspect. But it is the Australia Day long weekend next weekend and we are heading north to the Hunter Valley to stay with AH at his new place in exciting downtown Greta. A long weekend of BBQ, drinking and wine tours which in fact entail more drinking *smile*. So something to look forward to.

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I just found out a former lover has got herself a damn fine job doing something I know she must love and apparently according to all reports doing it very well. I am very pleased for her, whatever her feelings for me were then and probably now as well. I hope she is happy whatever happens – I have certainly never wished ill of her no matter how we parted and how we have related since. Ah mistakes of the past and memories of lost love are melancholy things *sad smile*.

To me saying emotional things is often hard. I often find myself either tongue-tied, uncontrollably flippant or spouting witticism when forced to talk about things that affect me emotionally. Unless of course you add alcohol in which case I become positively loquacious – I even find the physical affection thing easier after a few drinks. I find emotional communication here – the Internet – relatively easy to handle. At least easier than the real world. But even though I find communication over electronic media easier I still have problems here. You would think not being able seeing your audience makes it easier but sometimes that furthers confusion – for example I am a little bit nervous about upsetting people by saying the wrong thing because written words can come across with different meanings without the associated body language. I like this medium though. I like taking the time to write about things around me, opinion, theory and even the generalities of my daily life. I like being able to put down what I feel when I feel it instead of bottling it up and making myself depressed. But let me not ramble on. I have had a good day. An acquaintance has grown into a friendship. I have a good weekend coming up. I like the world at the moment. Indeed life is a gentle force at the moment over which I have some control and that is a fine thing. Touch wood it remains that way.

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Been in another marathon meeting – 7 hours. Brain hurts moderately badly. Eyes sore and back aching. Wrote SLAs until early hours of this morning and got them 9/10 done. Then discovered it had been decided last night not to put them in our current proposals. Something I could have been told yesterday. But anyways shit happens. At least I have them done. Incredibly tired though with 7am start. Alright if I only get a little sleep in I am doing something I enjoy – reading, drinking, smoking ciggies, chatting to Zac, writing, etc, etc – normal things I do late at night. But if I work and have to seriously strain brain it whacks me out. Was distinctly less than coherent until two cups of coffee. But getting there slowly. Some massive spec changes have thrown one project a bit out of whack and I will have to re-cost with money I don’t have and can’t get. Bloody hell something else to worry about. *sigh*

But better here than before. No matter what – better here than before. I am going to go home. Sit down. Drink something. Relax… Take care all out there.

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I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried – “La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!” – John Keats

It’s been a long afternoon. Writing some fairly mind numbing stuff. SLAs and the like. Thinking quite a bit too. Started thinking about Bowling for Columbine again. It still sits uncomfortably in my mind. Going to take a long time to put those images out of my mind. I only hope that it never gets that bad here. Though I can’t see how it can. But then every now and again I think about the old saying ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ and paraphrase it slightly for our country in the current hysteria about terrorism and difference – ‘if you can’t beat them become them’. Which is seemingly what our government is trying to do. They have worked out that they can’t beat their opponents through martial means. And the alternative is unpalatable – actually recognising why there is a divide and identifying how to live together in peace – offering help with education, healthcare and trade – winning people over with humanitarianism and kindness not firepower and destruction. O how naive I must be to think such things could be. *sad smile*

So instead our fine government decides to become our enemies – making our state more oppressive, more totalitarian, reducing freedoms and persecuting difference. Make us fear things we perceive to be or have presented to us as different. Making us afraid of our neighbours because they dress differently or worship in a different place or speak a different language or even eat different food. So we are sent forth to ‘dob in a terrorist’ and the result? They rule us through our fear. Sound familiar? Yeah could be one of those countries our leaders have been so enthusiastically declaiming as evil and repressive. And they have done a brilliant job of playing the ‘we are a fair, equitable and democratic nation’ card whilst making changes we actually believe are necessary to protect those ideals but in fact they are eroding those ideals. A dangerous circle of claim and counter-claim with every step making us less like the place we want to protect. It’s masterful politics. John Howard may be scum but he’s one of the savviest political players Australia has seen for a long time. He has played the populace for all they are worth. I only hope that when he and the rest of his hate mongers are gone that we are able to repair some of the damage done. But I think it’ll take a long time to get people to understand that we are all human. That we all bleed the same damn colour. But then to offer another paraphrase – Hate is never having to say you are sorry.

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Meandering today. Started several pieces of work and then got most of the way through them and lost the will to continue. Not bored, not tense – just unfocused. Listening to music and generally enjoying the wonderment that is Friday. Went to the pub for lunch with the boss and had a beer – that in combination with food just makes me want to curl up under my desk and sleep. Not a good look though. Especially since I allegedly snore. Which I believe is totally not true. *grin*

Went out for beers last night with persons from late great last job. As they say in the classics – “there be trouble at mill”. Things not going well there – restructures, chaos, mayhem and general disorder. Glad I got out when I did. Especially given I might have been one of the casualties of the restructure – they seem to be purging a whole lot of people who came from the parent company (like me) and replacing them with people from the mob they bought. Seems insane given the reason we bought them was we were doing better than them. But then I left because they were insane and I am now sure I got out before it became a total nightmare.

Got dinner planned this evening – Japanese – mmmm. Tastebuds already tingling at the thought of some gyu-no-tataki or some tempura. Good things.

Feeling something new today. Not sure what it is. Feeling a bit more comfortable about the world perhaps. A little more relaxed perhaps. Whatever it is it is making me sort of playful in mood. Listening to some music, singing a little (in new office which will get them worried), doing some writing – generally sort of meandered relaxation. Weird feeling whatever it is.