Not having a good day. Started alright. Remarkably well actually – Hell-stra – everyone’s favourite phone and cable company actually arrived on time and did an efficient and fast install allowing me to get to work quite quickly. I got squid working for some caching stuff I am experimenting with. Then it all went to shit.

The real estate agent calls me to say that the fucking real estate pricks who sold the place next door and who are selling another place two doors down (in competition to our place) are telling people our house isn’t structurally sound. Which is total and utter bullshit and I have the fucking building reports to prove it. This other mob nagged us for weeks about using them to sell our house. Eventually as a result of them not leaving us alone we decided to go with anyone other than them. So this is obviously sour grapes time. Real estate agents are such maggots.

Arghh. Angry, tense, teeth clenched and stomach ulcers about to go into overdrive. Want to drive by their offices and machine gun them. Thinking of using the bad word starting with c that I hate using to describe them. Blagh. Too angry to type.

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Have the idiots not worked out that sexual repression seems to be at the heart of a lot of their problems with sexual abuse amongst the clergy? This sort of thinking is medieval.

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That alleged high moral ground that the Right seized with talk of WMD and terrorist threats is getting to be an awfully thin piece of turf. This is the latest insult to injury.

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I am a bad, bad man. I left poor Mefcon last night in the downstairs club at the Civic. Left him dancing like a maniac with this very strange but very pretty half-Korean/half-Japanese girl from San Diego. He was seriously out of his depth and given his weakness for women who look like anime characters it was going down hill fast. She was there with G – the very, very big Operations guy from one of the outlying offices (6′8″ and built like the side of a fucking barn). I seriously hope that nothing was going on because Mark was heading towards being smitten and G could tear a truck apart with his bare hands.

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House settles today. Keys being dropped off tonight. Got another open house at the old place tomorrow. Thankfully my folks are in town so we are taking them off to see the new place and don’t have to sit there twiddling our thumbs waiting for people to finish trooping through the house. We had over a hundred through last week. So that bodes well for a good price. At least so I hope.

Mefcon is leaving my evil former employer today too. Then he’s jetting off to Ireland for three months leaving me bereft of my only regular drinking partner. Lonely nights at the pub ahead. *sigh* But damn nasty night at the pub tonight for his going away I suspect – a lot of bitter current and ex-employees getting hammered and ranting about our evil current/former employer. By now they must have laid off nearly 25% of my former colleagues. Fucking dumb-arse bastards.

Thankully I got out before the axe was laid on my neck. I was an angry, bitter, out-spoken and burnt out wreck by the time I left. I’d have been quick on the chopping block. Wouldn’t have gone down without a nasty fight though. Knew where more than a few bodies were buried. Could have done some serious damage. But a cooler head prevailed and I bowed out before the bloodshed to much greener pastures. Am a happier man as a result too.

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I have two female friends who have no luck with men. It bewilders me. Both of them are intelligent and funny, cynical and sarcastic. Both are beautiful – on the stunner side of beautiful. They are articulate and from my interactions with them – kind, considerate, nice, gentle and fun people.

Ben I’ve known forever – so long we’ve even entertained a few thoughts about something more than friendship – the same way I suspect many old friends do over the years. But we’ve never been in the same place at the same time – emotionally, mentally and relationship wise – to do so. We have sort of drifted into a very close friendship where we understand where we both stand and though it’s probably a little bit closer than friends we both know the ground rules and don’t tread over the boundaries. I love her but it doesn’t go beyond the platonic thing.

And then there’s another more recent friend. My word if I was her age and single I’d be chasing hard. Hell – bugger age – if I was single I’d still be chasing hard. Not much chance of that for I am a far too happy and contented man. And there is the little matter of being her type… But she’s got all the good things I wanted back at her age in a partner.

But both of seem to either meet deadbeats, clueless boys or arseholes. And I don’t get it. It’s like they both have a sign that says ‘Take advantage of my good faith and my belief that there are good men out there’. And that sign seems to be a magnet to some men. The wrong men. Either men who can’t work themselves out or men who know exactly what they want and it is far too self-involved to be good for anything but their own egos.

But the big bit I don’t get is why some man – a nice man, head screwed on right with good intentions – doesn’t see them and snap them up? I am left wondering if there is something seriously fucking wrong with my gender. Are so many us either idiots or creeps? Are some of us totally blind? I just don’t know what to say to them anymore when they tell me what is going on in their lives. It has got me stumped. Bewildered.

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he came and took me by the hand
that strange companion who walked
with shuffling feet by the rude bridge
a friend, whose smile has come to be

when finally I see with open eyes
that I was not a god
ere the marble found me and
the ancient songs were sung

have you not heard
he holds my heart
in the dark and peace of his final bed
a smile locked in a vacant room

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This article is well worth reading. Especially the last line – “Yet if we can’t find people willing to take the risk — to face the truth and act on it — what will happen to our democracy?”

And note the return of bad poetry. Yah.

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I do not pray for peace or ease
nor a place for you with me
did you think, my darling, I’d wrap
you up in my arms?

My name is not truth nor
is what I pay what I owe
I am of poor thoughts
and poorer impulses

I expect you to know
for I cannot tell you
what endless, foolish desires
brought me here

But I am old, blind and sodden
older wine to drink than you
and not only shadows lie along
the way that brought you here

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Had a scare last night. My lovely other half is a diabetic. She went off to Yoga and I was reading. When I looked at my watch next it was nearly 10pm and she hadn’t returned and hadn’t called. Very unlike her – she always calls when she is running late or has changed her plans. She’s obsessive about it normally. Drives me mental sometimes because I usually don’t need to know every detail of what she is doing but it’s her way. So not calling is very out of character.

Then I started thinking that her blood sugar has been a little up and down over the last couple of weeks. I instantly thought “Shit she’s had a hypo somewhere”. No answer on her mobile. No answer from the Yoga place. I called RPA and got put through to Emergency – no Lu’s there and no women in their late twenties admitted with hypoglycemia. I asked about the latter because if she’s had a hypo she may not have been able to tell them her name or my name. So that’s good I think – not at the hospital.

Then I get more worried because what if she had a hypo in the car or pulled over and passed out? No one might see her or find her for quite a while. So I called B and he – being the extremely reliable soul he is – drives up the street and picks me up and we drive her route to and from Yoga. We had just pulled up outside the Yoga place and I was going to go up and down the street looking for her car when she rings me. I nearly fell over with relief. She had given someone a lift home and spent a while with her having a cup of tea, chatting and cat admiring.

It can be really scary sometimes. Ever since the hypo last year (which was a bad one – convulsions, fitting, the works) if she goes to bed before me – which is normal – I often come check on her every hour or so. Just hover near the doorway and make sure she is breathing normally and not twitching or looking like she is going low. I still can’t get her to wear her MediAlert bracelet. I am going to do some serious badgering over the next few days to see if I can get her to change her mind. Too many ambos don’t recognise a hypo and without a MediAlert they often misdiagnose – epilepsy or a drug overdose being common mistakes. Makes me scared and stressed.