Familiar pain

Miss R is very annoyed with her best friend. This friend is stuck in a loop of her own making. She wants a relationship, with a good man, but instead hooks up with losers (who do the “I just want to be friends” dance, usually just after she’s finished blowing them). Now I’m not making any judgments. What a person does with their body is their own business. And we’ve all put ourselves in dangerous situations at some point. However, most of us learn from our mistakes, rather than repeating the behaviour and crying “Why me?” when everything goes to shit. 

 

Miss R started out being very supportive, but she has reached her limit. Now she is channelling her inner Hawm. And it feels good. She is normally the nice one, as anyone who knows her will attest to, so this new attitude is a bit of a shock. But it gets the job done. It won’t last long, the guilt will eventually be too much. For the moment she’s getting on with things and taking no prisoners, so I’m enjoying the show.

What’s this got to do with pain? Good question. Part of her friends problem, and something many people also suffer from, is the inability to leave a wound alone. As human beings we take perverse pleasure in wallowing in our own pain and misery. Rather than let the scab heal we keep picking at it. We read text messages/emails/letters from people who’ve hurt us. We listen to music, watch movies/tv shows, read books they recommended when they were still part of our lives.

Why do we do these things to ourselves? Lots of different reasons. Mostly, I think, it’s because we don’t really want to let then go. Even though they treated us like shit, even though we are better off without them, even though we know it’s wrong. Computers and the internet have made this harder to avoid. Now you can check that persons facebook/twitter/myspace/blog/webpage etc. anytime, from anywhere. Every email/tweet/message you ever sent each other is there. Every click keeping the wound open.

How much simpler thing were, when you could just burn the letters and move away. That is always my policy: destroy everything and move on. But it doesn’t always work. Sometimes the pain still lingers, even months after the wound closes over. Every day, it’s still there. Granted it is not as sharp as it once was, and it no longer fills the entire space, but it is still there. Most of the time I can ignore it, but I’m not having a good few days. Unfortunately another familiar pain has come back to visit, which is making me more cranky than usual.

My body is on the warpath, which means my pain levels are up. I’m due at the blood bank, so I can’t take any painkillers, and I’m stuck doing everything with my left hand. I’ve got an appointment with the torture merchant tomorrow morning, so hopefully things will improve. If not it’ll have to cancel the blood, and hit the hard stuff.

Meeting up with my cousin and her mum in the city tomorrow. Should be interesting. Hopefully I’ll be able to move my arm by then.

Resigned

I rang the bookstore. They gave me a title and then hung up. It was not the correct book. Oh well. Looks like I'll have to find myself a bookstore to play in.

Annoyed

I should be in a better mood. Really, after four days down the great ocean road with Miss R I should be relaxed. And I was. Even thought she was smart and took today off, while I went to work. I managed to get trough my shift without raising my voice. I even managed not to bite the head of the teenagers that were accosting people for money as they used the atm. I did however tell them that I would be calling the police, which produced the same result. I have no issues with busking, provided you know a few songs and can actually play them. But begging just pisses me off. Ask me about my experiences in London sometime if you really want to get me going.

No, I'm annoyed for a very book geek reason: I can't remember the title of a book that I saw while I was away. I took photo's off all the one's that would be brilliant for work, but didn't take one of the book I actually wanted for myself. To be fair I had planned to go back for it, but I just didn't make it that far. Which has left me here for the last 2 hours trying to remember the damn title.

The most obvious option would be to take myself off to a bookstore and look around until I see it. I'm fairly good at recognising covers. It's a hangover from working in the book store. But there aren't any local bookstores anymore. Well, there is one, but I have my own reasons for not buying anything from there. I will have to make a trek into the city. Not really something I have time for at the moment.

The other option is to ring the bookstore and ask them to look on their shelves. This has it's own issues. The store had signs on most shelves saying "Please do not use out store to find books that you will then go and buy online." Something that I have absolutely no issue with. Everyone has to make a living. It does, however, leave me with the impression that they will not be happy to give me the title of the book I'm looking for. I'll ring anyway, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

So, that's why I am annoyed.

On the upside my Dr Who boxset arrived. Just need to get through the last few weeks of uni and I can have a marathon ... and find time for a bake-off ... and the TurDuckEn practice run. ... and the gingerbread house ... and it’s under 13 weeks to christmas … crap.

August in review

I know I said I'd blog more this month but I just haven't had the time. That means another bullet point post. Next month will be better. It has to get better.

• Four year anniversary. Miss R has been putting up with me for quite some time. In fact, this is now the longest relationship I've been in. Not always perfect, but we haven't killed each other in our sleep. Though she has been tempted to kill one or two others ...

• Spent 45 minutes explaining to a library patron why librarians study to do our job. I don't think she realised that she was being offensive, but telling a librarian that anyone could do their job is like waving a red flag at a bull.* I managed to make sure she was fully informed and she left in awe of librarians everywhere. She also came back to let me know about a better job going at different library. There was much rejoicing in the workroom too.

• Scared the girls at the blood bank by having an ectopic heartbeat. Every fourth beat was doing a twostep. I felt fine, but it made them nervous so I have a chat with my Doc. ECG says I’m fine, according to the technician. Was a moment where it looked like she was going to have to shave my chest to get the pads to stick, but we managed to part the fur.

• After much consultation I decided to withdraw from one of my masters subjects. I’m just not getting enough out of it by doing it online, so I’ll do it face to face next semester. I’ve kept all the notes so I’ll be better prepared. My sanity is worth more, so if it takes an extra semester to finish so be it.

That’s about it for the time being. Slightly less uni work for now, but more time to put into the subject I’m still in. Off to the Melbourne Writers Festival next weekend. I’ve got tickets for a few events so it should be fun. I may even treat myself to dinner at The Chocolate Buddha. I’ll be the one in the corner watching the big screen. 

Tonight I’m off to dinner with Miss R and her family. Let’s see if I can get to the end of the meal without trying to kill myself with my chopsticks. **

*For the record, yes I know bulls are colour-blind, but the saying conveys a point rather than factual information. For more information on cows please take yourself to 636, or ask your librarian for assistance.

**Miss R’s family aren’t really that bad. Her father and I just have different politics. If he starts on about climate change and global warming being a myth again ...

falling off the face of the earth ...

Is it really possible that I didn't blog at all during July? See what happens when I have uni break and can step away from the laptop. Shouldn't be a problem again for a while. Already week 3 and the assignments are coming thick and fast.

I will mention this #TweetAugust. Haven't managed to take part yet, but probably will at some point. For now sleep.

mini post

Two quick things to share. Actually more like three.

1. I'm finding I have a slight addiction to playing WordFeud on my smartphone (scrabble type game). I've anyone cares to join me just search for Hawm. My spelling may be atrocious, but my vocabulary (and multitude of dictionaries) make up for it.
2. I just read The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss in 3 days. Get yourself a copy of The Name of the Wind first, and then read them both.
3. This is an example of why Miss R and I are well suited. I'd still rather have my own castle (and not live in an earthquake prone area), but still very cool.

That is all :)

Uni break

I have done very little this past week. Other than work I’ve left the house to go out to dinner a few times (once with the in-laws, and the other to a friend’s place), to the blood bank (got my special 100 donations pin last time), and to the book sale at the showgrounds. 

Not terribly riveting stuff, but that’s the speed I’m happy with for the moment. There have been the extra shifts at work, which are always nice. There have been more resignations at work too, so I imagine that will also mean more work. Ms M got the uni job we both interviewed for. I haven’t seen her, or had a chance to congratulate her yet. I’m glad she got it, even though it means I have to keep job hunting.

Now that I no longer have assignments I’ve been spending less time on my laptop. The few times I do get on I play Oblivion for a few hours and then turn it off. As much as I love my laptop I’m enjoying not being tethered to it.

While I hate the idea of any bookstore closing (even as much as I have good reason to hate A&R), I will admit that I profited from their death throes sale. Twenty books later and I’ve got plenty to read. When you include in the last lot of items I liberated from the withdrawn bin I’ve got a lot of cataloguing to do.

Most importantly I have time for baking again. I’m thinking about a chocolate brownie cheesecake on Monday. Will have to see how I feel after we’ve hit the art galleries. Heide have an exhibition of Albert Tucker’s Images of Modern Evil series, and Miss R has been bugging me about their Colour Bazaar since February. Fingers crossed it won’t rain on us while we are outside. I can live with the cold, but cold and wet is rarely fun :)