On a good day I have trouble deciding what to put on my toast. But today, when I really could have used it, my well-thumbed handle on indecision deserted me.
I was presented with the kind of challenge I knew would eventuate when I rejoined the salaried life… though didn't quite expect so soon. My manager asked if I wanted to relieve in her role for a couple of months. I’ve done this job many times. It really doesn’t have that much to recommend it. Other than more money.
And ... I ... bit ... the ... carrot.
It was the kind of moment when the world slows down and you feel yourself saying something you can’t quite comprehend you're saying, but can't quite stop yourself from saying either.
Like yes.
And that was BEFORE I found out the position has been regraded up a level during my absence. I will shimmy up two pay brackets. Quite phenomenal if you could see my last tax return.
Three weeks ago I was crafting my resignation letter. I had a valid health care card, confidence wobbles and a dream. I am supposed to be finding a way out of communications. Not burrowing further into it.
Maybe it was all that leftover electricity in the air.
I feel dirty. I feel compromised. I am going to hate myself in the morning. Every morning. For at least the next two and a half months. I’ve just discovered my price.
17 November 2008
13 November 2008
acronym-phomania (is a disease of people in offices)
Here is a list summarising the first week back in life and desk. Seems I can only think in lists and dot points this week. Strange. Hmmph. Think I need one of those website counters - the ones that count down the days til some important event – in my case, the end of my ‘gap’ year back behind the desk.
1. Freaking acronyms. They should all be hogtied, painted with honey and stuffed in a small cage with a hungry brown bear. Except TOIL and ATL, which are quite dandy acronyms which I hope to become better aquainted with. So far I’ve acquainted myself with lots of zzzzzzzzzzs and gotten friendly with a few G&Ts. I would also like to retain the many-purposed WTF in my arsenal. It’s come in handy several times this week.
2. WTF is with the sudden profusion of white – yes, WHITE – hairs????? Mysteriously this little jab to the jugular coincided with my return to a lifestyle I deem to be in contempt of life. Maybe it's not the profusion but my noticing that is sudden. Perhaps my renewed compulsion to preen after a lull has afforded me a fast-forward from ‘before’ to ‘after’, otherwise denied by continual attendance to mirrors. Either way, WTF??
3. Sports shoes that pretend they’re office shoes: it is my week’s mission to find some. After three blisters on day one in my formerly comfortable flats, I am starting a homy-peds facebook fan club.
4. Quietly freaking out after re-reading points two and three in succession. Moving quickly to convince myself it is not a sign I’m upon old lady days, merely an indication of my slide even further to the left… and, well… I can’t think of any positive reinterpretation whatsoever for WHITE HAIR.
5. Ah Brisvegas. You have Campos coffee. You have Avid Reader and the awesome West End markets. You have cute Queenslander houses (albeit now totally unaffordable) and mango trees and sunshine. You even have a smattering of decent cultural institutions and events. But you are also painfully thin on the ground with the good stuff. Why do I always forget how small and unsophisticated you are? I am bemoaning the demise of your cheap-ass Dendy, which is clearly a ploy to get us to drive to the upmarket one in a posh suburb in a bling retail development on the river and pay more. Pfff.
6. Had also forgotten how small Bligh’s Army is. And how postively miniscule is Bligh’s Army of Spin. I like the sound of that, we could almost be a cricket team. Except I don't like cricket. Almost made it through one week without an urgent request for speech notes from the Office of the Lesser Grand Poo-bah. Am taking rehydration salts to work tomorrow after spending a week dying of thirst in the stupid airconditioning. WHINGE.
7. Someone asked if I’d planted the herbs and black russian tomato seedlings I brought with me from Vic. Let's see... arrived Friday PM, spent weekend getting self into new lodgings/retreiving work things from storage, started work Monday... When would I have done that? I’d forgotten how close to impossible it is for a desk hound to have time for much else other than work during the week. Sob.
8. A couple of points in opposition to my general brooding cynicism: I am secretly amazed by the little ripples we unknowingly make. I am also running away with Leunig this week.
9. Back to the brooding. I sense that with my return to desk-bindings, the part of my brain disposed to ideas and deep thinking is involuntarily shutting down. It – which thrives on idle time – is being usurped by the (still sluggish) part that has been called into action to juggle multiple compact chunks of information. Like lists and bullet points. I want to scream that these little information snacks are useless to me, they are merely functional, inconsequential snippets of trivia, unrelated and meaningless to my place in the world. But no one is listening. So I am running away with Leunig, he understands.
10. A concentration of sympathy and wellness vibes to all the poorly kitties and all their mums and dads. I fear it will be my turn soon and the little blighter’s in a different state.
1. Freaking acronyms. They should all be hogtied, painted with honey and stuffed in a small cage with a hungry brown bear. Except TOIL and ATL, which are quite dandy acronyms which I hope to become better aquainted with. So far I’ve acquainted myself with lots of zzzzzzzzzzs and gotten friendly with a few G&Ts. I would also like to retain the many-purposed WTF in my arsenal. It’s come in handy several times this week.
2. WTF is with the sudden profusion of white – yes, WHITE – hairs????? Mysteriously this little jab to the jugular coincided with my return to a lifestyle I deem to be in contempt of life. Maybe it's not the profusion but my noticing that is sudden. Perhaps my renewed compulsion to preen after a lull has afforded me a fast-forward from ‘before’ to ‘after’, otherwise denied by continual attendance to mirrors. Either way, WTF??
3. Sports shoes that pretend they’re office shoes: it is my week’s mission to find some. After three blisters on day one in my formerly comfortable flats, I am starting a homy-peds facebook fan club.
4. Quietly freaking out after re-reading points two and three in succession. Moving quickly to convince myself it is not a sign I’m upon old lady days, merely an indication of my slide even further to the left… and, well… I can’t think of any positive reinterpretation whatsoever for WHITE HAIR.
5. Ah Brisvegas. You have Campos coffee. You have Avid Reader and the awesome West End markets. You have cute Queenslander houses (albeit now totally unaffordable) and mango trees and sunshine. You even have a smattering of decent cultural institutions and events. But you are also painfully thin on the ground with the good stuff. Why do I always forget how small and unsophisticated you are? I am bemoaning the demise of your cheap-ass Dendy, which is clearly a ploy to get us to drive to the upmarket one in a posh suburb in a bling retail development on the river and pay more. Pfff.
6. Had also forgotten how small Bligh’s Army is. And how postively miniscule is Bligh’s Army of Spin. I like the sound of that, we could almost be a cricket team. Except I don't like cricket. Almost made it through one week without an urgent request for speech notes from the Office of the Lesser Grand Poo-bah. Am taking rehydration salts to work tomorrow after spending a week dying of thirst in the stupid airconditioning. WHINGE.
7. Someone asked if I’d planted the herbs and black russian tomato seedlings I brought with me from Vic. Let's see... arrived Friday PM, spent weekend getting self into new lodgings/retreiving work things from storage, started work Monday... When would I have done that? I’d forgotten how close to impossible it is for a desk hound to have time for much else other than work during the week. Sob.
8. A couple of points in opposition to my general brooding cynicism: I am secretly amazed by the little ripples we unknowingly make. I am also running away with Leunig this week.
9. Back to the brooding. I sense that with my return to desk-bindings, the part of my brain disposed to ideas and deep thinking is involuntarily shutting down. It – which thrives on idle time – is being usurped by the (still sluggish) part that has been called into action to juggle multiple compact chunks of information. Like lists and bullet points. I want to scream that these little information snacks are useless to me, they are merely functional, inconsequential snippets of trivia, unrelated and meaningless to my place in the world. But no one is listening. So I am running away with Leunig, he understands.
10. A concentration of sympathy and wellness vibes to all the poorly kitties and all their mums and dads. I fear it will be my turn soon and the little blighter’s in a different state.
03 November 2008
34 things
Tonight I stumbled across bugheart, a blogger (who also has a great idea for a photo blog) who made a list of 34 goals on her 34th birthday. Spooky, since tomorrow is my 34th birthday. It's probably unwise to ignore such blatant/weirdo prompting from the universe, and I've kinda been in renewal mode anyway, so here's my to-do list for the coming year...
1. Find a job in policy (and change blog subtitle to Life And Desk).
2. Save save save and buy some land.
3. Research and design my little sustainable house.
4. Persevere with a potted herb garden.
5. Sell my photos.
6. Sell my cards (or at least give them to family and friends on card-type occasions).
7. Eat more ethically.
8. Buy goods in bulk in own containers.
9. Continue making all my own bread.
10. Stick to pilates and walking 3 times/week each.
11. Do a first aid, safety at sea and sail training course.
12. Investigate Indigenous kitchen garden idea.
13. Read about transition culture.
14. Knit R a beanie in time for Japan.
15. Send a krama to N.
16. Blog more regularly. Post more for streeteditors. Keep writing for Dumbo Feather.
17. Get my typewriter fixed.
18. Do more creative work.
19. Do something eco-preneurial / creative with R.
20. Make and give away recycled notebooks.
21. Redevelop Pelican’s website.
22. Start giving blood again.
23. Learn the violin. And pick up my guitar more often.
24. Visit the Bunya Mountains.
25. Go for bushwalks.
26. Get a bike and ride it (and this time, don’t give it away!)
27. Do more for others.
28. Get an address book and keep track of friends/family contact details and birthdays.
29. Apply to become a foster carer.
30. Find out about rent a chook and herdshare.
31. Go to Sunday comedy & jazz @ the Powerhouse again.
32. Try to be more open to the possibility of meeting a single/available/adjusted boy with similar interests/values/goals.
33. Accept the journey, where ever it goes, and trust myself more.
34. Do one thing that's not on this list that I would normally say ‘no’ to!
1. Find a job in policy (and change blog subtitle to Life And Desk).
2. Save save save and buy some land.
3. Research and design my little sustainable house.
4. Persevere with a potted herb garden.
5. Sell my photos.
6. Sell my cards (or at least give them to family and friends on card-type occasions).
7. Eat more ethically.
8. Buy goods in bulk in own containers.
9. Continue making all my own bread.
10. Stick to pilates and walking 3 times/week each.
11. Do a first aid, safety at sea and sail training course.
12. Investigate Indigenous kitchen garden idea.
13. Read about transition culture.
14. Knit R a beanie in time for Japan.
15. Send a krama to N.
16. Blog more regularly. Post more for streeteditors. Keep writing for Dumbo Feather.
17. Get my typewriter fixed.
18. Do more creative work.
19. Do something eco-preneurial / creative with R.
20. Make and give away recycled notebooks.
21. Redevelop Pelican’s website.
22. Start giving blood again.
23. Learn the violin. And pick up my guitar more often.
24. Visit the Bunya Mountains.
25. Go for bushwalks.
26. Get a bike and ride it (and this time, don’t give it away!)
27. Do more for others.
28. Get an address book and keep track of friends/family contact details and birthdays.
29. Apply to become a foster carer.
30. Find out about rent a chook and herdshare.
31. Go to Sunday comedy & jazz @ the Powerhouse again.
32. Try to be more open to the possibility of meeting a single/available/adjusted boy with similar interests/values/goals.
33. Accept the journey, where ever it goes, and trust myself more.
34. Do one thing that's not on this list that I would normally say ‘no’ to!
30 October 2008
empty is the tao
My enviro-mentors from the Strezleckis came for lunch today. (The enviro-mentors who I planted a walnut grove with, who henceforth have looked upon me beamingly as their little green disciple. They who shall now be known as 'Gifted With Asparagus & Artichokes' for their bestowal of two shopping bags heaving with the season's best from their garden. I will be weeing green before the week is out!)
Ahem.
So after emptying several glasses of champagne - ten days til I clink the desk shackles back on & damned if I'm going to let the opportunity for daytime carousing pass - I told Gifted about my plans re work. He replied with a parable from the Tao Te Ching. Something about a cup of water being valuable, a cup of wine being even more valuable, and a cup of diamonds being more valuable still. But what trumps them all, he said, is the empty cup, which can be filled with anything.
Me: ......................
Hopefully I looked very zen. And not at all like someone experiencing mild panic over a recent and fairly life-altering decision after being ambushed with the Tao. And DEFINITELY not like someone wondering if the empty cup could be filled with champagne and that was why it was the most valuable.
No. I think the little parable turned something in me. When I was a desk hound, no one would've recited the Tao in response to something I said. Never. Nor would they have brought champagne and home-grown asparagus for lunch. I think it’s an achievement that I’ve trotted on my idealistic high horse back to reality. But it's still a way from the saddle to the 40-hour grey-walled commute-consume pantomime which I've philosophically divorced. For a long time before I left work, I felt like I didn't make sense in that world anymore. It's not just a different drummer thing. I feel like I'm on tour with the whole freakin' band.
Hrrrmmmmppph. Empty cup. Empty cup. Empty cup.
Ahem.
So after emptying several glasses of champagne - ten days til I clink the desk shackles back on & damned if I'm going to let the opportunity for daytime carousing pass - I told Gifted about my plans re work. He replied with a parable from the Tao Te Ching. Something about a cup of water being valuable, a cup of wine being even more valuable, and a cup of diamonds being more valuable still. But what trumps them all, he said, is the empty cup, which can be filled with anything.
Me: ......................
Hopefully I looked very zen. And not at all like someone experiencing mild panic over a recent and fairly life-altering decision after being ambushed with the Tao. And DEFINITELY not like someone wondering if the empty cup could be filled with champagne and that was why it was the most valuable.
No. I think the little parable turned something in me. When I was a desk hound, no one would've recited the Tao in response to something I said. Never. Nor would they have brought champagne and home-grown asparagus for lunch. I think it’s an achievement that I’ve trotted on my idealistic high horse back to reality. But it's still a way from the saddle to the 40-hour grey-walled commute-consume pantomime which I've philosophically divorced. For a long time before I left work, I felt like I didn't make sense in that world anymore. It's not just a different drummer thing. I feel like I'm on tour with the whole freakin' band.
Hrrrmmmmppph. Empty cup. Empty cup. Empty cup.
28 October 2008
life and desk
Finally, an outcome: I’m submitting to the desk shackles for one more year to get my long service leave. I have a week in Bingi before I will drive (again… hrrmph) back to Brissie.
Some very excellent things about the move: 1) sunshine 2) return to urban life including Campos coffee, West End markets and impossible-to-get-in-the-regions-fare like tofu 3) totally ace friends who don't desert me when I desert Brisbane, and 4) reclaiming my life in boxes. Eventually. Like next February, since I’ll be couch-surfing in November and cat-and-house-sitting during December and all of January. Which will bring me up to TWO YEARS of inhabiting other people’s spaces and/or couchsurfing.
Of course there’s also the excellent matter of $$$ and its central role in the procurement of real estate and attainment of grand plan.
Fortuitously it looks like there'll be no boat work to miss out on in the first half of next year and hopefully by then I'll be able to negotiate leave.
The other excellent notable is that my stupendously supportive and selfless manager is assisting in my search for work outside her area since she knows that the work inside her area will bore holes in my soul if I have to do it five days a week for a year.
Thank you to everyone who offered advice and support re the resign/return dilemma. After mentally prepping myself for the 'resign' option for a year it would have been difficult to change tack without some appeal to rationality!
Some very excellent things about the move: 1) sunshine 2) return to urban life including Campos coffee, West End markets and impossible-to-get-in-the-regions-fare like tofu 3) totally ace friends who don't desert me when I desert Brisbane, and 4) reclaiming my life in boxes. Eventually. Like next February, since I’ll be couch-surfing in November and cat-and-house-sitting during December and all of January. Which will bring me up to TWO YEARS of inhabiting other people’s spaces and/or couchsurfing.
Of course there’s also the excellent matter of $$$ and its central role in the procurement of real estate and attainment of grand plan.
Fortuitously it looks like there'll be no boat work to miss out on in the first half of next year and hopefully by then I'll be able to negotiate leave.
The other excellent notable is that my stupendously supportive and selfless manager is assisting in my search for work outside her area since she knows that the work inside her area will bore holes in my soul if I have to do it five days a week for a year.
Thank you to everyone who offered advice and support re the resign/return dilemma. After mentally prepping myself for the 'resign' option for a year it would have been difficult to change tack without some appeal to rationality!
22 October 2008
freak.
Freeaaaak! FREEEEEAAAK!
I'm having a minor freak out. [Cue golf-ball sized hailstorm - really.]
Last week, after about 14 months leave, my work asked me for my decision: return or resign. An 11th hour thought about long service leave has thrown me into the guts of a stinkng I-wish-I'd-never-asked type dilemma. If I return to work for one more year, I will get about 12 weeks paid leave. Which is a lot. At least from where I sit in under-employed povertysville.
It is very freaking tempting. I could squirrel my ass off and actually realistically be able to afford some land. Which is Step One of the oft-alluded to Grande Planne (something along the lines of the Hobbit House but somewhere sunny and with permaculture gardens and chickens and a boat).
And. AND. I could potentially negotiate extra leave to continue sailing type adventures. But I would pretty much have to return to work… NOW. I'm seeing my tax guru on Friday, which could also influence my decision. But of course I need to let work know... TODAY since there was a stuff up with the dates.
Just when I thought I'd made my decision, along comes this dastardly little carrot.
GAH! Help! All you non-commenters, speak up now or forever hold your peace. I need some advice. Lest it be curtains for Life After Desk. Gracias.
I'm having a minor freak out. [Cue golf-ball sized hailstorm - really.]
Last week, after about 14 months leave, my work asked me for my decision: return or resign. An 11th hour thought about long service leave has thrown me into the guts of a stinkng I-wish-I'd-never-asked type dilemma. If I return to work for one more year, I will get about 12 weeks paid leave. Which is a lot. At least from where I sit in under-employed povertysville.
It is very freaking tempting. I could squirrel my ass off and actually realistically be able to afford some land. Which is Step One of the oft-alluded to Grande Planne (something along the lines of the Hobbit House but somewhere sunny and with permaculture gardens and chickens and a boat).
And. AND. I could potentially negotiate extra leave to continue sailing type adventures. But I would pretty much have to return to work… NOW. I'm seeing my tax guru on Friday, which could also influence my decision. But of course I need to let work know... TODAY since there was a stuff up with the dates.
Just when I thought I'd made my decision, along comes this dastardly little carrot.
GAH! Help! All you non-commenters, speak up now or forever hold your peace. I need some advice. Lest it be curtains for Life After Desk. Gracias.
19 October 2008
master of unravelled plans and small detours
Ah Byron. A two-day detour into green rolly hills, rainbow-glimmery waterfalls and surf, where land prices make you cry and German snowboard instructors make you want to learn to surf. Again. And then go to Tibet. (After I just narrowed the focus of my wanderlust down to Western Australia. And India.)
There’s something frivolous about taking the long way home. And unravelling plans into the wind.
I was in Byron 15 years ago, pretty much to the day. (Before it was completely besmirched by the likes of Dominos and Supre, promulgating their cheap-ass chain-store mediocrity to affluent city-slaves searching for something they don’t realise is long since gone and which they have effectively helped kill off. Not that this was intended, nor that I can separate myself from them. But back to topic...)
I’d dropped out of uni for a semester and headed, for the second time, to Byron, to think and be. OK, there may have been some cavorting too, of the kind that it is natural for an academically focused 19yo to do when unchained from her small world. I hung out with loads of people from all over the world. I tried to surf. I sailed a hobicat. I stole a hubcap/ashtray from the Railway pub. I tried … a lot of … um, different stuff for the first time.
Oddly, I feel closer to my 19yo self than my 19yo self would have liked. (If my 19yo self could see me now.) Crazy to think that I knew back then that I was on the wrong path. Crazier still that it took me 15 years... 15 YEARS GODDAMNIT!! to alter course. Even more pathetic is that I still don’t have a clue where I’m going!
But maybe that’s OK, in some small, skewy, not-the-Hollywood-ending kind of way.
On my 19th birthday, I hitch-hiked from Byron to Nimbin with an English lad. I remember not quite knowing whether we would make it there, and if we did, where we would stay. We made it to Nimbin. That night I stayed in a little house which belonged to friends of friends, and fell asleep under a window of stars, stoned to the eyeballs, as two girls made love in the next room. It remains one of my most spontaneously lived birthdays, and one of the few I actually remember.
There’s something frivolous about taking the long way home. And unravelling plans into the wind.
I was in Byron 15 years ago, pretty much to the day. (Before it was completely besmirched by the likes of Dominos and Supre, promulgating their cheap-ass chain-store mediocrity to affluent city-slaves searching for something they don’t realise is long since gone and which they have effectively helped kill off. Not that this was intended, nor that I can separate myself from them. But back to topic...)
I’d dropped out of uni for a semester and headed, for the second time, to Byron, to think and be. OK, there may have been some cavorting too, of the kind that it is natural for an academically focused 19yo to do when unchained from her small world. I hung out with loads of people from all over the world. I tried to surf. I sailed a hobicat. I stole a hubcap/ashtray from the Railway pub. I tried … a lot of … um, different stuff for the first time.
Oddly, I feel closer to my 19yo self than my 19yo self would have liked. (If my 19yo self could see me now.) Crazy to think that I knew back then that I was on the wrong path. Crazier still that it took me 15 years... 15 YEARS GODDAMNIT!! to alter course. Even more pathetic is that I still don’t have a clue where I’m going!
But maybe that’s OK, in some small, skewy, not-the-Hollywood-ending kind of way.
On my 19th birthday, I hitch-hiked from Byron to Nimbin with an English lad. I remember not quite knowing whether we would make it there, and if we did, where we would stay. We made it to Nimbin. That night I stayed in a little house which belonged to friends of friends, and fell asleep under a window of stars, stoned to the eyeballs, as two girls made love in the next room. It remains one of my most spontaneously lived birthdays, and one of the few I actually remember.
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