I have a cold, and am on my second day home sick from work. I feel a bit better today, and went for a walk to the Coles. It is cool and sunshiny, and I am really out of it. It must be the medication. I walked without feeling it, protected from the world by hoodie and sunglasses. A girl, a woman, came hurtling ’round the corner right into me, rebounded apologising profusely… I didn’t even look at her, feel I didn’t notice it had even happened until a few seconds later. I am blunted, vague and empty.

I bought some white bread because it will comfort me when I eat it with cheese. I’ll do that now.

It’s my birthday tomorrow.

o hallo. I haven’t updated for several months. I guess there are a bunch of reasons.

• I’ve been keeping a pretty vigilant paper journal.
• I can’t really write about my work on the internet. I’m reasonably sure it would break some rule in my code of ethics.
• I feel similarly awkward about writing about my friends on the internet, and I spend so much time with them.. I mean, when I’m not at work I’m doing some social thing. If I write neither about my work nor my friends, there ain’t much left.
• There are a few people who read this whom I would really prefer didn’t. I don’t know quite what I can do about that except not write.

It makes me a bit regretful, a bit sad, because I recently ordered another copy of the published version of this dazelie and reading over it delights me so. but whatevs. I am writing today because I forgot to bring my journal to work, and I just found a quote I would really like to note down:

…stretching the truth so far that it curved nearly into the shape of a lie.

and another, from a blog article:

I’ve found that I can learn simply by trying to understand why someone disagrees with me. By that, I mean what reasoning they use to reach their conclusions.

Being wrong feels just like being right.

Self censoring sucks absolutely. But what, as a paranoid human being who also likes to record all thoughts, can one do? There are some thoughts you cannot tell anyone, or certain people, or people connected to those certain people. Aren’t there? Sure, it would be lovely if I could tell everyone all my thoughts; be absolutely genuine every way, every day, as I desperately wish I could be and try to be in all ways that don’t hurt people unnecessarily. If I didn’t mind being completely ostracised, of course.

Ugh. Ugh. What is necessary? Measuring potential hurt to potential gain?

“Look, I’ve been thinking something, and have been unsure whether to tell you, because it affects you, and the way I look at you, and, well… I’m wondering if I should say anything. Do you want to know? Because it will change everything.”
“Are you bonkers? If it affects me of course I want to know. Even if it changes everything, how could I not want to know? We are otherwise living a lie. A LIE. This I cannot stand.”
“Okay, fine. Here it goes. I really fucking hate those green shorts of yours and want you to never wear them again.”
“Fuck. What? Are you kidding me? I fucking LOVE those shorts. I can’t not wear them, even for the brief periods of my life I spend with you.”
“Then I guess this friendship is over. Shit. I’m sorry. I really wish I’d never said anything.”
“Fuck you.”

Yeah hi. Hi! I kinda stopped updating there for a while.. exactly a month. I guess I lost track of the point behind me doing this… keeping this blog. I was thinking.. why post my mundanity on the Internet, really? There are a buncha reasons not to. I really do appreciate having these nicely filed away textual memories (and what’s up with that, anyway? Why, why all the recording and cataloging? What’s wrong with simply living and remembering the truly memorable? Huh?), but it makes more sense to just keep them to myself, if I’m so sure they will be so very horribly dull to anyone else.

But there it is.. I know, deep inside me (…), that my mundanities are the most thrilling things anyone will ever read. I can’t just take that away from them. I’m not that cruel.

Anyway I just made unpuppet.com live. So now someone could really read this. I’m not sure what I’ll do. I’m cool with people reading it.. although I am a bit wary about the stuff I wrote 2003-2005.. I would read over it to ensure it isn’t too weird or personal but there’s just so much of it!

So, whatever. Maybe I’ll just make it not the very front page or something. Eventually. Till then, hi world.

It is Tuesday, first day of work 2011.

My few days home have been so nice. Felon has been good, so long as she is separated from Guppy and Munchy. I do not expect they will ever get along, though, and so I will have to find her a home. I do love her, so it will be sad. I’ll wait until having a bedroom cat +two rest-of-house-cats becomes untenable.

I’ve now exchanged gifts with everyone. Went to see Tron Legacy with Chelle and Jeremy, which was more entertaining than I was expecting but still disappointing.. so many ideas that could have been, well, actually followed up on, rather than mentioned in passing then never expanded, like name dropping is enough. Then went to an anime-projecting Japanese restaurant for Ramen which needed chili.

Went to visit Nanna & Poppa at Currumbin. Driving two hours without airconditioning mid-day mid-summer sucked a lot. Ate tuna patties and pavlova, fixed their various computer issues, went for coffee with Nanna & her mumm, Nanna, who is 97 or 98 now. I think I was not yet recovered from NYE, so was tired and not quite happy. Owell.

Storm came back from Woodford and visited us that afternoon. We all then went to visit another friend in a nearby apartment she was housesitting. I snooped it thoroughly. I so love being able to snoop other peoples’ homes.. their knicknacks and fridge magnets and books and beauty products and furniture arrangements. People are great.

Have no clients at work today, am way down the back of the office, cool and isolated, catching up on my 1000++ Google Reader items. I’m here till 8pm tonight, when maybe Storm will pick me up, if I remember to text her.

I surround myself with people amazing in the hopes it is contagiously catching. I think it is; they talk to me of fascinating things, and so I learn, and ponder. They recommend me wonderful books, and topics, and things to watch and hear and absorb, and so my mind expands and implodes.

It is really everso thrilling and I am so grateful I am so lucky to know such people. A drawback, however, is that I often feel dull by comparison. Stunningly simple and boorishly boring. It is something I’ve struggled with for a while…

My New Year’s Eve was fabulous. I arrived home from Cairns, Felon in tow, and installed her in the bedroom where she seems happier than she ever has. She miows, she purrs, she kneads. I am so pleased she is so settled, after all the stress and anger (Sarah had not wanted me to take her, citing feline anxiety disorders, human selfishness, blatant animal cruelty, threatening everlasting hatred, etc).

We invited several friends over to celebrate, ate ‘nacho lasagne’ went to another friend’s party for a while, watched fireworks, came home, walked to the river… then the remaining four of us sat about chatting till the sun was up. So very lovely. I slept till 3pm and am recovering still…

Went to see The Tourist with mumm and Sarah. I hadn’t really heard anything of it but what they had told me so wasn’t expecting much, but even that was too much. I guessed the outcome within the first five minutes. As soon as she read the note, which specified a particular train [spoiler?], I knew how it would end.

Oh, and it took place in a world in which there are no women, except the constantly heavily made up main character. All police officers, all spies, all mobsters, all of their associates, even, all waiters and servers and receptionists and every other person in society that need speak words… all men. Except Angelina Jolie, whose space (unlike that of her male colleagues) gets creepily invaded by her superior. Ew.

I wish on stars that are bright, unshooting. I have wished all this time that you would be happy. Would.. like it were a decision you need make. I am sorry you are unhappy, and blame your mother.

Rarely do I blame myself for much.

It is Christmas Eve, and all have gone to bed. It is raining, monsoonal, all over the state, highways cut off and earth hopelessly saturated.. suckingly marshy, pouring and drowning, there is nowhere for anymore water to go. The rain sounds like the static of life, the frogs are croaking in a rhythmic chorus that would be terrifying if I thought it were not but frogs.

When I go to bed it takes me a long time to get to sleep because I am afraid there are snakes and spiders in my room. The spiders I am sure of; I periodically switch my lamp to see if they’ve moved position on the walls. Last night, the fan blasting above me, I felt something move on my head. Panicked! I switched on the light and in the mirror opposite my bed blearily-eyed spied spindly-limbed movement amongst my hair. I batted it terrifiedly away before I realised it was my hair, blown by the fan.

The death adders and taipans I have only heard tales of: curled in my closet, lying in wait outside my door.. two in recent weeks. Lila, the behemoth dog, often noses my sliding door open and lazily fails to shut it behind her. my door opens straight onto gardens I imagine are teeming with snakes… surely any of them would prefer my cozywarm bed to the gushing pouring flooding..

On that note, goodnight.

I’ve been restless and bored today.. bored in the nothing could ever possibly entertain me kind of way. Impatient pacing, idly picking up then discarding books, laptop, tv remote, chocolate. Utterly incapable. It’s such a frustrating mood…

I just watched Pandaemonium with mumm; I’d burned & sent it to her ages ago when she was studying the Romantic poets and she still hadn’t seen it. I love it because I love Kubla Khan… (and hate Wordsworth). Watching it this time the drug-taking stood out much more to me. That there is no doubt.. STC wouldn’t have written his most fantastical works without opium. I feel uneasy about this.

I’m not sure why… the writing isn’t any less real, or his. He was clearly already genius. Envy? Surely not… The damage was clearly shown, moreso than the rewards. But I’ve never been able to create anything while under the influence of anything. I’ve written one poem whilst on mushrooms, and it was just silly and hilarious more than anything.

Words come together while the mind comes apart. I don’t need drugs for that.

I’ve been reminded to update

Having a stable job means only really getting 2-4 weeks of leave per year, which isn’t much. Since I live so far away from my family, I really need to spend that leave in Cairns. So my time in Cairns is generally the only time I have to catch up on projects I have outside of work… except I come to Cairns to be with my family, so constantly feel torn, er, like I’m not spending enough time with them.

The time here also seems to go by so fast! Or maybe it’s just that there isn’t much of it. I’m only up for ten days or so this time.

In about an hour Sarah and I are going on a roadtrip to look at a miniature poodle she wants in Herberton (~2 hours away). Miniature poodles are the ugliest, most annoying dogs in the world. I’m pretty sure she’ll regret getting it.

Whippets, on the other hand…

My flight to Cairns was quick and painless. I brought along Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion to copy quotes into my journal, and it was such an involved process that the two hours whizzed past like two minutes.

[I'm still reading Fairy Tales, a whole month later, and am only about half way through. Nonfiction takes me so much longer than fiction. I can only read about five pages before I feel exhausted and need some time to process what I've learnt. Being unsmart is such a curse for me.]

Getting on the plane a blonde, fashion-magazine-reading, teenage-looking girl was in my aisle-seat. I stopped by her and she got up to let me in. As if I was going to sit in the middle, sandwiched by smelly strangers, if I didn’t absolutely have to. “I’m in the aisle seat, actually,” I un-apologetically told her.
“I doubt it,” she snarked, unbothered enough even to look at me.
“Yes,” I insisted, “15D, see?”
She glanced at my ticket, then at hers, “I’m 15D,” still not looking at me.
“Can I see?”
She sighed grumpily and showed me her ticket, clearly expecting me to see my grave error and humbly apologise, eyes moving over everything in the world but me.
“Oh, you’re 14D,” I said. “Get the fuck out my seat,” [I wanted to say].
“Oh, let me move then. I don’t want to cause any more problems.”

as soon as I heard that hackers (“hacktivists!” ha) had taken out the bank that froze Julian Assange’s account I knew it was An*nymous, despite not having visited a certain imageboard for.. well it’s probably been like a year. gosh.

I’m going to the wikileaks protest in the city on Friday. but I’m so angry, because this should be an opportunity to fight against the “it wasn’t rape it was consensual hurr durr” rape culture apologist arguments. oh, oh! or “there’s SMS proof the women conspired to make fake accusations” ..please! you’re telling me these women looked at the rape conviction rate and said “hey, eight percent! those odds are TOTALLY worth a lifetime of slut shaming and death threats from the entire world! rape it is!”

but of course there’s a reason it’s Julian Assange of all people being charged and it’s not that no one else is a rapist. UGH. fucking world.

I’m getting really behind on obligatory adult-like activities, like doing laundry & paying bills & making appointments etc, because full time worklife still hasn’t quite sunk in. er, what I’m trying to say is I’m a silly child. I’ve been trying to keep up my all-play-time weekends, conveniently forgetting that I no longer have Mondays as a buffer.

I seem to have thunk I could just sacrifice the housework and bills and appointments, rather than the fun. oh what do I do? I caaaaan’t give up fun!

I’m stressed out and tired and don’t like this. Not sure what to do. My first (immediate, ever constant) thought is to go back to working four days, but there are so many problems with that. My counter thought is to give it longer, attempt more balance, be dutiful, responsible, patient…

Boooooring.

As part of my supervised practice plan I need to have a supervisor directly observe me provide therapeutic interventions for three client issues. I’ve been procrastinating with this one the whole 18months till now because… well because I’m sure that as soon as a supervisor sees me working directly they’ll know exactly how incompetent I am (imposter syndrome, anyone? Oh, right.. everyone).

Also because it’s a hassle to arrange… to ask permission from work managers, to explain it to a client and obtain their consent, to book recording equipment, to actually do it…

Well I’ve only five months of my plan left to go, so I thought it was about time think about it. I asked permission at work, arranged it with my supervisor, and finally.. outlined it all to one of my clients, who seemed absolutely fine with it, and gave consent. I booked the recording equipment, set up the room, planned the session, got the supplies ready (it was going to be a symbolic and art therapy session)… and! The client was due half an hour ago.

Shit. Shit. I’m sitting here with the camera trained on me. I had to run around to buy the outdated videocassettes it uses. It took me a half hour to set this room up. I brought everything I needed in from home. AND THE CLIENT DIDN’T SHOW.

Of course, it’s hardly a coincidence. This client has never not shown for a session before (and we’ve had 10 sessions). This is exactly why I wasn’t looking forward to asking a client to do this. Who would want to have their counselling session recorded and watched by and discussed with an anonymous third party? Argh.

Now I need to find someone else to ask. Three someone elses. And due to all these stupid work changes, I’m barely SEEING three clients at the moment.

This is a good thing, my colleague would say. It is, because:

• in preparing for this session I did catch up on my symbolwork literature.
• I now know to rethink how I frame this experience to clients, and be sure to triplecheck and quadruple-clarify everything with them.
• I also planned this session a lot more carefully than I usually do, which was a good experience.. I should do that more.

Except (and all counsellors say this) it really does seem that it’s always when you carefully plan for a session that the client doesn’t show! …Wow, I am really bad at finding silver linings. Every silver lining has yet another, blacker and more poisonous lining!

I think the worst part is… I got all excited about it! That slight performance anxiety that is actually more exhilarating than anything else. And now I am disappoint