The secret hobby

At work, we’re exploring stepping into the world of social media! I’m super excited about it. I was thinking “I can’t wait to have the opportunity to blog about something!” and then I realised that I’ve had the opportunity the whole time over here. Except that blog is “fresh” and “meaty” and isn’t “already covered in my own saliva”.

Qué?

So here I am, approaching you, slightly hunched, head bowed forward, hand in the air in what is not quite a wave, not quite a salute - almost in surrender… but not quite.

Nothing is ever quite!

Don’t be mad, I’m here now. We should cherish these moments we have together – because I’m flakey and who knows when I’ll next feel inspired?

Hopefully soon. I like blogging. I secretly consider it my hobby, but only secretly because I openly whinge about not having any hobbies.

Whinging about not having any hobbies is one of my hobbies.

Nice nest ;)

The other day I was in JB HiFi talking to the sales representative about printers. He was discussing the wireless connectivity of printers and he was going on about how he connected to it easily at his house, well, his parents' house, he recently had to move back in and...

And as he was talking I felt a surge of empathy. I recently moved back in with my parents and I knew what he was going through. It's your home, but it's not really your home anymore, but you managed to mess up being an adult enough that your 'rents let you back in the nest.

I mean, it's hard, what with "the economy" and "being a Gen Y", a lot of people my age seem to be reluctant to leave the nest. It's like being on a treadmill. Or running around the block and ending up where you started. Or picking up a bottle of water and putting it back down again. I'm exercising a lot lately so my analogies are limited.

It's weird, when I lived out of home I always got confused about what to call "home". I'd tell people I'm at home and they'd go to my place and I'd have to apologise because "I meant my parents' place". And now that I actually live at home, I call it my parents' place.

I'm glad I have such supportive parents that have allowed me move back into their home when things got tough. I know being 26 and living at home is a bit lame, but knowing my family loves me and is willing to figuratively hold my hand until I'm ready to figuratively walk on my own two feet without training wheels swivelling around my own two ankles, well, that's slightly less lame.

Slightly.

Senti mental panda

Confession! I’m a bit of a hoarder. I struggle to let go of my possessions. I think it’s because to me they become more than things, they become these tangible memories. If I let go of them I’ll be losing a part of my past, of myself, forever.

I still have a garbage bag from year 6 because we were going on youth trek and it looked like it was going to rain, so the teacher got the boy I had a crush on to hand out garbage bags to keep us dry.

Tldr: I’ve kept a garbage bag for 14 years because a boy I liked touched it!

Last weekend I moved back in with my parents and was hit with a devastating blow (more devastating than extreme-drama-moving-with-ultra-hysterics, which I seem to be an expert in now). I’ve gone from having two wardrobes to one!

So the boot of my car is now full of memories, which I’ll be handing over to the Salvos for their second life. Actually, I buy everything from the Salvos in the first place, so it’s probably their third or fourth lives.

Point is: I own too much. I think I’m scared of not having, “it’s better to have and not need than need and not have.” But it’s ridiculous when your drawers are so full you don’t even know what you have anymore. It gets messy and un-manageable, a reflection of my inner state: I seem to hoard my emotions, then come to points in my life where I have so many pent up feelings that I don’t know where put them, and they explode. Everywhere. Then I end up breaking real things, like plates and friendships.

So I’m feeling good. It’s kind of cathartic to be letting go of something voluntarily. This is a new phase and I’m excited about opening myself up to new things, rather than clinging madly to the old.

I’ll miss weeping for the memories though.

Cheaper than the bus

Imagine it is 12am and you’re in your car sitting at some traffic lights when some chick opens the passenger door and sits in the passenger seat and asks for a lift to somewhere totally out of your way. Do you:

(a) Confidently tell her to GTFO.
(b) Hesitantly say sure.
(c) Scramble out of the car saying “take it man, take it all” and throw money at her and then run to the nearest police station.

Well, I chose (b). Most people I tell this story to say “WTF Sam, why didn’t you kick the bitch out?” Well, in hindsight I wish I had, but I felt really awkward and I didn’t want to be rude.

So I was out in Civic that night to pick up my at-the-time boyfriend. I wasn’t out with him because I was battling a cold, but when he called me asking for a lift home I couldn’t say no. So I got up and dressed and started driving out to Civic. It was buzzing that night and I couldn’t find him so I was circling around a lot. When I was stopped at one set of lights this girl jumps into my car asking for a lift to Belconnen. Even though I was supposed to be going to the South Side I figured it would only be about 15 minutes out of the way; it would be my contribution to society, my civic duty, my arc de triumph.

Probably not the last one.
Still, I thought I’d be putting some positive energy into the world, so I said yes.

So I went looking for my (now ex) boyfriend, eventually he found me and jumped into my car, along with two of his mates. It was news to me I was taking them home too, but I wasn’t going to let them feel awkward or be stranded in the city, so I greeted them and started driving.

I decided to take Belconnen girl home first, even though the boy’s friends were in the opposite direction, in Queanbeyan, (which isn’t even in the same state.) So I headed out west to Belco, but this girl wasn’t telling me to take any of the turns... so I kept going... and going... and ended up in Dunlop.

I was a bit miffed that she didn’t tell me she meant the extreme limits of Belconnen, but being the timid pushover I am I didn’t say anything.

When she got out of the car she kept insisting she pay me and I was like “oh, nah, it’s fine, don’t worry about it”, happy that a good deed is its own reward. But she kept insisting saying “just say what you think is fair”. So I thought about it, and though it didn’t come close to covering the time or petrol it took to get a car full of people out to the edge of Canberra, I said $10.

She handed me $1.70.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so cheap or so used. That doesn’t even cover a bus ticket - a concession bus ticket at that!

So I got back in my car and was like “well, that was weird” and I told the carful of people what had happened. Well, the two of the people in the back were like “whoa, that girl is rude” but my (now-ex-for-partly-this-reason) boyfriend was outraged.

“I can’t believe you didn’t know her!”
“Who gives someone they don’t know a lift?”
”I would never ever put my friends second like that!”

He basically consistently berated and humiliated me in front of his friends, who I didn’t even know I was giving a lift to, the entire way to their place. And anyone who knows Canberra would know that the trip from Dunlop to Queanbeyan is not a short one.


So, that took away any possibility of those good charitable feelings I was envisioning earlier. I felt cheap, used and humiliated. I took him home and drove myself to my place and cried myself to sleep 2 hours after being woken up earlier for the worst errand of my life.

Shell out

So I’ve been preoccupied with work and trying to get out of my figurative shell there. I actually had a physical shell I made for a party last year, but when I went to get it I discovered that the bottom of it was all mouldy, so I went to clean it off with bleach and ruined the shell and my pants.

True story!

So yeah. Work is great. I love my job. It was really tricky getting into the swing of it though. The girl I job share with works in *the exact opposite* way to me. She’s exuberant and radiates confidence and gets in there and does it while I’m sitting in the corner in my shell pondering the best way to go about doing it, and by the time I’ve thought about it the job’s been done and everyone is looking at me like “WTF, why did we hire you?”

I mean, it’s not bad; it's just not excellent.

But we did do these Team Management Profile things. I’m the Creator Innovator, which basically means I like thinking. It also said, “Surprise, Sam hates making decisions”. It turns out that my inability to make decisions comes from a compulsion to have *all* the information before feeling ready to draw a conclusion. I mean, *all* the information? Really?

So many meetings later we have all learnt to accept how incredibly flawed I am and we don’t mention it any more.

But it’s okay. I’m doing much better now. It seems having to throw out my old shell (and pants) might be the best thing to ever happen to me :)

Speed synopsis

I went speed dating last night.

It was interesting. Everyone asks, “What do you do for fun?”

I was like “I volunteer and I write” and they look at me like “no, I said fun.”

“I visit my parents?”
“Oh…”
“Mmmmm”

And then I drank too much champagne.

I was a bit young for that crowd. The age range was 29-39, so of course I fell into my childlike persona. I do this when I feel intimidated, so I think I exacerbated the situation. And I found the men were openly judgemental of me being so young. One guy spent the whole time telling me I’m too young to want to be in love, and that I should wait 10 years.

But on the whole the people were nice. One guy made the mistake of saying he's a farmer and I spent 8 minutes talking about Farmer wants a wife, and guessing which vegetables he grows. I think he got a bit tired of me.

One guy there was someone I had previously matched with on a different speed-dating event. He sent me an email about a month ago, which I never replied to because I was scared he’d realise that he’d sent me an email I hadn’t replied to. It was a bit awkward at first, but he was nice about it. Afterwards I sent him an email apologising, so balance is now restored.

On the whole I had a good night. Though, I feel a bit like love is something I’m not going to achieve this year. Unfortunately that will probably be good for me. I mean I’ve grown so much since my last relationship, I’m doing things for myself rather than stagnating in a relationship I don’t want to be in. I just… miss sharing stories with someone.

That’s why I have you now, blog. Blog forever!

Supermarket stories

So, I got offered a job last week. I know! I’m pretty impressed with myself too!

It got me thinking about this job I had while I was studying at uni. I was a checkout chick. I was a very emotional checkout chick. People would get their groceries and my life story. Bargain!

No, most of the time I was professional. I picked up the job very quickly and on the whole I enjoyed interacting with the public. Occasionally though, I would have bad customers.

Like this one time, when I was stationed in the express checkout lane. This meant that customers needed to have 12 items or fewer to come through. If they had a couple more I would usually let it slide, or politely inform them that if next time they could limit their purchases to 12 items to come through the express lane. This bloke came through with over 20 items, which I thought was a bit inconsiderate considering it was peak hour. When I told him he had too many items he yelled at me and demanded to see my manager and informed me he was shopping at our competitor’s from now on. He was obviously under the impression that I cared where he shopped. I didn’t.

So that was for the best.

I once had a woman come through who wouldn’t speak to me. She also wouldn’t accept change from me until I realised she wanted me to place it on the counter for her to pick up. The interaction would have been a lot speedier if she told me she wanted the change on the counter, rather than waiting for me to figure out why she wouldn’t accept change. I get it though, change is scary.

My worst customer was a man who bought cleaning products, salad and a hot chicken. I asked him if he wanted his things packed separately, to which he mumbled at me, so I packed them how I thought was reasonable. When it came to paying he wanted $100 cash out. To do this transaction he had to swipe his card and then I would type $100 into the system, then get him to put in his PIN. He wouldn’t wait for me to type in $100 and kept trying to put his PIN in before the machine was ready. This happened about 5 times, each time with me asking him if he could please wait for me to enter the cash amount in. Eventually I was quick enough to beat him to the machine, and the draw opened, so I grabbed two $50 dollar notes and told him to have a nice day. He then started yelling at me that he wanted the amount in $20 dollar notes, and that was the whole reason he came to our supermarket in the first place.

I thought this was pretty unreasonable. I’m intuitive, but I’m not psychic. There is no possible way I could have known that this was the entire reason he came to the store. I opened the drawer and got him his $20 dollar notes and then moved on to the next customer while feeling quite shaken and affronted by the previous transaction. When it came to the poor lady paying for her groceries, the EFTPOS machine was broken.

Then I burst into tears.

It wasn’t just the customers that made my time in retail awful. I remember this co-worker setting me up on a blind date with her friend. I was leaving work one day and she was giggling with another girl and they accosted me saying “Sam, you’re single, right?” Sure, that would be the safe assumption. So I hesitantly replied with “Yeesss???” Then she said “You should go out with my 26 year old virgin friend!”

Wow. Way to sell him! I wonder how she described me to him. “You have to meet my awkward cry-baby co-worker!” Like she thought social impediments were qualities that bond people together.

Anyway, I agreed to a blind date, and we actually got along quite well, despite his bad breath. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, sometimes halitosis can spontaneously hit without warning when there are no toothbrushes about. I can overlook bad breath for a total of three dates, after which it’s no longer an accident and I know you have bad oral hygiene and it’s all over. (I know, I don’t have many things in my list of deal-breakers, but bad oral hygiene is a killer.)

So, at this point it was all going quite well. This did not please my co-worker, which to this day I still find confusing. See, if I set up two friends I would be ecstatic if they got along, but I think she wanted me to go “oh, gross, what a loser virgin” so he would become more dependent on her and she would feel desirable. She already had a boyfriend so I don’t know why she needed to have ‘all the boys’. Anyway, this set off alarm bells for me and after a couple more dates with the guy I told him I have enough drama in my life without adding her's. Also, he still had bad breath.

There were some good things about working with the public. One man had obvious dementia and would come to my lane every time and tell me he needed everything double bagged because he was taking the bus. He always asked if Sam is short for Samantha, then he’d tell me about Samantha Fox. I’ve looked up Samantha Fox since then. I think I know why he kept coming through my checkout.

One time this kid from the local high school came through and was clearly practicing his flirting skills with me. He shook my hand and kept saying my name after everything he said. He gave me a hug at the end of our transaction. Most people would find that kind of obnoxious, but I thought it was endearing. I still smile when I think about how he brightened my day.

So, most people were reasonable, just regular people wanting their regular groceries. I'm just a lot more cautious and wary of people these days.

Which is probably for the best.

Things of which I am afraid

Sorry about the title, I didn’t feel like ending with a preposition.
What will the tertiary institutions think?

Today I was going for a walk ‘round the ol’ neighbourhood and there was this butterfly, and I was like, yeah, that’s right, I used to be scared of those things.

So here are some things I have a mild fear of.

Butterflies
When I was about 13 I was walking my dog down an alley. It was getting close to dusk and there was a storm on the horizon, so I was a bit on edge. All of a sudden this giant butterfly flutters up to my face, and then bit me and I started running and screaming and the butterfly was chasing me. Max thought we were playing and he was barking and bouncing along and I was screaming and crying. There was a quite miscommunication between us that day.

Bridges
When I was younger my brother used to tell me that if you step on certain parts of a bridge you would fall through to the ground below, like the solidity of the ground is an illusion. So foot bridges freak me out. But road bridges can be equally scary. My dad used to tell me stories about how the Scrivener Dam Bridge on Lady Denman Drive is going to collapse and you could be swept away by the torrents. Lady Denman Drive is kinda creepy and I often feel like the bridge is going to disappear in the fog and I'll drive off into nothingness.

Underpasses
I avoid underpasses where I can. When I was in primary school I used to have to go under this underpass and it smelt bad and I was always scared that the cars above were going to fall through and land on me. Underpasses just seem unnatural to me. They’re all concrete and I feel like there’s going to be a troll just waiting to murder me. I know, as if a troll would care about my trivial existence. Still, trolls are jerks. I wouldn't put it past them to just murder me for no reason.

Mushroom rings
When I was 7 I was obsessed with fairies. I wanted to be one so much, I used to spend hours out in the garden looking for them so they would be, “Hey Samantha, join our fairy posse,” and I would finally be accepted by someone. I also spent a lot of my childhood playing with dolls. Anyway, mum gave me this book about fairies and it had a section on fairy rings. It had a story about a man who accidentally stepped in a fairy ring without having someone to pull him back, and he had to dance until he died of old age. I also once read this creepy story called The Song and Dance Man and he played a fiddle and everyone was compelled to dance and people were dancing on their broken feet and it was pretty freaky. I recommend you read it. You can find it here

The dark
I watched Paranormal Activity recently and since then I have been kind of scared to walk around my house at night. The first time I watched it I had my friend Tom over and we were like “cool” and then it was time to take him home and to get to his house I had to take Lady Denman Drive in the dark. We kept joking that there was a demon in the car, but it actually did kind of freak me out. Then I had to drive back home by myself. It was scary. These days when I leave my room at night to go downstairs I turn on all the lights as I go. I also run up the stairs so the darkness behind me can’t catch up. I have always jumped over the shadow cast by my bed to get to my bed.

Mirrors in the dark
I once read that evil spirits live in mirrors, and they can only come out if you look at them in the dark. I have full-length mirrors in my room at my parents’ house; it’s really hard trying to get to sleep there sometimes.

Drive thrus
I have a fear of making the wrong decision. Drive thrus multiply this fear exponentially because I have to make a decision quickly without really knowing my options. It’s not so much a fear as it is just something that freaks me out. But it does freak me out. I get fumbly and awkward when I have to do the drive thru thing.

Thinking about the universe
I get trapped in an infinity loop in my mind. I do what I can to not think about how big the universe is. It’s not that I feel insignificant; I’m okay with my unimportance, I just can’t imagine the universe without it suddenly turning to white and then I get frustrated because I’m supposed to be thinking of something endless and at some point it has to end and then I feel like I’ve failed at thinking.

Now I’m thinking about the universe.

Now I’m thinking about whiteness.

Great.

Attention span

On Wednesday I did a test and discovered that I actually have really bad English comprehension skills.

This makes sense, I suppose. When I read books I find I’m several pages after the last thing I understood. Or I’ll re-read same paragraph over and over thinking what does this mean? And only partly because I’m being philosophical.

To me, the sentence “The cat sat on the mat” comes across as “The cat was probably in a room.” Then I'll get confused later when the cat is frolicking in the bushes and chasing butterflies because the last I knew the cat was locked indoors. And then I start wondering if the property has an open living plan or a veranda and I’m still reading but I’m thinking about the architecture of the premises and suddenly the book is over and I’m asked to provide a summary and all I can remember is that there was a house and a cat was involved somehow.

Even when talking to health care professionals I miss half the information. I’ll come out of the appointment thinking, “What’s wrong? Take how often? Follow up when?” Then I decide “do what you feel like” is acceptable, and that going to the park and following birds around will fix everything. Though, this often does fix everything. Having a short attention span is sometimes a blessing.



Obviously it’s not always such a good thing to have a short attention span. When talking to my friends, I’ll ask them a question and about 30 seconds in I know I’m already behind and I have to pick up words and piece the information together again. So I’ll get the gist of what is going on, but I fall down when it comes to specifics. Luckily the phrase “Oh wow” usually gets me through when it comes to human interaction.

But my inattention to detail gets in the way in a professional setting. My last job had a lot of intricacies, and I found myself asking about a million questions a day. I kind of knew I already knew the answers, and my supervisor knew I already knew the answers, but he’d indulge me. Then the next day I’d come to the same hurdle and we’d have to jump it together again. I think a lot of the problem there was a lack of self confidence rather than me not understanding. I like people figuratively holding my hand through things. I wish literally holding people’s hands wasn’t so weird; I think I’d like that too.

So I don’t know if this is a semiotic issue or if I really just can’t focus. Or if I have early onset dementia. I'm not sure how I made it through my degree, with lecture notes like these:





But at least I know how to make myself feel better about it all.

The tale of Terrie

Today I crashed my car into my parents’ house. Again. I should probably stop making a habit of this; my car is going to be extremely unsellable by the time I’m done with it, not to mention the structural integrity of my parents' home. But now not only does my car have a smoking habit, it has a foot long scrape down the passenger door. Chicks still dig scars, right?

Now I’m going to tell you the tale of Terrie.

Terrie was my first car. Well, the first car I purchased, my first car was technically an old Ute which needed to be parked on the top of hills. I was so happy when I bought Terrie; no longer did I have to call my dad after school so he could jump start the Ute after the many times I was unsuccessful at using only gravity to get the motor running.

Terrie was a 1996 manual Hyundai Excel. We had many adventures.

One time I smashed half the side mirror while I was trying to impress a boy with my reverse angle parking skills.

He wasn’t that impressed.

Another time I learnt that it is bad to take corners fast when it is raining and there is oil on the road. As I spun out and stalled in the middle of the road facing the opposite direction I was very thankful there were no other cars around at that time.

Terrie and my last adventure together occurred at the end of June 2008. I was driving up to Gosford to see Josh because we had just broken up, and driving 350kms to see an ex is reasonable. It was peak hour and the traffic on the F3 freeway was stop start. I was behind a Ute and when he stopped I sort of kept going.

At first I didn’t think the damage was that bad, his car looked fine, and mine was still running. So I pulled over to the side of the road, and he drove off. I didn’t have insurance at the time, so I guess that’s one part of the story which is okay.

After about ten minutes of looking at the front of my dented car, wondering what to do, I decided that the best thing to do would be to try and make it to Gosford. So I got in and started driving.

After about thirty minutes of anxious driving I noticed that the temperature gauge was figuratively through the roof. I started panicking. I was *somewhere* between Sydney and Gosford and it was looking like Terrie wasn’t going to make it. I immediately pulled over to the side of the road, despite being next to a sheer hillside and there being no real shoulder for my car to pull into.

I thought maybe Terrie would cool down and we’ll make it the rest of the way to the Central Coast. So I turned off Terrie and tried to be calm while trucks honked at me for being on the side of their road. I waited for five minutes, after which I decided she would have cooled off enough to start up again. Wrong. Terrie wasn’t happy.

This is when I burst into tears. Then I called mum. I should probably have done that in the reverse order, because I think the hysterical crying magnified the situation a little. So mum started freaking out and she called the Gosford Police. The police then started freaking out and they sent 3 ambulances, 3 tow trucks and a police car for me, because that’s reasonable.

Then again, I had no idea where I was, so maybe this extravagant search party was warranted. I think my description of my location was, “maybe forty minutes from Sydney and next to a sheer drop,” which is pretty much the entire freeway. When the entourage arrived I declined being taken to a hospital, and I was told by police they couldn’t charge me for negligent driving because the crash happened in a different jurisdiction. So overheating my car might have been worth it - until I got the towing bill.

I was a student living off savings at the time. The wreckers said to fix Terrie it would cost me $1760. To buy it off me they would offer $300, which included the seven months rego remaining on her. It was a bit unfair but I didn’t have $1760, I barely had the $220 they were asking for the towing. I was scared and poor and away from home and deeply traumatised so I sold my baby to pay the bills. So to speak.

They were a dodgy company. They didn’t transfer my registration after I signed the paper saying I sold it for $300 and I got a few fines for my old car being driven through tolls without them paying. The whole ordeal was so distressing. I remember going into the ACT Government Shopfront being so distraught that the lady sent me to the front of the queue and gently informed me that next time I sell a car I need to transfer the rego papers or the car will still be in my name. Lesson duly noted. So I signed some statutory declarations saying the car wasn’t mine any more.

I haven’t heard from Terrie since.

Supposedly this is $1760 dollars of damage.

And this is what I look like when I'm heartbroken.