Stressed?

Oh, a bit. You could say that. Yes. Stressed? More like fucking overwhelmed by a truck load of pressure. It's like I'm lying down and beckoning the steamroller to just flatten me.

1) New job. Good, certainly but waaayyyy more responsibility than my current one. And not a whole heaping lot more of a raise, lemme tell ya. And only 10 days for holiday in 1 year's time. Are you joking? This has to be a joke, right? No? Oh dear. Oh dear. Panic setting in.

2) Moving. Some people don't mind it. But I think, I think, this is my 17th move in 6 years or some such nonsense and I fucking loath it. LOATH it. (Also realised on the redline last night that I fucking loath the Cubs purely based on their smelly, godforsaken horde of fans jammed onto the train and that due to the fuckwit fans the Cubs deserve to lose every year for almost a century). Moving entails switching addresses around, hiring movers and/or moving trucks, bruising/spraining some (or most) of my body, and LOTS and LOTS of mental stress (no tears because I can't produce 'em but crying is guaranteed, anyway). Not to mention old fucking landladies draining the last of my money from me and threatening to not give me back all of my deposit (which wasn't mine in the first place but am still entitled to, apparently). Bugger. So moving. Not so keen on it.

3) Burning Man. It is the coolest, most spiritualist, wicked event on earth. According to Jami, "It's hopping up and down exciting!" and according to Graham, "The most intellectual people gather there." I know that it is a very exciting event and I am proud to be going for the first time this year. I hear stories that after BM one is forever changed. But the effort and pressure I am experiencing at this moment due to aforesaid amazing, life-changing event is totally doing my head in. Mostly because I am trying to sort out the details to the first 2 stressful things in this stress list. I am worried about the clothing bit because if one doesn't have funky, trendy, crazy-ass outfits then you won't fit in at this open-minded earthy-worshipy festival. I have spent $300 on apparel for BM. $300 I do not have. Credit cards, anyone? All the other details of getting the proper gear, renting a car, having a one-way flight back from Reno, shipping the bikes, and then starting my NEW job the day AFTER I get back from this wild jaunt into the spiritual enviro of the desert is a bit disconcerting to say the least. So would I rather stay home? You know, No, I definitely most absolutely wouldn't want to miss out! Don't worry. I'm dealing...just needing a vent and this blog is for everything so there.

Last night it all got to me a little bit, mostly due to the moving doobitty and the new-jobbiness. But cats usually land on their feet, so I hear. I am assuming that applies to Kats with a K as well? No? Maybe? Can't a girl get a break? *walks away in direction of nearest cocktail*

Job!

Finally, after approximately 8 months of painful waiting I now know that I will have a job with the company that has bought my present one. It's about sodding time! And I'm getting a promotion, yee-haw! Going to a newer, better building only 2 blocks away from the one I am now at the moment. This is very exciting! There are more tenants to deal with as there are 65 effing floors! That's 650 feet, people! Am being positive about everything and I can't begin to describe what a relief it is to finally know what my immediate future is looking like. Hurrah!!

Take me to poverty

After reading this article I was depressed. A woman named Beauty Turner is offering tours to Chicago's tourists and residents alike through its magnificent ghettos. That's right. The crime-riddled, bullet-raging, drive-by shooting, sad, desperate area of Chicago that I wouldn't go near if I was paid to. I can just see it. "Honey, on our trip to Chicago next week can we make sure to stop at the ghettos and see how shit these people's lives were and are compared to ours?" "Oh, you bet!" Or perhaps, "Babe, I'm free on Saturday. Want to check out the ghetto? I don't see enough ghetto people in a given day and I want to see more."

Seriously, this is the most depressing tour I could possibly imagine. Ms. Turner talks about all the hardships they've had to overcome and face in the Southside ghettos. It seems like something that people should be educated on, perhaps, in Illinois and Chicago History but not as a day-time jaunt for fun.

According to a correspondent from the Chicago Housing Authority, "She (Beauty Turner) is running out of bad things to show people," and "She is taking a circuitous route so she doesn't have to drive by the new stuff," including, he adds, Turner's own home in one of the new mixed-income communities." Apparently, there are better living areas in the ghetto she's taken upon viewing but doesn't indulge this info to her tourists. Shouldn't she be enlightening said tourists of the good being done as well as the bad?

I am sure that living in these frightening neighbourhoods is difficult and those who are stuck there can't move easily to another place. Due to finances, mostly. But touring these areas doesn't seem right, somehow, and it brings me down utterly to think that people want to go for a day to the ghettos and see what they're missing. Even worse, that someone thinks it is a good idea to have these tours in the first place.

Order Update

Last month I wrote about my frustration of ordering at a particular cafe in my neighbourhood. I didn't have the guts to tell the super-high staff that what I was being served was unacceptable. The food was alright but it wasn't enough and it wasn't what I bloody ordered in the first place! Instead I politely ate some of it, left a tip, then got outta there. I should've told them to stuff themselves but I didn't. I have found that it is not just this cafe where this happens to me. I have a hard time speaking up in general.

A few weeks ago the bf and I were at a cafe and they served me an omlette made entirely of spinach and perhaps half an egg. Spinach is alright in small doses but this was inedible. I almost vomited after taking a bite. Bf said, "Just take it up there and tell them it isn't what you want." I couldn't do it. I'm such a silly, cowardly wuss! In the end he took my plate to the server and had them make me something else (which, by the way, was quite tasty compared to the plateful of boiled spinach).

But Today is the day I stood up for myself at a cafe. Finally! It's about bollocking time. Was at an old-school diner, healthy appetite in hand, and eyeing the french toast like a cheetah about to pounce. After ordering I sat happily with my mug of steamy coffee and book (The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck). I occasionally eavesdropped once or twice to the sporty lesbians on my right. "God, she had the most awesome first kiss with her! They were down by the Colorado river and it was sunny and beautiful and she said it just happened. I'm so jealous!"

Then my food arrived. And it wasn't what I ordered. Of course. But it was close! I was being presented with pancakes instead of french toast. A split second of hesitation on my lips and then I just blurted out before the waitress took off, "Thank you, but this isn't what I ordered. I believe I ordered french toast." Then smiled and hoped for the best. "Oh, I'm so sorry! They got yours mixed up with someone else's. Hold on."

Hurrah! *doing little celebration jig* I did it! The french toast was warm and cinnamony and exactly like I thought it would be. And I wouldn't have got it if I hadn't gathered my imaginary balls and spoke up. Progress, methinks.

Sidewalk Wars

Making my way up Washington Boulevard this morning towards work I was booking it. The Prodigy's Voodoo People shuffled onto my ipod and the music was inspiring me to sprint. But I didn't. Because that would look silly. I was wearing a skirt and carrying a biggish purse and it wouldn't be like a movie where the girl is in a hurry and running because she's late.

I'm a fast walker, naturally, and sometimes I play games with the other pedestrians. I'm faster than about 95% of the public on the sidewalks. Oh yeah, I'm that fast. I leave dust behind me. So I weave in and out and the object of my game is to NOT get stuck behind anyone. I can not emphasise how effing annoying it is to get behind a slow person and there's no way around because they keep blocking you from sliding in front of them . Even worse is when you're stuck behind a whole gaggle of slow-walking geese and there's NO way out except for the on-coming traffic in the street. When these strenuous times occur I take a deep breath and remind myself that it is not a national catastrophe if I have to slow down for approximately 3.5 seconds. I think walking sometimes brings out the worst in me. I'm really competitive. And no one is aware that they are my competitors. It's like Road Rage for walking. Sidewalk Rage.

Whilst playing this somewhat satisfying game with strangers occasionally there are people who are JUST as fast as me and sometimes, rarely, there are those who are FASTER than me. This is hard to imagine but it is true. Such an occasion happened today. So, there I was with "Voodoo people magic people" ringing in my ears and cruising happily in the humidless sunny morning air. I see a dark shape loom up at the traffic light to my right. What's this? I got an elbow in my upper right arm as a portly man with a briefcase started forward.

I looked over and he was already almost half-way across the street. Right! He's not going to beat me, the professional portly fucker. I sped up and got even then got ahead by a few feet. Ha, ah hahaha! Take that! The light ahead was red so I stopped but the effer kept going, somehow he KNEW the light was changing at that EXACT moment. His brief case had smacked against me when he passed and I started to get all American on his ass thinking, "Oh, no you did-ent! Asshole!"

Slipping in and out, left to right of the people I caught up and managed to pass in front. Then I blocked him. Oh, yes. I did the dirty deed. But we were playing dirty, see? He had already elbowed me and hit me with his fucking briefcase so I felt it was ok to block his path. At the corner of Washington and Wacker he dodged right whilst I was turning left so we lost each other. I looked over my shoulder to give a smug sneer just as he glanced back smirking. The porky bastard. I definitely won. 1-0 Kat

Pine

Heart-racing, belly-flopping, toe-tingling restlessness. Countdown is excruiating. Reunion is magical.

Drinknbloggin

One shouldn't drink and email, chat, blog, etc. Ever. And when I say one I mean me. I'm a goof. No more alcopop, beer, vodka and lemonade, redbull and vodka, and or red wine. And definitely not all in a few hours with a computer in sight. Bad. BAD. Just don't do it.

Tearless

I have never shed a tear in my life. Apparently, I have retarded tear ducts. My bio professor in Sydney told me I have "dysfunctional lacrimal glands" . I still don't quite understand it all but basically my tear ducts are screwy and I can't produce tears.

This has caused some upheaval in my life at times. When I was a little girl and was pained by something, particularly at school, my teachers and babysitters often thought I was "faking" being hurt. I was then usually punished in some minor way. My mother had to actually write letters to people informing them that her daughter doesn't have tears and if she looks in pain or is sad then she is genuinely hurting. It was my massive misfortune to be a super-sensitive child and therefore subject to several sequences of sadness. I believe the term "crybaby" was thrown at me more than once. I knew that people thought I was odd in some way and that if only I could have water pour my eyes like others than maybe I'd be normal (Whatever that is. It was only until later that I realised no one knew or cared about my lack of tears and I am just odd in general).

I took to pouring hot water from my eyes to see if it would feel like what I imagined tears to feel like. Looking back it seems weird that I did that but I was just trying to fit in. Even to this day if I am in the shower and a droplet of water trickles down past my eye there's a brief moment of wondering, "Is that what a tear is like?"

For some reason around the age of 13 I got quite upset about this little tearless thing. I kept asking my father why and Wikipedia hadn't been invented yet and I didn't know the name of these lacrimal thingys. No one else seemed to, either. I overheard my father say to a family friend, "She's sad right now because she can't cry." Let me clarify something here. I can cry. Oh, yes. Just no tears. So what happens is that my nose gets a little red, there's some sniffing, and my eyes get glazy. You would notice if there was something bothering me. My dad didn't understand. I don't know if I even do.

Coveting tears seems to be something I've always done like wanting braces, glasses, and being flat-chested. But like with those, I've finally grown out of wanting them.

Lovely

Laughter rings out on the sunny pier and blends in with the hiss of sails rising upwards.

The dog is straining against his lead as he pants and whines to be let go. Once unleashed he flings himself off the short pier into the refreshingly cool water. His head bobs up and drops of water trickle through his short, curly fur.

People are gathered with cold drinks on outdoor furniture. Relaxing lazily in the summer heat. Two people let the sails billow out loosely behind them and the beautiful breeze glides them swiftly through the shimmering lake. Diamonds sparkling.

Happiness comes easily on a day like today.

Fireworks

Good 'ol Independence Day. 231 years on and this doesn't mean very much to me. Perhaps it is because I am recently working the kinks out of a rampant Anti-American attitude. I am not as hard-core about this as in the past and actually, y'know, my home country has quite a lot that's good. Like the Grand Canyon or ice cream sundaes.

But what is possibly the best thing about the 4th of July is the fireworks. Fireworks and I have a long and varied love affair stretching back till I was about 8 years old. I called my father yesterday and when I told him of going to a rooftop party to see the good fiery stuff he muttered sarcastically, "Hmm. Yeeaahh. I think I remember you maybe liking those." Then I was off giggling about the time I lit up "snake pellets" near the petrol can in my garage at 10 years old. I'm not sure if he was quite as amused as I was, though. No, definitely not. There was some shouting about that stunt, I think.

Last night on the way to the party it was like being in a war zone somewhere in Afghanistan. Loud booms and missile type whistles were sounding off in every direction. Down alleys, on the side-walks, in the streets. The air was acrid with firework smoke. It was exciting and frightening at the same time. Four of us were driving in a mini-van (yes, a minivan for chrissakes) and here was me holding some rockets. Outside to our right were two 12 year-olds lighting stuff off at van-eye-level! There was a rubbish bin between us but still. B shouted, "Oh shit! Roll the window up!" and then he gunned it up the road whilst passing more ghetto firecrackers. They seem to be an excuse to do damage or naughty things in general and not get caught because there is chaos everywhere and nothing can be traced to the people lighting them off improperly.

At the party I was carrying these large rockets that looked like Serious Stuff. There were 5 or so and they looked like giant crayons stuck on a stick wrapped in plastic. No one was gonna fuck with me! This was the funny attitude I was taking but no joke, people treat you with respect when they see rockets in your arms. "Hey. Nice bouquet." Some guy commented. And everyone made way when they saw my explosive flower bouquet. But it was all mouth and no trousers. The rockets were actually just stinky smoke thingys that you light up and gas innocent people. Wait. Rewind. I mean, make the air smell crap with colored smoke like a giant version of the smoke bombs being chucked from the roofs onto the streets. Not actually gassing innocent people. That is just evil and wrong.

I realise that fireworks can be very dangerous. Like from the blister I now have from a stray spark and the fear of A lighting my hair on fire whilst leaning back too far to chuck a sizzling cracker. I do sincerely hope no one was hurt or affected by our little pyro adventure. We were actually quite tame compared to some of the parties gathered in the streets.

Watching the massive fire displays across the Chicago sky was magnificent. Whenever I see them I always get very quiet and still and can't stop staring. I honestly can't speak. The girl next to me kept a running commentary on the whole thing and I wished fervently that she would eat a brat so that I could watch the beautiful scene in somewhat peace. But it was still good. Great, actually.

Speedos!

I am lucky enough to live on a beach so I get to do some beachy things. But it’s not as exciting as a beach by the ocean. The good news is that it is kinda blue and you can’t see across it so it gives one the impression of a sea if a somewhat cooler one minus the salt.

Lately I have noticed that swim trunks are going the way of the dodo bird and the amount of speedos accidentally spied are equivalent to pigeons. Almost no one under the age of 35 is wearing them and usually their bodies are less than toned. Even worse than those wearing speedos and pouncing around the sand like they are lions in a forest-less jungle are the men wearing thongs. Most of the men I have seen do this are around 50 and are happy to let their sagging arse-cheeks breathe in the fresh non-salty Lake Michigan air. It is always a shock like a slap in the face when an eye-full of grandpa bottom is thrust at me. It is like looking directly at the sun for too long. One will go blind. I end up wondering if they have bought a department store fitting room mirror and are sorely misguided of their true image.

So speedos. Not so much.