I can't. I'm quilting.

Recently I sent the following ecard to one of my friends.


It has suddenly occured to be that this may have been somewhat unfair, as I have so far this weekend turned down the opportunity to: go on two road trips (one to the coast, one to the country), go to a party, go camping, and go to a rodeo.

Why?

Because I have quilting to do.

Things you should probably know if you work in a bookstore

Me: Hi there, do you have a copy of Wolf Hall? 

Her: Who's it by? 

Me: Oh. Um... Actually I can't even remember. It's the one that just won the Booker? 

Her: Oh ok. So it's like a new release? 

Me: It's pretty new I guess. 

Her: Yeah, well we don't get the new releases for a couple of weeks, so we probably don't have it yet. I don't think I've seen it. 

Me: No it's not that new. It wasn't published in like the last two weeks. It's the one that won the Booker. 

Her: Right. Right. So, is it a fiction book? 

Me:Yeah, I had a look there and I couldn't see it - would it have been put anywhere else? It's the one about Cromwell...

Her: So its like an historical fiction or something? 

Me: Yeah, I guess... 

Her: Look I don't think we've got it. But if you're after an historical fiction type book what about The Lost Symbol? 

Me: ...

Her: It's the new Dan Brown one. It's like all about the Freemasons and stuff...

Me: Is there another bookstore anywhere near here? 

The Ballad of Sam Hill

I have easily the best friends in the world. I know this, because I've never got to play the Henry Lawson drinking game in other company, all while having my life 'workshopped' by someone who couldn't understand how it was not entirely complimentary to tell me I'd 'turned out well'.

Happily, I recorded some of what turned out to be a rather epic ballad...

It was a blue September, a morning haze.

With a bloody fist wrapped in a bandage I waited. 
There was not much food. 
A night on the piss had left me in a daze. 
The sunrise was orange. It wasn't breaking my malaise.

But I had mates all round me, and loyalty abounded.

Given the crash in the 30s he was out on the street. No where to call home.

And he was tired. 
A lot of years had passed. And he just didn't know what to do anymore.
The sun would rise. The sun would set, and he would still be there. Just Sam Hill. 

So Sam Hill sat down on the step of the sheering shed and pulled out his rusty old harmonica and played a tune. 

Then he went back into the woolshed and he sheered him some sheep.  
Because that's what men do. 
It was a heavy fleece that season...

My life is a cliche

"I like your uggboots!"
The lady at the dole office, who thinks I'm styling.

Cafe Diem?

This morning, as is my wont, I ventured out early to satisfy my caffeine addiction. Said addiction is quite mild, and I toyed with forsaking it altogether as a new years resolution, but then decided that caffeine is preferable to pseudoephedrine. And much easier to access. Besides, I quite enjoy the ritual of coffee. 

So I ordered, as usual, a soy latte. The girl behind the counter wrote my order down. She then stared blankly at me. I waited, the correct change ready, but hesitated to hand it to her. She narrowed her eyes, as though trying to remember something and then asked "sugar?". No, I shook my head. She nodded. She then looked intently through me. I went to hand the change to her but she turned her back towards the register. She stood there for a moment. She then turned back to me, her forehead scrunched. "I'm sorry" she said, "I've just had a complete mental blank". I held the money to her once again and automatically she reached out to take it. Glancing at the amount she sighed, as though the coins themselves, rather than the figure they represented for which she had been searching, had brought relief. 

I turned to wait. As I did I caught site of someone I knew. Or someone I knew I should know. One of my friends girlfriends friends? Someones colleague? Certainly someone with whom I am acquainted. And someone who was immaculately groomed. To my horror, I realise not only that I am having a mental blank similar to the girl at the counter, but that I am not, by any standard, groomed. I am suddenly horribly aware that I'm still wearing the singlet that I slept in and have tossed on a pair of shorts in which I baked scones, that are subsequently covered in flour. And while my hair could perhaps technically be labelled 'bedhead', it certainly was not the mussily sexy mane that is usually described thus. 

I smiled at her. She smiled back and then, thankfully, before words could be exchanged and my ignorance revealed her coffee came and she was out the door. And I realised I need not dwell further on my appearance, and the reality that she, with her straightened and braided hair, and freshly laundered clothes, was clearly indicating to the world that she would have a far more productive day than I. And that perhaps she couldn't remember my name either. 

... and I quote

"I think your ipod is depressed"

- My friend Sar, DJ on a roadtrip.

How bears and bile stopped me buying beer

My family (and some friends) are spending Christmas this year down the coast. My godmother leaves this evening. In an attempt to be organised, and to ensure that all the necessary things for a pleasant holiday are available down there, my father requested that I take some time out of my very busy schedule and purchase some alcohol to be sent down with her. 

I had arrived at the shops and had managed to get myself a trolley when I was bailed up by one of the WSPA guys. I stopped. I usually do, but I always preface our conversation with the 'I appreciate what you are doing here, but I'm really not in a position to provide funds'. The sensible ones wave me on, but there are others that continue to chat to me in the hope that I will change my tune. 

Today I ran into one of the latter. And he was brilliant. He was charming, informative, funny. He was also incredibly attractive (in an unwashed hippy kind of way, which no doubt helps passers by find him believable as an activist type).  He explained to me the dilemmas about bears being caged for bile, about becoming endangered, about the necessity of whales to the ecosystem, about great things the WSPA has done, how he supported them when he was surviving on Youth Study. Had I been in a position to do so I would surely have signed my life away to monthly payments right there. Unfortunately, as I explained to him, I did not find myself to be less unemployed at the end of the conversation than I was at the beginning.

So I took my trolley and walked towards the Liquor Store. And I realised that having turned down the opportunity to save the whales, and the bears (who, by the way, are forced to live in a cage the size of my trolley), on the basis of needing those funds to purchase food, I wouldn't be able to walk back past the WSPA guy with a trolley full of beer, albeit beer bankrolled by my father. And so I was forced to abandon my trolley, and my mission, and skulk back to my car empty handed.