kate’s adventure

well, nearly. i went in to centrelink today, to get off austudy. they tried hard to convince me to go back on the dole, and look for work, and chuck in my two day a week carreer for any old full time job they can throw at me. for half as much money as they’d give me if i weren’t bothering to work.

i have been waiting a while for that moment, but they managed to ruin even that; there is still the possibility that a fuss will be made that because someone thinks i should’ve taken myself off payments in december. the facts are in my favour, but the possibility of dispute hanging over my head defeats the purpose of refusing money so that i can walk away triumphantly. because of course, with centrelink the facts aren’t the important thing.

i think that after two weeks, even short weeks of holding it all in for work, i was just due for a little eccentricity. the house was noisy with more blaring music and banging pots than my headache could handle, so i went for a walk wearing just my red and white stripy dress and my coat, with keys in one pocket and phone in the other.

the ground was warm under my bare feet, the breeze was pleasant and mild and the rhythm seemed to suit, so i just kept walking. to stanmore rd. then i couldn’t resist the piles of grapes and nectarines and plums and kiwifruit and avocadoes and tomatoes and mangoes that i just had to take a peek at, so i ended up with a small box full of a selection, and if i were to eat three of the nectarines on the way home, of course the only way to carry it would be on my head.

so off i went, down a side street and back along the train line. stripey, singing and carrying a box on my head which regularly threatened to collapse all over me, i made it all the way home.

i finally started my long awaited job. now maybe i can start to relax!

it’s been months and months since they told my father they’d employ me and i was given a number to ring. it’s been months since my interview that noone but me turned up to. so much waiting for return of communication, and considering how disastrous my previous job in the field was, the whole thing has been tying me up in knots.

the first day was quite promising, though so was the first day at sca… but here, i got to do a whole project, amongst the computer login troubles and being dismissed with Industrial Noise Policy to read. i got to calculate what glass was required for the windows of a proposed building from just the address, a flight path map and a standard! take one egg, a cat and a length of string… and my report got sent to the client!

so, it looks quite promising. as long as i get enough sleep to get through each day. that means going to bed now…

for a while now, i’ve been trying to counter the irresponsibility of my friends and community by organizing more effectively. since the interest shown in my workshops and events was not being translated into support or even attendance, i tried to pin a few people down, to ensure beforehand that, if nothing else, the culmination of my hard work would not be me, bored and frustrated, sitting alone in a room. again. it’s happened so many times, and every one eats that little bit more out of my organizing capacity, my self confidence and my faith in humanity. is all of humanity this enthusiastic but fickle? i don’t know, but i’m finding little around me to suggest anything else.

so after six in a row of these highly anticipated workshops a while ago - some my girlfriend of the time showed up for, which helped with the boredom but not the more serious frustration – i decided to only run things when someone else has decided the date. that way, at least that person could be relied on. but no. i ran my generally very popular rubber and latex workshop at a particular time for my housemate, and she forgot about it. she expected me to remind her. my recent tap workshop got four rsvps but only one showed up to dance, and it wasn’t the friend who had asked me to run it. she had warned me a couple of hours early that she was stuck at work and didn’t know when she’d make it, but that’s the last i’ve heard from her. now the sewing day i organized to catch up with an old friend will hopefully go ahead with at least a few people, but she will be absent, and has sent me several eight am text messages working up to this fact. after a month or two of planning but the date being set less than a week ago.  some solutions include postering king st, sending out reminders and charging fees – beforehand. these would possibly all help, but they raise the workload considerably, and they’re all unpalatable tasks for me. i could do it all if i had someone to help, but finding that, while single, is even harder. i need something else.

couple all this with careful management of a friendship with someone i know is only coming to grips with the concept of reliability, and random issues like coffee with a friend cancelled due to migraine – though with a day’s notice no less! – and it’s all a bit much. these problems are natural and absolutely understandable - in isolation. but when the trend nears a hundred percent, there’s something seriously wrong.

i was talking about this with someone recently. we talked of travelers and demanders. i am a traveler – i go to other people, they don’t come to me. i make allowances, i try to organise. i tell people that there will always be another time. i’m afraid that if i don’t, i won’t see the people i want to see, who i consider to be my friends, and i’ll be lonely again. it might be extreme but it’s not entirely untrue, i have been very lonely in my life.

i have always resisted wanting to be a demander. the term i found reflects how i feel about the role, but i can’t see a middle ground, and i’m sick of doing that much traveling. i need to look after myself, i want to be valued for what i myself value.

urk. sore throat – clogged head– runny nose – headache – difficulty breathing – sore nose – red eyes – sneezing – coughing – sore ribs – itchy ears– white– yellow – green – brown – red. not too many possibilities left, so it’s nearly done. no tonsillitis.

at the same time, staying home while everyone else is at some unmissable party or other, i’ve been getting up early and managing to do things! i’ve made sequential plans for wood work projects i haven’t touched in years, glued together the layers for a hat block, sorted out the disintegrating patterns in my sewing machine cover, dared to soak new gloves and old dress and get out stains i never thought would go, played piano, put brush to surface and varnished the escritoire, packed tools and materials in appropriate size boxes, started on a screen printing template, a light box and hat block stand, and put my beloved sewing machine in for fixing and a service. not to mention cooking and cleaning, eating and getting hungry. actually, life is good.

i spent tonight in wollstonecraft, at an old school friend’s housewarming. sally and her boy have bought a stunning unit –walking distance from our old school. it was a pleasant evening, and good to see sally again, but i have caught up with her recently; what was really interesting was seeing ngaire and alex again.

ngaire was always quiet, a bit nervous and uncomfortable, unassuming, trying not to take up space. these days she’s spending her time excavating cambodia, egypt and jordan. she just discovered temples in cambodia as part of her honours thesis. discovered! but her demeanour hasn’t changed much.

when alex walked in I didn’t recognise her. i didn’t expect her, as i’d heard she’s usually in america, and she’s filled out and has long straight hair, both of which are striking changes visually. she didn’t greet me, and when sally asked if she remembered ngaire and me she said of course, and kept right on talking. just like high school.

she did interact with me a little, like a complete stranger. it’s not so far from the truth – i don’t think I’ve seen her once since 1996, and while i knew her fairly well back then, she probably didn’t know me at all.

alex was always compelling. charismatic, the centre of attention. desperate to be so at all times. it seems that hasn’t changed all that much, i couldn’t stop watching her. her conversations were interesting though there was nothing in them.

she reminded me of someone. inflections, gestures, words, posture, at first i thought she must remind me of the old her, but no, there was only a little bit of that in there. then i realised she reminds me of many different people. kat, dez, hexy, kat, tim’s girlfriend… she seems to share mannerisms with most of the larger than life personalities i know. She won’t know these women, but my guess is that they all share cultural heritage, especially from tv, and bits that I thought of as characteristic of one person are actually just attractive snippets that they’ve picked up from a public source.

What i’m not so sure about is why these people are all the larger women i know. i suspect it isn’t just my eyes that make this grouping. i think their expression of confidence is different from that of my confident, charismatic but short statured friends. maybe it’s something about how they interact with me, i have known for a long time that i’m universally ignored when i am the odd one out in a sea of people who don’t come far past my shoulders. this happens more often than i’d like. it’s an interesting question, and a thorny one. it interacts with questions of perception and body image, stereotype and generalisation, and doesn’t fit at all with the simplistic but fundamental concept that people are equal and that appearance does not, should not, matter. this discordance needs to be rectified. an interesting question indeed.

whatever happens now, howard is gone! in the first federal election that i haven’t been registered to vote against him in bennelong.

that’s cause for celebration. tears, actual tears alone in front of the tv, then revelry at the hub, talking to people and watching the abc projected on the wall. jumping up and down while shouting down the phone over the cheering. then back home to study for the six exams i have next week. rotten timing, but that’s ok.

my whole adult life howard has been in office and things have been going steadily downhill. i learn about cycles but don’t see them. now the trajectory, one way or another, will change. maybe we’ll even see the other side of the cycle… my expectations aren’t really very high, my hopes aren’t focussed any higher than the raft of changes and rollbacks rudd’s flagged for the next hundred days. if we get a bunch of them, things will be more bearable. a few of them may affect me directly, but even more than that it might make space in my brain for the strange concept that change can be a good thing! i hope he doesn’t disappoint us too soon.

wednesday i got up at 5am to see heather off at the airport. we spent a couple of hours doing prosaic airporty things, not saying much, just spending time. when it was time for her to go through security there was a hug, a smile and a wave. she was off and i went home smiling.

today i did an appaling exam, the kind i worry i’ve failed. that doesn’t happen often. we were all in the same boat, but that doesn’t help much when i don’t find out my marks till next monday, and if i failed i have to sit down there and then to do the retest, or fail the subject. i can’t really study just in case, i’ve worked on almost everything i could find already, and have seven more exams to prepare for anyway
the afternoon i procrastinated away pleasantly and productively, chatting to many people and mending clothes. when the sun started to set i finally attacked my work for the next exam, in front of a movie. cabaret is an old favourite, but i haven’t watched it since i read the book a year or two ago, and certain parts have suddenly become intensely personal. that’s thanks to my life, not my reading. how did i get myself into a situation so similar to a cautionary tale i know so well? did gender issues direct my focus the wrong way, or did i never actually consider it cautionary? i suspect the latter. it always spoke to me, but now it’s the pain, betrayal, vulnerability, internal conflict and compromise, irresponsibility, attachment and power relations, where maybe i used to see more of the freedom, risk, context, dissent, charm, integrity, intoxication, idealism, and waving the train goodbye with a smile.
these are still good, but did i think that i’d avoid the flipsides? or that they wouldn’t hurt? or maybe just that they pass? maybe. maybe i was right after all.

when i got home late last night, after my debut as a life drawing model, i found a very nice set of drawers by the side of the road several houses down. i dragged it back to outside my house, and left it in the driveway. this morning i had dragged it almost to the front door when a couple of strangers walked past, and one of them offered to help. he helped me take it inside, then all the way upstairs! people can be lovely sometimes. this morning, someone at the bus stop asked for help taking her groceries back home to near my house. as usual i was late, and couldn’t afford to miss another bus, so embarrassingly i had to refuse. someone else came by soon after, but of course two buses sailed past and i was still there when he got back…

i guess if we do what we can, it all adds up in the end. i really don’t know how i would’ve gotten the set of drawers upstairs on my own, as the drawers don’t come out, but it’s perfect! my room fits together so much better now, and i look forward to spending some time filling it up more thoughtfully than i did today, but there is that small matter of two exams next week and six the week after… domesticity will have to try to wait.