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Show us the last thing you bought.

I've totally been engaging in therapeutic retail expenditure as a result of the recent work woes... These were purchased from artallnight on etsy. Am very excited to give the horseshoe ring as a pressie to my best friend at work Cheapie who has been struggling a bit lately and could do with a bit of good luck in her life.

The best thing about etsy is how fast everything ships! I'm hoping to get these before I leave for The City next week, although that would be very fast indeed for overseas shipping. Especially since the post in G-town seems to be run by donkeys.  

This song kicks arse, and, because of its rocky and yet sort of sad / poignant feel, reminds me of Gotye's "Hearts a Mess". If you non-Aussies haven't discovered Gotye yet, you must must must. Anyhoo, check out MGMT's "Kids".

05 Kids

MGMT

I got home last night after BodyBalance, ate a huge bowl of pasta with ridiculous amounts of garlic and cheese, and then called my Mum. And sobbed. It felt good to do, because I had been holding it in for about 4 days. I don't have anyone here who I can show my real panic or stress levels to, who can tell me that I am strong, and tough, and capable, and that it will all be okay.

My mum gave me sensible advice, and as usual it was stuff I already knew but fail to remember. I need to block out all the office politics, all the crap, and get as much work done as possible over the next few days before MotherHen leaves. I need to be head down, bum up and just not get caught up in the gossip and crap.

This is all quite hard to do. The 4 lawyers here basically work in one giant communal office, and lots of the other staff come to visit and chat. It is hard not to get drawn into things, particularly if, like me, you have a natural instinct to try and help people sort out their problems and issues.

A parched earth and a blue sky

But today I am so depressed by the whole situation that I've put the headphones in, and am just getting on with it. I don't think I can talk to anyone about anything, because I have no energy left. My light was off at 10pm last night, and sleep came (miraculously) at about 12am, and yet this morning I woke up at 7am feeling like I'd been hit in the head by a brick. My whole body feels heavy and sad.

And yet, I'm just not ready to leave this job. There are things I want to do, to achieve, and I feel like if I leave before those things happen then I will always have regrets. But perhaps I will always have that feeling - there is always more that could be done for Aboriginal rights, and there is never a clear end point.

And I'm not ready to leave G-town. Despite my feeling isolated and lonely a lot lately, I feel like if I left now it would be a waste of all the efforts I've been making to settle in and make a life for myself here. And I don't know what I would be going back to. I don't have any clue about what job I would want to do in The City, and whether I would move home or find a sharehouse again. Apart from anything, the prospect of moving again just seems too exhausting and expensive. I can't move unless my parents help me financially, or I find a job which would be prepared to pay for my relocation. Both of which are in theory feasible, but wholly unattractive. And, despite the isolation, I like living here. The size of the town, the country atmosphere, the small community I'm trying to integrate myself into, the people in this office, the life I'm bit by bit building for myself... I like it all.  

There isn't a lot else I could really do in G-town. I could work for the Aboriginal Legal Service, but that would feel like moving sideways, ie still doing community work with much the same constituency, and probably facing the same internal politics issues. I think I will be too burned out for that after this. I feel like when I leave this job I will need a break - time at home not working, or maybe to head overseas for a few months. But I'm not in a position to do either of those, especially not financially.

I guess what I'm faced with is an incredibly dysfunctional, difficult, stressful and almost traumatising job which I love and hate in equal amounts, an unwillingness to admit defeat or to abandon my clients, an unpreparedness to face the future or to even decide what future I want, and a lack of financial freedom to decide my next move on my terms.

All of which makes me just want to snuggle on the couch with my Mum. I'm hanging out for next weekend, when I'll be in The City and can seek comfort in the arms of my friends, family and puppy.

Things I Loathe:

• Losing my supervisor. Again. I'm dreading going through this again. I can only hope that the anticipation is worse than the actual event, but that seems incredibly unlikely.
• Rental inspections. Today better go okay. I didn't get to mow the lawn - MotherHen and I went to her place to get the lawnmower only to realise that there was no fuel in it. Doh!
• Management who JUST DON'T GET IT.
• Being pissy at my BFF. When she isn't fighting with her stupid boyfriend, I don't hear from her all that much. I know that she is really really busy with her new job, but how can she not realise that things are really hard for me ATM? I'm isolated from my family and friends, work is kind of falling apart, and my grandfather is being treated for cancer. Where is she? Yeah, I could call her, but my very stubborn side says I shouldn't have to.
• Being exhausted but not being able to sleep because I'm stressed and can't stop thinking about work.

Things I Love:

• Eye drops.
• My knuckle duster esque ring. Makes me feel purty.
• Basil aioli. I made a batch on the weekend with soy mayo and it was soooo gooooood. Way too good. I can feel my stomach expanding just thinking about it. It is like ahhhh-mazing on toasted turkish bread with swiss cheese, salami and spinach. Oh yeah baby.
• The anticipation of receiving my subversive cross stitch packs in the mail. I got myself "Don't Make Me Cut You" and I bought "Homo Sweet Homo" for my little bro for Christmas. I want to give him something (a) funny and (b) which tells him how proud I am of him for being strong and brave and OUT and PROUD. 
• Having a vacuum cleaner that actually works! My room is sooo hair and dust free right now. Go me.  

I'm sure that this will be HIGHLY controversial, but how much does Amy Gardner suck? Yeah I know, Mary Louise Parker kicks serious butt etc, but still, I hate the character of Amy. And not just because I am clearly in the Donna+Josh4eva camp, but also because she is seriously irritating. She is a myopic character, who only cares about her own agenda and not how it affects others. She is pushy pushy pushy. I know she is meant to be quirky and powerful and inspiring, but fundamentally she is a whiny pain in the buttinski.

Anyway, back to the usual programming.

If only i looked like this when weeding

Blergh. Came home from work trip last week to discover a letter informing me of a rental inspection tomorrow. Housiemate and I spent Saturday afternoon pulling out these big muthafuckin weeds out of the lawn and back patio clothesliney bit. Fun! Not. But still, it needed to be done, and a rental inspection turned out to be the impetus I needed. I also did a good cleaning of the bathroom, but stupidly had an attack of lazyness at about 4pm and decided to put off doing the oven until tonight. Forgetting, of course, that I have an oxfam meeting tonight. Plus, have to pick up MotherHen's lawnmower and mow the lawn tonight as well!

Waaaaah. Everything always comes at once, and always when I have PMS. Giant pimple on my chin at the moment, which is making me very unhappy (you know, along with my work life falling apart).

Oh well... have done a bit of internet shopping today - some subversive cross stitch patterns (may as well do something while I watch copious amounts of telly) and Mac OsX Leopard for my lapytoppy. Therapy, thy name is credit card! Bad Mathilde.

MotherHen is leaving. In two weeks. This is BAD. I've been through this sort of event once before, and it wasn't good. I'm a helluva lot stronger now, but I'm worried about doing it all over again. But what is my alternative? I can't quit my job and return to The City... I'm not ready for that yet.

Shit shit shit.

Got back into G-town from my meetings about 3 hours ago, and after a stop at home to get changed, have lunch (and watch an episode of the West Wing), I'm back in the office. And basically doing no work. I'm catching up on my Vox neighbourhood, going through my emails, sharing gossip and tales with colleagues (there are always lots of them after road trips) and generally faffing about. I'm pretty tired, although we managed to do the 5 hour drive in 4 hours (what, me? speed? never!).

Highlights from the last few days include:

• Driving the Landcruiser... in a printed, pink hippy skirt. I like to defy stereotypes and befuddle the truckers. Blasting Neil Diamond has a similar effect.  
• My scheduling meetings at a very popular tourist destination during school holidays, failing to realise that fact, booking accommodation one week ahead, and realising that pretty much the whole town was booked out. I managed to get us into one of the caravan parks into what they said was an "ensuite cabin" with a double bed and then bunk beds in the lounge room. It was, however, a one-room donga, with the double bed and the bunk beds about 30cm away from each other. Thankfully MotherHen and I are very close, so the cramped quarters wasn't too much of an issue, although there was an awful lot of fart humour over the two days! The place was pretty gross and dirty, but I guess at only $79 a night in peak season you can't get too picky.
• One of the mining company representatives ended his presentation to my clients with "well, I hope to see you all again" to which one of my crochety clients replied "yeah, if you don't get eaten by a snake first!". The whole meeting cracked up, and the mining company guy just looked bewildered.
• Eating fish which was caught from the pristine ocean just across the road!
• Mocking World Youth Day with MotherHen. I'm sooooo going to hell.
• Listening to the album that one of my clients has put out himself - hilarious acoustic country music by a very old, mostly deaf guy. He spent the full two days trying to sell it to everyone he came across (including mining company representatives!)
• By the end of the two days, having done so much talking (at a loud pitch because half of the clients are old and deaf!) that my voice was going hoarse and my tongue was all tired and useless. By 4.30pm on the second day I could barely string together sentences and the clients were starting to laugh at me...

If I remember, I'll update soon about the perils of being a young, female, white lawyer in this business. But for now I am going to do a very small amount of work and then toddle on home to get my car and go grocery shopping. I've got an RDO tomorrow (woop woop!) and a house inspection to clean for (yawn). Tonight is sooooo all about West Wing Season 3.

Am heading off to my insane insane meetings in about 20 minutes, and am panicking about everything that still has to be done. Why aren't I doing it I hear you ask? Because everything on my computer but Internet Explorer has frozen. Predictably.

This week is going to be absolute hell, although more so for MotherHen who is coming to my meetings (2 days) then running her own (3 days). Yeesh. 5 days of being yelled at for trying to do your job. So. Not. Fun.

Anyhoo... Things on Tuesday:

Loathe:

• How much chocolate I ate on the weekend.
• How many hot chips I will end up eating this week. This is the problem with going to seaside towns whose main industry is fishing, and consequently everywhere serves AMAZING calamari, scallops, snapper and CHIPPIES.
• How little exercise I will do this week.
• How much food I will end up consuming as a result of stress.
• How little sleep I got last night.
• I'm pissed off at my best friend and she has no idea. Which is my fault because I haven't told her. But whatevs.

Love:

• Watching the West Wing all the way from season 1, for like the billionth time. It never gets boring!
• Green chicken curry made my way (ie very much not like curry).
• Diet red creaming soda. Yeah, I know. Grossssss.
• Day off on Friday! Woop woop! I plan on weeding. Although I have planned on doing this several weeks in a row now.

Am still addicted to Viva La Vida from the Coldplay album of the same name. I blame the fact that the cello gets a good workout. Unfortunately, I think that this represents an early slide into mediocrity. Damn you premature middle age! Damn you!

07 Viva la Vida

Coldplay