not a turtle

...and I'm important

"[She's] twenty two, right?"

"Yeah"

"But she looks much older than [mutual friend aged 30]"

"Well, when you spend that much time thinking about yourself, it comes out on your face."

the little things you do together

Dear Blog,

So, look. I never promised I'd write you often (or maybe I did, I can't remember). You and me, we've been through a lot together. 

We've made it through eight jobs (four of which lasted less than two weeks), three and a half boyfriends (one of whom faked a terminal illness), one interstate relocation, two Prime-ministers (one of whom owes me $900), two hundred and forty two posts, and according to my internet banking transaction search function, seventy eight takeaway pizzas.

It's been three years, seven months and fifteen days since we got together, Blog. We've been together for 14.43% of my time on this planet thus far. That is (according to The Guardian) longer than the average person spends on the toilet in their lifetime.

Do you remember that time we wrote about the girl who stole my scissors in primary school and called her a crack whore? And how the very next day she friend-requested me on Facebook? Yeah, that was fun.

So you might be reading this and thinking it sounds suspiciously like one of those tacky breakup letters. It's not you, it's not me, it's just that I can't stand that shampoo you use. That sort of thing. 

Well, it's not. I came here to tell you, after a trial separation that's lasted eight months and twenty four days, I'm ready to give things another go. 

I'm not saying I'll be around every morning with steaming hot coffee and an almond croissant to gently rouse you from your cyber slumber, I'm just saying I think we should hang out more.

I've even left myself a reminder, carefully affixed to the bottom of my monitor at work:

Yours sincerely,

Byron

a short list of things you should know, in case you didn't already

1. Audrey Niffenegger is a genius. If you haven't read The Time Traveler's Wife, go and do so. Now. I mean it.
2. Learning is not a noun. Birthday is not a verb. Gordon Ramsay is not an adjective.
3. You should keep to the left when walking down the street / using an escalator / passing someone in a hallway. Just like cars do on the road. Unles you're in another country where everything is all backwards and wrong. Then I can't help you.
4. I haven't blogged in 121 days. Or seventeen weeks. However you'd like to look at it.
5. I'm sorry about point four. I'll try to be better. I promise.
6. I got an iPhone. *squeee!*

it has a flavour

"...okay but banana flavouring tastes nothing at all like banana. It's far more disgusting than most other flavours. Like watermelon, y'know."

"Umm... no. Seriously, if you cut up a watermelon and bit into a slice that tasted like watermelon flavour, you'd call the police."

quotable quotes #7551

"I do so love your pillowy bosom"

"...yeah, but I only judge people for how they look, not what they think or feel."

"How do you want to hang the tinsel on the tree?"
"Downward spirals are always good."
"Not if you're Amy Winehouse."

"She shows surprising emotional depth for someone in the Army Reserves."

"If you're going to tell people on national television that I tried to stuff my underwear into your mouth, you need to stress that it was CLEAN underwear."

"...it's like a knife through my heart, Byron."
"But it's true!"
"I know. otherwise it would be a spatula."

in which he writes a letter

Dear Internet,

It's been an awfully long time since I wrote you last. 68 days, 14 hours, 51 minutes and 36 seconds, to be precise. I don't have much to say in my defense, but over the coming weeks and months I hope to make it up to you in some small way.

The world is a very different place to the one I left you with on the sixteenth of November. Many wonderful, not-so-wonderful and interesting things have happened since:

• Our antediluvian moth eaten mold magnet of a (former) Prime Minister and his retrogressive and downright offensive cronies were ousted in the very first Federal Election I have voted in.   

• I started my new job, but you already knew that. It's going swimmingly, and I no longer dread going to work.

• Björk attacked a photographer at Auckland International Airport. Mathematicians have now calculated that Björk can statistically be expected to attack a photographer once every 10.62 years.

• A half dressed, Lynx-scented blonde child by the name of Corey Worthington Delaney threw a party to which around five hundred other half dressed, Lynx-scented children came. Hilarity ensued and police were called. In an uncharacteristically efficient and overenthusiastic response, Victorian police sent a helicopter, several squad cars and upwards of twenty officers in riot gear. One of the children threw a bottle. Victorian Police Commissioner, Christine Nixon announced to assembled media the following day that, despite the lack of any legal or legislative provision allowing her to do so, she intended to bill Mr Delaney's parents for the $20,000 she believes the police operation cost. In the ensuing media furore, nobody pays any attention to Christine Nixon's astonishing claims that she can simply invoice people for the policing of the state. Within a week, everyone has forgotten Mr Delaney's name.

• Celebrities kept dying (Brad Renfro, Heath Ledger, Suzanne Pleshette). Not the ones I expected might (Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears, Nick Nolte). Although I'm not a fan of Heath Ledger, his death affected me more than I could have imagined it might. I was a little too young when River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain died to understand why people were as devastated as they were. Now, it makes sense. I suppose these things remind us of our own mortality, and he was only five years older than I am right now.

So as you can see, the world has been busy carrying on its business, and I've been busy with an array of mundane tasks and endeavours.

I promise to write again soon.

All my love,

Byron

and still, he stays

As we are leaving the house to walk to the supermarket:

"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
"No really, what are you doing? What are those in your hand?"
"Socks."
"Socks?"
"Yes. I plan to put them on."
"But you're... currently wearing shoes."
"Yes. What is your question?"

what's black and white and read all over?

Often, reading the newspaper only seems to reinforce my long held notion that the world is completely fucked. Usually this feeling comes as a result of actual news. Rarely does it stem from the way an article has been written, although it has been known to happen.

Allow me to present to you an article from yesterday's Brisbane Times:

My immediate reaction to this was what the flying fuck is a goon bag?
Like "king hit", which is possibly the most revolting and unnecessary of these colloquialisms used by Fairfax publications in place of actual words, it's a term I've never heard before.

Thinking that there would be explanation offered for this odd and unfamiliar term, I started to read. As it turns out, the headline is downright misleading. The assault in question actually occurred more than two years ago, and the article concerns the sentencing of one person involved in the assault. Now I hate to be pedantic, but if you're going to be this imprecise with headlines, then why not see how far you can push the envelope? Last week when everyone was pretending they had something new to say about Princess Diana's death, why didn't you go with "Tragic Princess Dies In Car Accident, aged 36"? Oh that's right, because people would notice you were rehashing a years-old article to fill space on a slow news day.

The author of this article, Christine Kellett, who the Brisbane Times website tells me "...enjoys reading, eating out and entertaining friends and family from south of the border.", and whomever her editor is, seem to be of the opinion that "goon bag" is a term their readership is familiar with.   

Anyway, back to the point. I still didn't know what a goon bag was. I read on.

Right.

This bag of goon can be used to knock the glasses off someone's face? Interesting.

So this goon stuff must be quite dangerous then, if she's threatening to break the bag, I thought. I needed to know what on earth a goon bag was. It seemed like tragic Aussie Slang, so perhaps Urban Dictionary would be able to help.

It was:

Right. So this is an article about somebody hitting people with a plastic bag full of liquid. This must truly be the zenith of your journalistic career, Christine Kellett. I strongly doubt any of the injuries sustained by any party during the assault were a direct result of being "bashed with a goon bag".

I think perhaps this nonsense can be explained away by remembering that this is the Brisbane Times. Our neighbours to the north aren't exactly renowned for their intellectual prowess. Perhaps everyone in Queensland knows what a goon bag is. Perhaps they regularly purchase and consume them. I don't know.

What I do know is that the differences between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne can be summed up quite neatly by this little screen capture from two weeks ago:

On the left, we have the most read article in Melbourne that day, a juicy political scandal. On the right, Sydney's most popular article, an international sport star caught up in a drug scandal. And in the middle, what have Brisbane-ites been reading? An article about A TALKING CHIPANZEE.

anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung

No doubt some of you are familiar with the song ‘Get Here’ by Oleta Adams. You may not think you are, but if you’ve ever listened to adult contemporary radio, you’ve heard it. The song, apart from being a surprisingly comprehensive list of the modes of transport available in the modern world, is a sickeningly heartfelt piano ballad. It is also lodged in some deep and completely inaccessible recess of my brain that I cannot seem to wrest it from.

It’s the kind of song one might expect to hear as an accompaniment to ice dancing, or even some kind of choreographed gymnastic ribbon twirling. It is not the kind of song one wants playing over and over inside one’s skull.

You can reach me by sailboat, climb a tree and swing rope to rope
Take a sled and slide down slow, into these arms of mine
You can jump on a speedy colt, cross the border in a blaze of hope
I don't care how you get here, just get here if you can

I think I might vomit.

at the lye-berry

In four weeks' time, I will start work here¹.

No longer will I spend my days lamenting my work-day contribution to the ruination of society. There will be no more attempts to defend the highly offensive (and completely indefensible) practices of my manager and the HR department of the immeasurably odious corporation by which I am currently employed.

Also, this means a great (and severely clichéd) weight has lifted from my shoulders.

Blogposts will be forthcoming. Often.

      1. No, I am not now, nor will I ever be, a librarian.

            

english lesson #4

Dear People Who Get To My Site By Googling Without Further Adieu,

There are far too many of you.

I titled a post Without Further Adieu as a joke. Several of the women I work with are fond of this highly amusing yet incorrect turn of phrase. When you say without further adieu, what you're actually saying is without further goodbye.

What you mean to say is without further ado, which as I'm sure you're aware, means without further fuss.

Maybe you've lost the ability to speak correctly because you've been burning the candle at both ends of the spectrum, or maybe you're just pulling my leg over my eyes. But honestly, can't you read the handwriting in the wind? Don't you follow where I'm coming from? It's just plain wrong.

a·dieu      /əˈdu, əˈdyu; Fr. aˈdyɶ/

interjection, noun, plural a·dieus, a·dieux
–interjection
1.    good-bye; farewell.
–noun
2.    the act of leaving or departing; farewell.

a·do      /əˈdu/
–noun
busy activity; bustle; fuss.

[Origin: 1250–1300; ME (north) at do, a phrase equiv. to at to (< ON, which used at with the inf.) + do do1]

over the shoulder boulder holder

Some of you may remember Mya, or Mýa as she now wishes to be known (which as far as I can tell from three minutes on Google would be correctly pronounced either m-YAAH or mEAR), from her 2003 hit single "My Love Is Like... Wo", her star turn in Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, or her scenery chewing histrionics in 2002's "Chicago".

Even those of you who don't remember her will be pleased to know that the effervescent young model/actress/singer has decided to put her celebrity to good use. She has recorded the "Stop Breast Cancer for Life" campaign's first ever theme song, a catchy and socially relevant tune entitled "My Bra".

Although I'm all for supporting breast cancer research and/or awareness, I have to say that it is without a doubt the vilest and most saccharine pox ever thrust upon society. Allow me to share with you the chorus:

"My bra my bra my bra my bra
My light at the end of the tunnel
My bra my bra my bra
My legs when I start to stumble
My strength, my sun, my heart
When it's just too hard to take it
When it's just to hard to make it
Through another day
You're lifting me up
My bra my bra my bra"

Now, apart from the seemingly bewildering use of her bra as a metaphor (or substitute) for the love and support of friends and relatives, or her inference that should she be unable to walk, her bra will simply pick up the slack, don't you find it strange that she's singing not about breast cancer, or even breasts themselves, but about an item of clothing which holds the afflicted organs? How long do you think it is before we have Kanye West recording "My Jocks" in support of prostate cancer, or America Ferrera's hit charity single "My Glasses" to raise much needed funds for research into macular degeneration?

But wait kids, there's more. "My Bra" is the centrepiece of an advertising campaign and a much anticipated TV movie.

"...the song appears in the Lifetime original movie The Matters of Life and Dating, a humorous peek into post-mastectomy life starring Ricki Lake and Holly Robinson Peete, airing on Lifetime on Oct 22."

A humorous peek into post-mastectomy life? Okay. I'd buy that starring pretty much anyone else, but Ricki Lake? Have you seen Mrs Winterbourne? and Holly Robinson Peete, whose most impressive resumé entry to date is Hangin' with Mr Cooper? It's all too awful to contemplate.

I'll leave you now with Mýa's heartfelt perfomance of what is bound to be this year's biggest charity single smash, "My Bra".

quotable quotes #128835

"You know how hair products claim they'll add life to your hair..."
"Yes."
"It's just occurred to me the only way they can really do that is with lice or nits."

"What's that movie called... the one where Marianne Faithfull becomes a prostitute?"
"What? In real life?"

"No... see I didn't think the look in her eyes was that creepy."
"Okay. Our two dogs, when they were dying, that was the look they got in their eyes, wounded, darting around like crazy, frightened you might kick them."

"This woman [on the TV] is Hungarian right?"
"Yes."
"That's not her natural colour. The only way you can get orange in Hungary is by rolling in paprika."

"Wait. What if they didn't buy any chocolate?"
"They're single women. Without boyfriends. They have chocolate."

"Didn't he leave Mary-Louise Parker when she was six months pregnant for Claire Danes?"
"Claire Danes is not really incentive to leave anything."
"...except a cinema"

"The Veronicas are much the same as Hungry Hungry Hippos, except without the hip, just the ho."

without further adieu

In preparation for a possible plunge into the job market once again, allow me to present to you a set of rules I have established for Recruitment Consultants and HR Managers everywhere. Some guidelines for those special little petals that preside over the unnecessarily complicated interview process.

Before I launch into them, for those of you who've never had the pleasure of dealing with recruitment consultants, let me share with you something it took me all of seven minutes to figure out when, at eighteen, I had my first interview at a temp agency. A recruitment consultant is something receptionists named Kelly-Ann become after deciding that photocopying, occasional filing and forwarding chain emails is no longer as fulfilling as it might have seemed. Sadly, receptionists like Kelly-Ann often lack the basic interpersonal and literacy skills one might expect of someone who, on the surface, looks as though they may possess some degree of intelligence.

Don't believe me? Allow me to offer evidence. First, there's this. And then...

Are you receptionist, administration, secretary, waitress,? Would you like to earn upwards of $30,000 per hour? Well have I got a job for you:

...or if you're carrently look on a job in customer service:

...or perhaps you're simply looking to dance while your career provides a catchy yet inoffensive soundtrack:

...and if none of that appeals, maybe you've just been waiting for that perfect job to walk up to you in the street and announce itself abruptly:

That's right kids, all of these very special job ads were written by the Kelly-Anns of the world. They're the ones who decide whether or not you're right for a job they aren't qualified to do, at a company whose name they can't spell.

Without further adieu, as my current manager likes to say, here are the rules:

1. Do not keep talking about how fantastic a job is after I have told you it doesn't pay enough for me to be able to eat and I have no interest in it.

2. Do not attempt to convince me that an outbound sales role would be perfect for me. It is not my fault you have positions to fill yet lack the actual skills to do so.

3. Read my resumé BEFORE you call me.

4. Use the spellcheck function once you've finished writing a job ad.

5. Do not use exclamation marks in a job ad.

6. Do not use mixed metaphors in a job ad.

7. See the shift key on your keyboard? If you hold it down, it will give you capital letters. They come at the beginning of sentences and names.

8. When writing a job ad, use question marks at the end of questions, and full stops at the end of statements, not the other way around.

9. Do not advertise a job with the headline "MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!" if the job pays AU$29k.

10. Do not comment on how much my name sounds like Byron Bay. It's not funny, cute or interesting. I could tell you how much your name (Siobhan) sounds like the noise my dog makes after she eats grass, but that would just be rude.

the joys of the workplace - part two

Yesterday I spent three hours cutting out, laminating and again cutting out roughly eighty little pieces of paper for a training exercise.

This morning when I arrived at work, all the little laminated pieces of paper had disappeared from my desk.

Five minutes ago, I discovered the remains of my handiwork in the bottom of a bin. They had been cut into tiny pieces and coffee poured all over them.

After surveying my colleagues and assessing their responses, I’m now 99% certain it was the National Training Manager who so viciously drowned and dismembered my training cards. How do I know this? Well, when asked if she knew how they might have met their end in the bottom of a black plastic garbage bag, she responded “Oh By-RONNN, they were a stupid idea. I don’t know how they got in the bin, but it’s probably the best place for them.”

Maybe I missed the part on induction day about using scissors, caffeinated beverages and trash receptacles to communicate in preference to actual words.

Also, the IT guy is sitting at his desk (which faces the entire office) watching a Girls Gone Wild! DVD with an enormous pair of headphones on.

the joys of the workplace

What do you do when the goings on in your workplace have made you so unbelievably frustrated, confused and angry that your head is quite literally in an exorcist-like spin and there is not a single like-minded person in your department or even the building?

I think the answer might be that you leave. I don’t know. I’m just throwing it out there to see what it sounds like.

If I were to leave, my next job would be the eighth I’ve had this year. Also, if I were to leave it would mean dealing with recruitment consultants again, which is roughly three times as painful as giving birth to a toddler while being drawn and quartered.

Why am I so riled up, you might wonder?

So far this morning, my colleagues have:

• Reduced an 18 year old girl to hysterical tears over a twelve second phone call about which she was right and the customer was wrong.
• After discovering that a middle aged male staff member had been googling (during his breaks) "depression", "anxiety" and "what to do if you're lonely", disciplined him for violating the internet policy, thereby humiliating and upsetting him to the point where he hid in the bathroom for twenty minutes. About an hour after he returned, my ever so sensitive colleague then gave him "feedback" about how badly he had been working, threatening him with written warnings. Unsurprisingly, he threw his phone on at the wall, narrowly missing her and walked out.
• Displaced me from my desk, unceremoniously dumping everything that had been on my desk and in my drawers into the top of an enormous filing cabinet before I got to work, and announced to me when I arrived that I would "just have to find a desk wherever I could". Why, you might ask? Because someone from the another office will be working in this building for THREE days, and she couldn't possibly "find a desk wherever she could" for her TEMPORARY STINT IN HELL.
• Also, I've been counting the Krispy Kreme doughnuts my boss is eating. She's up to nine.

So I emailed the above to my friends, and the lovely Audrey responded thusly:

"It's like The Place That Sends You Mad in The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. I dare you to go and ask your boss if she can direct you to Permit A-39."

...and I thought well, it's not that bad.

...and then somebody handed me a new training manual, the bottom corner of which I have reproduced for you here.

Did I mention that this is the best job I've had all year?

quotable quotes #303809

"...oh my mother does pilates. Not because she wants to be offensive, though. More for exercise."

"I wouldn't wish that on anyone ...except maybe Avril Lavigne"
"Then we'd have to hear her sing about it."

"I'm just... better than you."
"No you're not."
"...well I have more MySpace friends than you!"
"That's so fucking sad."

"My kindergarten teacher used to wear stirrup pants all the time"
"Byron, all kindergarten teachers wear stirrup pants."

"What's wrong?"
"It's just that all these people are getting on our tram, and so few of them have brushed their hair."

"I like her, but I think that if we were in the wild, I'd go into fight response."

"I firmly believe Russia should never have been allowed man-made fibres until they proved they could use them responsibly first."

"Okay. There's fruit salad for dessert. Does anyone not like strawberries?"
"Lili hates them. On fabric."

my fear. let me show you it.

A small, squinty and unattractive woman from The Other Side Of The Office (also known as the land of the telemarketers) just asked me a question that began thusly:

"You look like a sexual person. What do you think of..."

I didn't hear the rest of the question. I ran away and pretended I was photocopying my hand.

against abortion? don't have one.

Last Thursday, I posted my thoughts (read them here) on the bill very soon to be before Victorian Parliament that aims to remove abortion from the Crimes Act (1958), thus rendering it no longer a criminal offence.

 

Since then, the crazies have come out of the woodwork. I've had emails, and one very special comment from a girl who calls herself Sharlie.

Sharlie says:

"If abortion is removed from the Crimes Act it would mean that abortion would be legal at ANY stage of pregnancy for ANY reason. That means right up until the moment before birth a fully viable baby could be aborted."

Wrong. Section 10 of the Crimes Act (1958) is about child destruction:

"(1) Any person who, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of
being born alive, by any wilful act unlawfully causes such child to die before
it has an existence independent of its mother shall be guilty of the
indictable offence of child destruction, and shall be liable on conviction
thereof to level 4 imprisonment (15 years maximum).

(2) For the purposes of this section evidence that a woman had at any material
time been pregnant for a period of twenty-eight weeks or more shall be prima
facie proof that she was at that time pregnant of a child capable of being
born alive."

Nobody is proposing changes to section 10 of the Crimes Act. Child destruction (ie. abortion of a pregnancy beyond 28 weeks) is still very much a crime.

Sharlie says:

"...Well, actually, I'm sorry that you are that naive. I work as a crisis pregnancy counsellor and I have heard it all. A great deal of women agonise over the decision and are greatly affected after it is done for many years, but I have also recieved calls from women who 'just didn't want to get fat.' "

The first part, about the agony, that's what I said in my post. Did you read it?

The second part, about not getting fat... it worries me you're using that example to make a point. The kind of girl who tells you she "just didn't want to get fat" is not as stupid as you might make her out to be. As a counsellor, I'm sure you deal with people every day who don't say what they really mean. People who can't articulate their feelings. People who are lying to themselves. People who say the opposite of what they feel. It's one of our biggest flaws as human beings that we like to hide from ourselves and our emotions. That girl is actually saying "I'm lost. I don't know what to do. I'm so confused I can't even think straight. HELP ME." It frightens me to think that you spend your days counselling anyone.

Sharlie says:

"...people like you... think that the answer is about making abortion like getting a tooth pulled out."

Now, I hate to repeat myself, but I'll do it anyway.

"I’ve often wondered what goes on inside the heads of militant pro-lifers. Do they, in their nightmares, imagine McDonalds’s style franchises offering drive-thru abortions on the side of the highway?  Do they honestly believe that for people considering an abortion it’s not an agonising, life altering decision? Do they think people have abortions for fun? “Abortion on demand” is a strange concept."

Well, it's a different analogy, but really... we're on the same side of this point, aren't we?.

Sharlie says:

"I'm sure you'll count me in your group of verbally vomiting militant pro-lifers..."

Indubitably.

You say that you're a "crisis pregnancy counsellor". This means that by definition, you have to be impartial. You might be pro-life, pro-choice, or even eat babies for breakfast every morning, but if your job is to help people dealing with unexpected / unplanned / unwanted pregnancy, you need to leave your personal feelings at home. Otherwise, you're not a counsellor at all. You're a persuasionist.

Sharlie then spends the rest of her comment behaving as though I recommended that every pregnant woman in the western world have a late term (perhaps at 8½ months) abortion immediately.

Honestly, people. If you're going to rip apart my argument, start with some facts. Then perhaps you might move on to discussing something I said, instead of something I didn't.

english lesson #3

re·mu ·ner·a·tion
1. the act of remunerating.
2. something that remunerates; reward; pay: He received little remuneration for his services.

re·nu·mer·a·tion
1. not a word.
2. do not say it. if you say it, you suck.