I am broken...

...into a million pieces.

Being bad for a good cause

You can't have one Tim Tam, then stop. You have to eat a whole packet, even if it makes you sick. It's a compulsion you don't realise till you've had your third biscuit.

(There are SEVEN different flavours now, did ya know!! Original, black forest, chewy caramel, classic dark, creamy truffle temptation, double coat and latte.)

I don't often buy them, because I can't restrain myself to make them last longer than a day or so.

I'd say it was a dilemma when I walked into the supermarket today and the first thing I saw was promotional Tim Tams (Tim Tam Pink Wish, to be precise), but I'd be lying. I grabbed a pack of those babies before my brain had time to register what I'd just done.

Pink anything is synonymous these days with donating for breast cancer. Ten cents from each pack gets donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.














I'm not normally a fan of anything strawberry. These Tim Tams have strawberry fillings and I've inhaled three four already. OMG they are goooood! I might have to spend all night on my exercise bike, but hey, it's for charity right?

Trust me. Buy some!

An afternoon in the life of....

Some good stuff

I slept for a bit over 5 hours straight last night. The last time I did that was....well, I have no idea. My form of narcolepsy means I don't go through all the normal sleep stages, so I wake about every 90 minutes. That's one of the reasons I get dead tired during the day.

But 5 hours straight is amazing. It might even have been more than that, because I can't remember looking at the clock after I went to bed till I woke just before 5.30am. Even better, I went back to sleep and didn't move again till my alarm went off.

Roll your eyes and say, "Whatever", but this is big for me.

The biggest thing I'm noticing is how I feel when I wake up. I feel good. I'm so used to waking up tired and with a headache and with absolutely no desire to get out of bed at all. I'm used to feeling like I don't have the energy to get dressed for work, let alone go to work.

That's partially stopped my worries about starting a new job. I've been concerned that I'd start a new job looking and feeling like shite, headachy and unmotivated. Ok, so I'm still working on getting out of bed when I'm supposed to and getting to work at a reasonable time, but I think that'll get better over time as I adjust to feeling good in the mornings (or any time, for that matter).

This has all come about since I've been having the massage and acupuncture....and I've only been 5 times so far. The fact that I almost fell asleep during yesterday's session tells me something about it is definitely making a positive difference.

I think the hardest adjustment for me will be psychological. I'm so used to having no energy and no motivation to get out and be social or simply go out and enjoy myself. The trick will be to notice when my body is feeling good and use that time to do things that make me feel good emotionally, too.

Speaking of things emotional, I think T's booking tickets today to come here in a couple of weeks, for a few days. That just happens to be our 1 year anniversary. Time flies.

Who?

I drive past a small, uninteresting looking 'garden' on the way to work. It doesn't look like much of a garden. More like a bit of grass on the corner of a major intersection, with a couple of seats for drunks to rest on, and a strange looking stone sculpture. There was only one picture on the net that I could find, but the link to it was broken.

The plaque reads:
Raoul Wallenberg
1912 -

For a long time, I thought I should search the name to see who he was. I wondered if he lived in the area, or drove past and if he felt odd driving past - knowing someone was just waiting for him to kick the bucket so they could finish the plaque.

Silly me. I don't know why it took me so long and I honestly don't know why I hadn't heard (or remembered) the name before.

A history lesson.

I think next time I'm curious about something like this, I'll try to find the answer sooner rather than later. I got a little more educated after this particular search.

If ya can't beat 'em....

Next weekend is the football grand final. Not rugby (thugby!) or soccer, but good ole Aussie Rules football. I'm not looking forward to it, although the outcome, whatever it is, will affect me.

Last year, the same two teams were in the grand final. T supports the one that lost.

I really don't like the other team at all. Nothing in particular has made me dislike them, I just never have. I've never particularly liked T's team either. Their supporters have always tended to present themselves as arrogant, with a huge sense of entitlement. Too much pride. Not enough humility.

If the other team wins, I'll hear it till next year's grand final. If T's team wins, I'll hear it till next year's grand final.

My team's horse is still running. There's always next year.

It's just a game, you know...

Visceral Fear of Harm

I've started reading a book that I'm not going to name here. Five pages in, I found something that enlightened me more than I expected and has taken a weight off my shoulders in a way I'm not sure I can explain yet.

In general, this book will help you come to trust the messages that your emotions send you, but there is one that I want you to be aware of even before you start reading. For your own safety and for the safety of everyone you love, you must learn to trust your visceral reactions to fear of harm. That's a feeling in your muscles and in your gut that you will be physically injured. A visceral feeling comes over you more abruptly and with greater intensity than mere anxiety about having a bad evening or even dread of betrayal, depression, and other worries about conflict and emotional abuse. Your visceral fear of harm is not cognitive; you sense aggressive impulses in others before your brain can formulate thoughts about possible danger. That's why you get tense in certain situations, like walking down darkened sidewalks or seeing suspicious strangers, without knowing why. Women have a heightened sense of this early warning system, which is why your husband remains perfectly calm and might even get annoyed with your nervousness as you walk together in a darkened parking garage.

Wish I knew that a while ago. I wouldn't have felt the guilt I had about the way I reacted in a couple of situations in the last 12 months.

Dream on, baby

If you've been reading a while, you'll know I have very strange dreams, quite often. Tonight, I'm distressed. I went to dreammoods.com to check out a dream I had this afternoon (yeah, I do nanna naps) and I got this message " You have reached an account that is inactive on this machine." WTF!? I hope it comes back soon.

Not good when a dream freaks you out a little and you want to figure it out now. So I g0ogled dream sites and found a couple. Neither of them are as good as dreammoods, IMO.

I don't remember a lot of the dream. I do remember my brother was at the top of a set of wooden stairs, standing with someone else. He had a baby in his arms. Somehow the baby managed to fall down the stairs, ending up on a landing half way down. I ran down to pick the baby up. It wasn't crying and wasn't really moving, but I had real trouble picking it up. I couldn't get a good grip on his arm. Finally, I did and I ran back upstairs and gave him back to his mother (don't know who it was). The baby still didn't really cry and I couldn't tell if it was seriously hurt or not, but it did have a small cut on its face. That's about as much as I remember, although I know there was a lot more leading up to the baby falling.

Baby (I took out all the stuff about being preggo, coz it's not relevant!)
Crying babies in a dream may foretell of ill health or minor disappointments in your personal life while a bright, clean baby speaks of a wonderful love affair or even the making of many new friends. A nursing baby can mean contentment or even deception when taken in relation to other symbols in your dream. Dreaming of a baby can also denote the state of your soul life, again in relation to the other signs.

Dreaming about a baby usually indicates new beginnings, a new idea or a new birth within
A babe in arms, care taking someone whom you deem to be unable to take care of themselves
An immature or gullible person
A need for nurturing or feeling unable to fend for oneself
Babe in the woods, a defenseless, naive, young person
Being a baby, being immature or handling something poorly
Being babied, being cradled, given lots of care and attention
Darling, girlfriend, young woman
Dependence
Innocence
Left holding the baby, left with the responsibility
Throwing the baby out with the bath water, discarding everything, including the good within it
Nursing a baby may suggest becoming familiar with or nurturing your inner child

Boys
A woman's protective association with her mate. A woman's projection into her future .

Any dream that you have that features boys in any activity is a good omen and bodes well for the dreamer in whatever he/she is undertaking at the present time. Of course, if the boys are injured, or otherwise beset, then you must take the dream to mean an ill omen. (Yay...not)

Falling
Falling or rapidly descending: Fear of a loss of control or of something material.

Mother
Something that represents nurturing, care taking, warmth or comfort
The symbol may be drawing your attention to aspects, character traits or emotions within your relationship with your own mother
Your impression of yourself as a mother
Your wise, feminine side
Yin energy
Something that is innate or native e.g. mother tongue

Stairs
Take you to another level of understanding or progress in your spiritual, emotional or material life.

If you are walking up the steps it is a sign of good luck in your present endeavors, but if you are walking downstairs expect to meet with bad luck and setbacks. If you should stumble and fall upward on the stairs you will have a happy marriage or relationship, but if you fall down them you must be more conventional in your attitude and lifestyle so you do not fall into disrespect.

Hmmm.... I want dreammoods back. It's much more succinct than the sites I got those interpretations from.

Drug free, lone, jobless pin cushion

Haha, not quite, but I wonder what search results I'll end up in with that heading.

I haven't blogged since Monday and I'm gettin' nagged about it in my comments. What's the world coming to, huh?

Anyway, here's something else that hasn't happened since Monday. No headaches. No pain. At least not until this afternoon, when I went back for more torture by way of acupuncture and massage. A girl did my massage this time. She's the third person in as many visits. The same doctor does the needle stabbing though. This girl was good....even considering part of how she massaged my head felt a bit like a possessed chicken was scratching my scalp. Bizarre. But it felt great...in a chicken scratching way. She said I had beautiful hair, so I let her do what she wanted.

The massage is like no massage I've experienced. Very intense, and they must use heat lamps as well. At one stage, I made an impulsive noise because she was getting deep into my shoulder muscles, so she asked if it hurt. "Yes, but it's good." She laughed and I wondered if any of their other patients said they liked being in so much pain.

When it's all over, the pain goes, I stumble out the door, and come home to sleep. Really, I'm surprised at the results. I've felt almost good this week. I say almost, because I'm not sure what good is supposed to feel like and I doubt I'm fully there yet. I've ordered a yoga/pilates DVD, since my head no longer feels like it's going to explode, and I actually want to do exercise.

The other good news is that I've gone without drugs for 4 out of 5 days this week. Yesterday was the only time I've had to take them and that was mainly because I was at work, didn't have a lot to do and really thought I ought to stay awake at my desk for the afternoon.

Being pain free and almost drug free all week has definitely made me feel more positive about a lot of things. T would probably disagree though. I'm pretty sure I've driven him crazy lately. I can't begin to explain how busy he is and I knew before this increased workload that we'd have less 'us' time. I didn't realise how much it would bother me. Well, it's not so much the reduced time, but how we're both handling it...or not. I thought I could handle it a lot better than I obviously am.

In an attempt to ease the pressure on him and to retain at least some of my sanity, I've told him to take the next couple of weeks to get done what he has to do, without pressure from me. Maybe it'll backfire on me, having no contact (or at the least, minimal contact), but I don't know how else to handle it.

We've been doing the distance almost a year now. That surely has to factor into the equation somewhere, too. I'm doing my best, but I'm frustrated and I wish it were possible for us to have some quality time together soon (read: more than a weekend or a few days). When that might be possible, who knows. I'm a little on the sad side, but what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.....right?

In other news, 4 out of the last 5 jobs I've applied for have all gone to internal applicants prior to the companies seeing anyone from the agencies. The 5th one said I didn't have enough managerial experience. I knew this and told the woman from the agency, but she insisted on putting me forward for the position anyway. I don't see it as a bad thing really, because she's one of the few who've gone out of their way and see my skills/experience for what they are. So I don't feel bad for any of these outcomes.

Maybe I'll become a busker. I'll dress up as a monkey and play cymbals beside a real busker with some degree of talent. Never know where that might lead...

Progress?

Maybe.

I had my second session of massage and acupuncture this afternoon. I woke up this morning with another thumping headache and have been trying to stay awake all day. No drugs today. I thought that since I was going to be having a massage it'd kinda defeat the point of that if I took speed beforehand.

But now? It's just after 9pm and I realised I'm alert and my head doesn't hurt. Ok, it does a little. But I'm alert. Awake. I can't remember the last time I felt this way during the day, let alone at night.

Massage on its own has never made me feel like this before.

It feels strange to feel alert.

No words required

That hurt. Keep doing it.

Apparently, my bones are out of place and my nerves are swollen. (Frayed, too, I'd like to point out.) That's the short version of the diagnosis I got this afternoon from the old Chinese man who says he can fix me. Well, the bones and the nerves, anyway.

It appears years of working in front of a computer has made me all bent out of shape. My health insurance company told me I'm covered for massage and acupuncture and I found someone 5 minutes from home. I'm not good with needles and haven't had acupuncture before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Yes, I have tattoos, so how bad can it be, right?

The non-descript house on a suburban corner didn't make me confident, but inside was great. Very authentic Chinese - totally Feng Shui, right down to the music he had playing, and Oh! all the rows and rows of herbal medicines he had!

Being a little investigator, and having to know everything about what he thought was wrong with me (shut up, Ian! lol) and how he was going to treat it, I think I asked him more questions than he's used to. Poor guy! Ha!

I love massage. It's good pain. I've never had a massage quite like he gave me. It started out normally, then he placed a towel over my back and massaged through that. After that, he put some kind of oils on my back and what felt like plastic wrap that started to heat up after a while. Really heat up! It didn't burn, but it was about as hot as I could stand. Meanwhile, he started trying to get rid of the rock sized knots in my neck.

Finally, he took the plastic feeling stuff off my back and started a pummelling style massage. I remember mum doing that to me when I was sick as a kid. It felt much better today.

When he was done, I rolled onto my back and he gave me a great face and head massage. If you haven't had one of those, go get one. However, the next thing he did, I never expected anyone to do. As he put pressure with his thumbs on my forehead, between my eyes, he stuck his fingers in my ears and started moving them around. Seriously! OMG! All I could think was, "Man who'da thunk that! I just had a shower, I hope they're clean." I tell ya though, next week, I'll be making sure!

After all the heat and pressure, I was close to falling asleep by then and had my eyes closed, so I didn't see what he was doing next. I assumed just getting the needles ready. Instead, he put something under my neck that I think was something like a tens machine. I thought it was just a support at first, but when he turned it on, it sent a shock literally from my neck down to my feet. A very strange sensation! But a good one.

The needles hurt a little when he first put them in - mostly because he put them right at the points where my headache was worst. He also put one in my hand. That hurt like a bitch at first. I don't know why. Still, I could have slept if he'd left me there long enough.

He told me to expect to feel slightly worse at first and I did. I came home and slept for two hours.

I've made another appointment for Monday afternoon. $60 for a massage and acupuncture for just over an hour is a damn good deal. Not to mention I can claim it back on my insurance.

When I go back, I'm going to ask him about all the concotions he has under the reception desk. Nothing in his office is in English - including the notes he put on my file. I can just imagine the things it'll say by the time he's finished treating me. Something about giving me needles that'll stop me speaking, I'm sure.

What part of "No" do you not understand?

"Hi, my name is Stephen and I'm your allocated representative from [new phone company]. I'm just calling to see if we can help you in any way with your mobile phone?"

Ok, I was in my car on the way home from my second interview with a recruitment agency for the day, had a headache and was frankly done talking to people. My first thought was ok, I haven't paid my bill yet, he's gonna bug me about it and I am soooo over dealing with phone companies.

He wasn't calling about my bill. Sort of. He was calling to tell me I'd spent double the $$ plan I was on for the last two months. Yes, I know. It was an anomoly. This month I'm only $20 over, so I don't care.

Stephen (he sounded like the 'ph' type) suggested I start the $100 plan, instead of the $60 one so I could "bring (my) call costs right down". I told him I was in my car and not really interested in making that decision in.my.car.

"Oh, you don't have to do anything", he told me, "I can do it right now. I'll swap you over now and you will really notice the savings next month." I scratched my head. Paying $40 more?....which is $20 more than this month's bill will be?

I explained, in the most not-about-to-scream voice I could muster, that I had been arguing with and negotiating with both major phone companies every single week for the entire year, I'd just got things to a point where I was ok with them and I did not want to impulsively change my phone plan, sitting in my car.

He wasn't about to give up. In fact, he went on a different tangent. He tackled my home phone. He queried why I didn't have my landline and mobile on the one account - saving me all of $8.75 a month and giving me 50 free local calls. I rebutted with the fact that if I had been offered that when I signed up in the first place, I probably would have done that. "Oh, well I can do that for you now."

"Noooooooo!" Well, I wanted to scream it, but didn't. I was being so calm and nice. T would have been amazed. In these circumstances, I don't really do *nice*. I especially don't do nice when these two damn companies have combined to make my life a misery for the last 10 months.

Stephen, with a 'ph' and an apparent capital 'S' for stupid, then tried one more time to coerce me into changing my phone plan that second. "Ok, well how about we change you to the $100 plan now while you think about the rest?"

Maybe he needed to get the commission so he doesn't have to eat two minute noodles for the next week, but if you're gonna pester and harrass me to make an on the spot decision AFTER I've said I'm not going to make an on the spot decision, you'll just make me more determined to say no, whether it's a good deal, or not.

He's convinced I'm going to call him in the morning and tell him to go ahead and make the changes.

Stephen? Buy the oriental flavour noodles. The chicken ones are no good.

September 11

"No minute gone comes ever back again - take heed you nothing do in vain"

Time out

I hated the world and everything in it yesterday. More on why perhaps in a post tomorrow.

At 4pm I decided I needed to get away. Where? I had no idea. I just wanted to be away and be somewhere that had a spa bath. Within half an hour, I'd found a hotel in Lygon St. By 6pm, I was checking in.

A good book, bubble bath, room service and a king sized bed were exactly what I needed.

The price was exactly what my credit card did not need. Good thing I get paid this week.

It was worth it. At least while I was there, it was.

Being Aussie

80s music..... everyone likes it in secret, but not as many would admit it out loud, in public. At least not unless it is deemed cool to do so. A bit like the Steve Irwin phenomenom.

An article from The Age online.

Hunt continues for the elusive dinkum Aussie or is the notion just a crock?

NOT for the first time, the essence of the dinkum Aussie — even its existence — is being examined.

With this week's death of buoyant adventurer Steve Irwin, the nation is again reviewing its character.

The question we are asking is: when we looked at Irwin, what did we think we were seeing?

Did his version of knockabout blond Aussie sit easily with most, or did we sometimes wince and hope that the rest of the world did not think Irwin represented us?

Some of the people interviewed for this article said that 10 years ago, they were vaguely uncomfortable with Irwin's self-promotion, but they felt energised by his irrepressibility.

They also noted that, even if he was overtly "ocker", he spoke lovingly of his wife and children, and always maintained that his showmanship was designed to attract attention to wildlife conservation issues.

Now, with overwhelming anecdotal evidence that Irwin was the same "bloke" off-screen as on, some who were sceptical about his public persona are relieved, because they didn't want to find out he was not authentic.

There is a loose consensus about Irwin: he was not typical of us all. In some cases, he was the antithesis, perpetuating a mythology built around the resolute outdoor type.

But he did seem to personify much of the spirit that is usually thought to have its antecedents in the travails of the early explorers, the men and women on the goldfields, the testing of mettle at Gallipoli, the Country Women's Association — perhaps even Bodyline.

Historian Geoffrey Blainey says modern Australia has not entirely dismissed its outback heritage as no longer relevant, even though a character like Steve Irwin seems increasingly remote from the cosmopolitan nature of city life.

"When we talk about the quintessential Australian, we still largely think outside the cities, to our history on the land — we retain that memory of adventure," he says.

"I think we like to believe that as a nation we have certain characteristics that other nations do not."

Singer John Williamson agrees. He says the reason koalas, kangaroos and emus are popular motifs in our creative culture is because no one else has them.

To Williamson, Irwin was a living celebration of who we are.

"Off-camera, I found him a humble person, with a disarming innocence," he says.

Williamson says Irwin understood that indigenous Australians had a special relationship with the land long before settlement.

Barry Humphries, who, in his creations Barry McKenzie, Sir Les Patterson and Dame Edna Everage, has arguably spent more time than anyone exposing the kernel of the Australian character, told The Age he was "devastated by this tragic loss".

Federal Opposition Finance spokesman Lindsay Tanner, who grew up in the bush but lives in Melbourne, says Irwin was a kind of "modern Clancy of the Overflow".

That sort of figure, he says, exemplifies the difficulty of pinning down the nature of the Aussie character.

We like to identify with the robust bushman, the same way we find the Anzac spirit commendable.

"But there is also something mysterious and inaccessible about characters like Steve Irwin," Tanner says.

"That's why his death is so confronting," Tanner says.

"It's because the ultimate negative thing happened to a highly positive person."

Writer and broadcaster John Doyle says Irwin represented something of an Aussie continuum.

"It's a lineage you can trace back to Chips Rafferty, and he also inherited it from previous generations," Doyle says.

Doyle lives in Sydney but has long enjoyed immersing himself in the bush, when he can leave alter-ego Rampaging Roy Slaven at home.

A five-part documentary series he made with author and scientist Tim Flannery begins on the ABC on September 19.

In it, Doyle and Flannery travel along the Darling-Murray river system in the archetypal Australian tinnie.

Doyle says Irwin projected qualities that appealed to Australians.

"What people look for in characters like (Paul Hogan's Crocodile) Dundee and Steve Irwin is honesty," he says.

"They find it refreshing when all the bullshit is cut through."

Doyle thinks we want to retain whatever sense remains that Australians are straight-ahead, capable and no-nonsense.

"We're not as innocent as a nation as we once were, so we look back to the qualities that we understand to be representative of the Australian spirit.

"We like to think that, put on the spot, we could be straight as an arrow.

"That we could hold up an end and take a few bouncers to the body and the helmet so that the bloke at the other end could get his maiden Test century."

I think most Aussies are more "Aussie" than we'd like to admit we are. Maybe now it'll start to become more cool to be "Aussie" and we'll appreciate it more.

Zzzz boring ole me...

You Are Vanilla Ice Cream

Flexible. Easygoing. Classic.

What Flavor Ice Cream Are You?

Yes, I'm a total geek

...but not enough of a geek to completely understand JavaScript.

Serious question...

Does anyone know advanced JavaScript? I added some code to my dad's art website and it mostly works, but it's not 100%. Rather than putting watermarks on all the images, so they can't be copied, I figured I'd try an easy way first (no right click).

If someone can 'tweak' my current code, that'd be great. I'm open to other suggestions. Anyone totally geeky out there?

Hmmm...

This morning, my boss told me classes will start earlier next year, so I'll have to get to work earlier too. I'm taking that to mean I don't have to start getting here earlier (read: on time) till then.

He just handed me a stress ball. I've been absent mindely playing with it at my desk for the last 5 minutes....bouncing it while I read message boards.

I wonder how long it'll be till he wishes he didn't give it to me. That bouncy noise can get annoying pretty quick, methinks.

RIP Steve Irwin

Another example of us not knowing (appreciating) what (or who) we have till it's gone.

From The Age online.