2007-01-29 - 10:46 p.m.

So the last time I wrote I was about to head off to Meegs' party. The party proper was at the Roxbury in Glebe, but a fair portion of the crowd joined the migration to "Vegas" on Oxford St, then a smaller portion of us to Kinselas, and an even smaller portion (I think) to the Judgement Bar. Many thought I was nuts when I decided to stay at the Judgement Bar when everybody else (including the birthday girl) left, but I was meeting people for Yum Cha at 10am and I figured I'd rather stay up all night than try to drag myself out of bed after a couple of hours sleep. It was ridiculously hot when I found myself out in the harsh light of day at 9am, but I made it to Yum Cha before going home and crashing.

That night despite not having really caught up on sleep I went to BBQ Kings with Nathan for his birthday. A couple of his other friends were going to come but cancelled, so it ended up being just me and his family- further fuelling suspicions that he is my substitute girlfriend while Jo is in the States. After a decent sleep in the next day I went up to Newtown and saw "Babel" (also with Nathan)- which was good but not as good as it's being made out to be. The stories are very loosely held together, but then again it's not meant to be a "Pulp Fiction" or a "Go" where everything comes together, it's more a number of character and culture studies that happen to have a loose connection. As a movie and in terms of emotional impact it's not as good as "21 Grams" (by the same director).

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I worked mornings- on Wednesday I had a quick beer with Kellee after work before giving Steve a lift to the airport (he was spending an extended long weekend in Adelaide), and on Thursday I had Vietnamese and a few beers with Nathan, but otherwise my three mornings were unremarkable. I'm having trouble developing a strategy to manage some members of my team, and it's getting stressful, but I've vented ad nauseum to Nathan, Kellee and Jo and I don't feel the need to write any more about it here.

Friday was Australia Day- which as everybody knows is a chance for me to get all anally retentive about listening to the Hottest 100 (except last year, when I was at the Big Day Out and had to make do with checking the big screen every so often). And I must say that I wasn't disappointed this year. Actually, come to think of it- I was. No Dresden Dolls or Mountain Goats! None! I would have been happy with "Dirty Business" and "Alibi" sraping into the 80-100 slot. But I digress. An appropriate mix of the big hits (Eskimo Joe, Scissor Sisters, Gnarls Barkley, Lily Allen, Snow Patrol, Youth Group), Hip-Hop (mainly the Hilltop Hoods), Acoustica (Bob Evans, Josh Pyke) Triple J Darlings (The Grates, Little Birdy, John Butler, Arctic Monkeys) and the inevitable but not saturating Emo (My Chemical Romance, AFI etc). And probably the most unexpected #1 since the Whitlams in "One Crowded Hour" by Augie March.

Anyway, that night my Dad had a big party to celebrate 40 years to the day since he came to Australia from Singapore. Saw a lot of people I hadn't seen in the best part of a decade, and was in charge of the music (pretty much an alternate Hottest 100 spanning the last 40 years). Got to sleep close to 3am, and was at work by 10am the next day. Both Friday and Saurday should have been 3pm-midnight shifts, but Friday I had the day off, and Saturday I did a split shift so I could go to a work farewell just down the road from me. I ended up drinking with Kellee 'til the early hours of the morning (probably getting home close to 4am), which in hindsight felt a bit pointless and has got me thinking about having an alcohol free month to balance out all the impromptu nights out.

Sunday I slept all morning and worked in the afternoon, while today is the first of two days off- I'm working Wednesday to make up for one of the days I had off when Jo was here. Then I'm having next Saturday off to go to my cousin Maria's wedding and I'm making that one up later in February.

My car is driving me crazy at the moment- it's developed a problem where it stalls about 20 minutes into a trip, and starts jumping around like I was an L-plater, but do you think it would do it for the mechanic when I took it there today? I'm taking it back and leaving it there tomorrow morning, hoping that it will do it for him so he can diagnose the problem and hopefully fix it in two days. Stupid car. It's getting to the point where it's too expensive to maintain it, but it's too old to make it worth selling. And without a decent trade in value I'll be struggling to afford a new (well, used but you know) car. Plus seeing as I'm aiming to get over to the US, I have no plans to get a new car until either I get over there or (should I fail to get over there) Jo gets back over here and we once again we have two incomes for only one set f living expenses. Grrrr.

So yeah, that's life since the last time I wrote. The pressure of needing to get over to America but not having a lot of viable options is starting to get to me, and the fact that work over here is also getting stressful is making me wonder why I'm not more driven to get myself over there, plus the financial side of us being apart is getting to me as well. I feel like actually physically being apart is the easiest part to deal with, because I think both of us are 100% secure in that we'll wait for each other as long as it takes, and that if there was ever a possibility of the distance seriously affecting our relationship we'd always put our relationship first. But on the other hand, Jo is coping with us being apart in the knowledge that I'm trying to get over there and be with her, and I'm coping with it knowing that if I can't get over there then she'll come back for me. That's fine if I am trying my heart out and just can't get a job there- it's not fair for me to do any less because that would amount to asking Jo to choose between us living in the same country and her (current) job.

But then her expecting me to move over there for anything less than a sensible career move wouldn't be much different (in that right now her moving back here is not a sensible career move). And she doesn't (expect that of me). And I don't expect that of her. But in the meantime we're stuck on opposite sides of the world.

�

previous - next

�