Suits you, sir.

We've been busy little worker bees.

On Thursday we drove to Bunbury to shop for work clothes and work shoes. We bought two suits; a light gray one and a creamy-honey coloured one. The gray one is a trouser suit and the creamy-honey one has a skirt.

They're both nice. I have a creamy-honey shirt that looks good with the gray suit, and a gray shirt that looks okay with the creamy-honey shirt, and I bought another shirt in a creamy honey and gray theme as well. I also have a red polo neck shirt (that I'm less confident about) and a few other shirts that might be okay with one or both of the suits. I bought red shoes (with a creamy-honey zigzag stitch squiggle on them and a creamy-honey coloured buckle) and black shoes. I think all in all I have at least six totally okay outfits there and several other combinations are possibilities. I was aiming for a gentle and sensible look.
A look that says;
"She won't burn your building down."

After that we drove to Perth and stayed overnight in a 'backpacker resort' quite close to town after hours of driving around the outer suburbs looking for a motel. The backpacker place was fine, if a little over-chlorinated, and we weren't too choosey by that stage. In the morning Gray bought a computer and we drove home again. He wants to figure out Linux. Apparently. Seems it's been niggling at him.

So, that should keep him quiet for a while.

Zaphod's Other Head.

I found out that Andrea Dworkin died recently the way I find out about most newsworthy events - I read about it at Zaphod's Other Head, a little mailing list I love, for multiples. So, in honour of Ms. Dworkin I decided to read "Mercy", her novel about a woman called Andrea. I finished the book, and there was some lyrical beauty in it (the repetition of "My name is..down the road from where Walt Whitman lived") but after the first few chapters I was just so frustrated with the heroine that I found myself lacking sympathy for her in her terrible ordeals.

For god's sake, get a great big dog and move to the country, lassie.

(If you'd like the real name of the list, and you believe in multiples clap your hands!, no, I mean, write to me and I'll tell you.)

Your silliness is noted.

We watched Doctor Who on Saturday night.
It was wonderful.
I'm really enjoying the old stuff too, especially the cute little doggie.
I want that dog.
Toffer, will you buy me that dog please?
They will make him one day.

Me and my Rock&Roll bitches.

Lilly and I were in the library after our SheOak band practice.

Librarian: So how was it?
Lilly: Crap.
Me: Awful.
Lilly: Those BITCHES.
Me: I don't know how I can work with them.

It's sounding good, anyway.
Did I tell you that we played our first gig a week ago?

It was the season of long sleeves.

I know it's boring to talk about technical problems in blogs, but my posts don't show up promptly. My most recent post is here, in the May archive, but it's not up at the front page yet. I find that mildly annoying.

Happy Birthday, Sis. Have a wonderful day!

I don't want to end up bitching and moaning about work too much either.
As my buddy working on Project Porkpie knows, it's just not okay to talk about some things that happen at work because they involve other people and pesky little things like confidentiality clauses. Suffice to say that in the ten years I've been away from the world of office politics, not much has changed.

It's amazing how familiar everybody is.
Sometimes I think there are only a hundred people in the whole world.

What has changed in the last ten years is polly politics.
We're much better at communicating with each other and we're kinder to each other.
I'm happy that we're doing this incredible (for us) thing.

The main people actually working, actually going to work and talking to people and managing the volunteers and files and meetings and all that, are a group of people who could not even speak clearly a few years ago and suffered from hearing problems (some still do, but it's they have strategies for dealing with that, and it's much better than it was) and facial paralysis. The Spasamatastics and The Spazmos, as they were, but they go by their collective name "dungeon" these days now that the two gangs are no longer at war.

We feel (Castle) that our decision that we may have to get sicker in order to get well is validated by recent events. When the Spazmos and the Spasamatastics first started coming into the body, it was profoundly humiliating for those of us foolish enough to have clung to notions of independance and ownership of the body. It is an extrordinary experience to allow "your" body to be occupied by people who aren't actually at home in it. Just because I'm multiple (well, actually "I" am Thea) doesn't mean that I don't feel it as an invasion. We went through this process in the early nineties with Calypso, and we had a great therapist to help us to do that, but Calypso is cute. She is kind. She had some problems with her eyesight and she's not the brightest crayon in the box but she is sweet, easy to please, and keen to please. (Not in the least homicidal either, which is always a plus.)

There was nothing cute about the Spazmos or the Spasamatastics, even after they declared their truce and stopped actively trying to conduct warfare using our body against our body in the shared delusion that the body was the other side and if only the body would DIE then victory will be ours! Even after they stopped trying to hurt us, they often hurt us by accident. It was the season of long sleeves for such a long time. And there were so many of them.
It was really tempting to keep them locked up in their dungeon.
But here they are, hard working little dungeonites, and I'm so proud of them.
Thea

It's all carrot, no stick.

Working with volunteers is all carrot, no stick.
And I'm really missing that stick.

(Other than that, and dentistry, it's been a great first week at work.)

Do not feed the Mannie.

Mannie, of course, is the crazy bitch who agreed to dentistry tomorrow.

Mannie is a lot older than most of us.
She was 40 years old when we were 16. She arrived in our life rather suddenly. Popped in, she did, our Mary Anne, just as if we'd written out a little list of desirable qualities and summoned her through flame and smoke. Maybe we did just that, but I don't remember writing "unhealthy fascination with casserole carriers".

If you've been to a country fair any time in the last fifty years, you may have seen a item for sale called a "casserole carrier". This is a ludicrously ugly object. It's truly remarkable in it's ugliness. I have seen some so ugly that I have wondered, on occasion, glancing sideways at their maker;
"Is she taking the PISS?"
The casserole carrier tends to keep company with lace edged oven gloves and plastic bag stuff sacks made with farmyard animal prints.

Mannie really wants a casserole carrier.
She thinks they're great. They are just sooooooo handy!
They're just what you need for...carrying casseroles.

In an absent minded moment...

I answered the phone.
Dammit!
Now I have a job.

"Mananher, she, Mananher." says my inner Manuel.

Cracker (with tasty trivia): When Fawlty Towers was broadcast in Spain, the nationality of the character of Manuel was changed from Spanish to Italian.

So, how did the interview go?

We wore a black dress with a fine white line floral design over top of a long black slip. Black socks. Silver and rose quartz necklace. Nut brown mary-janes. Cherry red scarf in my hair.

I think we looked good.

Gray wore a gorgeous yellow shirt and his suit, and he looked alarmingly confident.

It was hard for us (polly) to remember that an interview is like an audition and that the questions are really just openings. I think we took the questions a little too seriously. We missed a few opportunities to direct attention to our strengths. That said, we'll do much better next time, and we're just waiting to see if we or Gray get any offers.

Gray is reluctant. He doesn't really want this job. He's been online looking at scholarships. He's been talking about moving to Canberra. Or New Zealand. Or Hobart. Or Perth. He's been looking into computer courses. He's been asking me complicated questions that make me want to squirm. I've been squirming. We've both been avoiding being home to answer the phone in case we might have to make some kind of decision.

How to fake a seizure.

I got an interview for the Manager job. Tuesday at 4.30pm. Gray also got an interview for the Manager job, just after me, so I'd say ... 4.35pm. Five minutes should be ample time for me to smile and nod and fake a seizure when they reach the "financial management skills" section.

It was small-town awkward at the Art Exhibition at Stormy Point yesterday when Gray and I had to socialise with the people who will be interviewing us tomorrow. Nervous and smiling too much, I found polite questions such as whether I enjoyed the passionfruit cheesecake (I did) rather confusing. I suspect my effusive replies to these innocent questions might have been a little confusing too.

Sod it. I don't think I even want this job. I'd rather Gray have it. I read the duties list for the first time a few minutes after I found out that I have an interview and I can only do half of them. I have no financial management skills at all. While I didn't actually make stuff up when I was addressing these selection criteria I did rely heavily on every possible opportunity for ambiguity. I have spent more time prettying up my financial management skills than I have ever spent doing any actual financial management.

Just between you and me, the problem is that I find financial management so excruciatingly dull that I'll do practically anything to avoid even talking about ...it. I have so little experience with financial management that I still call it an "it". I have avoided it so well that I don't know what it is that I've been avoiding. I'll do anything, including fake a seizure.

Which of you crazy bitches did this to me?

Modern dentistry could learn a lot if it only had time to read the bottom of emails.

"You only need two things for repairs - WD-40 and duct tape.
If it should move and doesn't, WD-40.
If it shouldn't move and does, duct tape."

Gray has booked me in for some dentistry, allegedly with 'my' consent.

A nice lie down.

I just finished my job application, resume and a cover letter.
My god. What an effort.
I think I shall go home and have a nice lie down for at least a few years.

Last night I had the strangest dream.

I was in a giant theme park which was cold and white and strange and full of water. Visitors to the theme park were mostly Japanese people and my sense was that I was the stranger - that the theme park was in Japan. Everybody, including me, wore matching swimming costumes and special waterproof slippers. We were playing in artificially created surf. I looked up to see a dam wall stretching high into the sky and as I was watching it burst over the edge and came pouring down, drowning a very beautiful boy. I tried to save him but he sank before I could reach him. I tried to tell other people about the drowning boy but they all thought I was crazy.

Dear liza,

There's a hole in my resume about 8 years wide.


Now, if I had a bunch of children, that might explain it.
Hmmmmmmmmm.
I think I'd best stick to tarting up my voluntary work.