I have a specific reaction to stress: itchy knuckles.

Contrary to the suppositions of people I used to know, this does not mean I need to hit something and that I have a lot of repressed anger (‘The teachers on Minbar said I had a lot of repressed anger.’/'And now?’/'It’s not repressed any more.’).

What it means is that I’m stressed. And this means I break-out in little milimeter wide lumps which, like mosquito bites, are itchy and need to be scratched, which results in cracked and incredibly dry skin.

The solution is that I need to work-out how I’ve gotten so stressed.

Exhibit A

Oh, the work I did last week. What a complete disaster.

Contrary to already established intent, I did not have Monday as a writing day, work 3 days, and have Friday as a writing day. No, what happened was that I got stressed about a job I had to do on Tuesday and did some of it on Monday. This irritated me no end, but I still did it. Then on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and — dammit — Friday, I worked. I worked Friday because I had a client meeting presenting a website and copywriting I’d done.

But, I thought, I’ll take most of the next week off.

I was supposed to write on Monday this week, but didn’t. Why? Because I thought that having four days straight of writing would be better than one day, then a work day, then 3 days.

I was wrong.

This week is proof that I have slipped back into work stress. And it’s really showing.

Exhibit B

My lovely housemate “C” has moved out. This meant much of last week, and all weekend was really taken up with moving which, as wiser people than I have pointed-out, is one of the most stressful activities a person can do to themselves. This, presumably, is why god invented moving companies who do it all for you.

My lovely new housemate, “E” is in now, and we’ve added a few pieces of furniture to her room. She’s really great, but as I say, the moving experience of others has probably rubbed off onto me, resulting in itchy knuckles.

Exhibit C

For reasons I have yet to ascertain, I am storing and holding my body up with my shoulders again. This is, frankly, a near impossible feat, but still I do it.

Ultimately, I have slipped back into old habits. It could be because I relate to the desk in my room, set-up pretty ergonomically, as a “workplace” rather than a “computer place”. This being the case, I write on the computer in awkward positions, on the lovely little table in my room — designed for eating off, not typing on — and the table in the back yard, similarly designed. I also have — until recently (when I realised I was going through $20 a day in cakes and pots of tea) been using the tables in nearby cafes to write the splendorous stories to which many have become enthralled on the daisydonnie site. Again, the height of the tables — designed for the consumption of foody goodness, is not ideal for typing out prose of any nature, unless you’re taller than I. So my shoulders unconsciously (well, they’re not conscious of course) rise so I don’t get RSI of the wrist.

Of course the rising of the shoulders means the stress of the rising is stored in said shoulders and thus I become stressed.

And my back hurts.

Solutions

Well, as exhibit A proves, I should bloody well stick to what I said I was going to do (and really enjoyed) and do Monday and Friday for writing, and tuesday to thursday for work.

End of story. No negotiation. No exceptions. Just Bloody Do This!

Exhibit B will sort itself out. The lovely “C” has gone to her new home, and I really hope she loves it there. The wonderful “E” is here, and we’re getting along really well. This is good. No more stress there.

Exhibit C is rather simple: I just need to build a bloody bridge and get the fuck over it.

See how writing sorts my problems out!

Often when I’m awake late at night, I reach for the pen and paper and write a stream of consciousness that usually – if not always – resolves the issue very neatly. I work-out what’s wrong just by getting it out of my head.

I’m awake, but it’s only 7.45pm. I’m writing because I’m very sad that my lovely housemate has gone off to a fabulous new place of her own.

I’m not sad because she’s found a fab new place. I’m sad because I won’t see her anymore, and I’d gotten used to her being around.

Does this make me co-dependent? Does it make me someone who lives vicariously through others.

Does it explain why I’ve been alone for so long – housemates, friends, whathaveyou become — what’s that word that means stand-in? Dunno, and I’m not in the mood to go looking — the proxy (?) for that close relationship.

I get a relationship, but no sex and no touching.

(I’m down, so anything I say may not be taken in evidence and used later. Please.)

So what does that say about me? That I don’t want someone close? I never seem to be interested in anything personal or intimate (but consistently say I won’t object if someone else takes the first step, makes the first move).

I consistently say that I’m fine on my own. It doesn’t even occur to me to “be” with anyone, to “seek” that special someone who we’re all meant to meet, the perfect match (that faux-robot was called dexter wasn’t it? Imagine if it were a secret serial killer, meting out justice according to the “code-of-harry”?); In fact I think (or say I think) that seeking deliberately will gain only pain.

Or am I avoiding pain?

If I’m this upset about a housemate leaving — someone who I shared a house with to be sure, but not anything intimate (does washing liquid and the occasional meal count as “intimate”? No.) — then how would I be about a partner who I was intimate with, who I did say I love, and they reciprocated?

These are the rambling musings of an upset person, so do go and get a coffee if it’s getting too much.

Is that passive-aggression? Or merely “poor me” (which is likely the same). I’m actually trying to inject a little humor.

Moving on.

The last relationship I had was about 5 years ago. M was good, but the touchy-feely was so very disappointing. Then there was the fact he was running a business with other people’s money and running someone elses business (long, complicated story which can be summed-up by saying “loyalty is good thing. And helping a friend is a good thing. But if you’re dealing with lots of other peoples money and have so little time to run your own business, don’t take on the running of your friends business at the same time. That didn’t end up being short at all did it?) and as a result he was very very stressed all the time.

On top of that he had family issues much like my old ones – dominationg, controlling father, etc. It ended pretty quickly, despite (or perhaps because — who knows) me doing a lot of hard work to try to help, to try to be there for him to relax away from work, to be an easy-going gf.

His parting words: “You don’t hate me do you?”
My response: “No” (thinking I was really disappointed). The evening concluded with a lot of chocolate and a movie. I think it was Breakfast at Tiffany’s (and perhaps that’s what I should do tonight)

What was I going on about?

*sigh*

Do I “need” someone? Or do I “need” to be around someone? God knows I do nothing but hibernate. I work on my own, I write on my own (is there any other way?) I live with one other person (new one tomorrow).

Do I just attach myself to the nearest person?

It’s looking increasingly like I do. It’s something I’ve been aware of, but… god does that make me one of those people who suck the energy out of others like a frigging vampire?

Holy crap, I hope not.

…

No, that’s taking an idea and looking to that extreme end of the bell curve for the worst possible thing. Slow down Lisa, calm… it’s okay…

So. where to from here?

I have identified that I become attached to nice people. Who doesn’t? And when they leave, I get upset. Natural? Possibly. I don’t like goodbyes. So do lots of other people.

Maybe there’s nothing wrong and I’m just allowed to be upset?

I just watched Vampire Hunter D again — an anime with a real set of vampires. You know the ones, don’t like sunlight, suck the blood, hunted, pale skin and definitely don’t like sunlight.

The burning in UV kind of Vampires I’m talking about, not these sparkly tossers that someone has used as a warning against sex.

It occurred to me that there are quite a few cures for this monstrous approach to our pointy-toothed friends of the underworld.

For a start is the aforementioned Vampire Hunter D — a quite interesting story with NO spidermonkeys:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKYye2m19pU&hl=en&fs=1&]

Interview with the Vampire, the movie of Anne Rice’s novel is next on the list.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEY6taM15iE&hl=en&fs=1&]

Then there’s the modern take on Vampires — or at least the late 20th century take with Ultraviolet:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Joss Whedon’s long running series (and this video does to Eduardo what we’ve all wanted to do!)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM&hl=en&fs=1&]

And, of course, Angel.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ny_Om6GtaQ&hl=en&fs=1&]

I’ve yet to see TrueBlood, but I’m told it’s good.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxINMuOgAu8&hl=en&fs=1&]

Bottom-line though, there’s plenty to cancel out the horror of Twilight and its soon to be rushed into a cinema near you abomination… god, I don’t even know the name of the next one. And I don’t care either.

Over the last few years, there’s been more and more reporting of news in “present tense”

Try this one for example, a report on the winds that whipped through Melbourne today.

What irritates me about this is they mix tenses in the same report.

The winds and damage was present tense, yet the SES received — past tense — lots of calls.

You might call me a pedant for pointing this out (hey, I’ve been called worse — although the funniest title, Word Nazi, was one I chose myself when working on Goth Nation magazine, back in the day), but frankly, I’d say they should make up their bloody minds. Present tense, past tense; pick one and stick with it, don’t mix them up because all it does is strongly suggest you’re a lazy git.

Melbourne’s public transport, under a Labour government, has been on the slide for a great many years. Odd, really, as you’d expect them to embrace and enhance it.

The previous government — under Jeff Kennett — sold the running of the system off to private companies. Years earlier, the tram conductors had been removed also, in favour of nazi-like ticket inspectors, the kind of situation that can only breed contempt.

The paper ticket system, while somewhat wasteful of paper resources (why I wonder didn’t they put boxes on stations or stops to collect people’s used tickets?) has seemed to work for a good 20 years. But with the steady jack-booted march of technology, this is now being supplanted by electronic smart cards, like in London.

But not like in London…

The Oyster card system, while a little invasive as far as personal details are concerned, was easy to use and cheap. You got a card straight from the rail station you happened to be at, and off you went. Open the barriers at a station, you put your card on the oyster-shaped (all-right, round) lumps of plastic on the barriers, the barrier went up and your account was debited by a small amount of money. The only query I have is why it wasn’t rolled-out across the country. But c’est la vie.

Transport Minister Lynne Kosky (and presumably her predecessor) has ordered a now astonishingly costly reinvention of the wheel with the Myki system, originally intended to cost 300 million dollars, but which ended up at 1.4 billion (that’s an excess of $1,100,000,000, which as many have put, could have been spent better on adding new rolling stock — trams and trains — to the overstretched system).

And to add insult to injury, not only was the company that developed the system given additional cash rather than being fined,  and people using the card overcharged, AND the system is designed so you are forced to touch the reader when you go on BUT ALSO AS YOU GET OFF (which is, frankly, proof-positive that the people who developed it, and those overseeing have never been on a crowded tram, train or bus — and why didn’t they set this up like the barriers that have been sitting on the exits of shops for absolutely years now — you walk through with a tagged item and it goes nuts. Similarly, if they did this on Public Transport, there wouldn’t be the need to physically touch the reader on the way out; Morons), but now, surprise, surprise, we’re going to have to pay $10 to get one of the stupid things!

This is roughly equivalent to being mugged, beaten up, and then left an invoice for the service performed.

Can anyone explain to me how these kinds of — I’ll be blunt — fuck-ups can be allowed to occur? We’re not a third-world country that we hear so much about in newspapers, where idiotic decision after idiotic decision is made by government ministers with more interest in lining their own pockets than doing their jobs.

Are we??

But to the issue of public transport, I say this: The debacle with this ticketing system, the excessive cost placed in an electronic monstrosity (which I expect will be hacked relatively quickly) versus almost zero investment in infrastructure and trains, trams and buses that actually carry people will only force people back into cars. And in the world in which we live, this is as counterproductive as cutting down all the forests to chuck into powerstations.

Rupert Murdoch wants us to pay for content…

The interwebs are all about free content. It’s what the whole ecosystem is based on.

And Murdoch papers aren’t exactly devoid of advertising are they?

Same as everyone else (banks anyone?), Rupert Murdoch wants a second bite of the cake. But all that will occur is people will go elsewhere for their news.

Which is what many do anyway — I look at the Melbourne Age, The Guardian and The Times. And I research things through google. It’s a good way to confirm if something that’s reported is real, rather than concocted.

The same as the recording industry, the old-school of business doesn’t get the web, and the concept of free content, which encourages the purchase of their products.

And their attempts to enforce their outdated selling models is just the thrashing of dinosaurs slipping slowly into the tarpits.

Addendum:

Seems I’m not alone in thinking Rupe has slipped into early mental retirement. This comment is one of the funniest

Further news on this…

Murdoch to charge for online news

Rupert the internet rube

Read all about it: Outrage about camel cull in Australia

If only they thought before their mouths were opened. If only they’d researched the issue; that Camels are an introduced species, like feral cats, Cane toads and bloody rabbits.

If only they realised the damage to our flora and fauna that said introduced species wreak; that they’re competing for the food that native wildlife need, and therefore pushing animals that only exist in Australia to the wall.

And I wonder if they thought about the issue of predators and that introduced species have none. So an animal that is regularly killed by another bigger one would therefore be more likely to reproduce faster.

I wonder if they thought of that?

Morons.

PS. now read the backdown, with an appropriate excuse.