Some definitions

Irony; is skipping breakfast to blow-dry your hair just so, only to step out into a steady drizzle, with a five-minute walk to the nearest tram stop. And no umbrella.

Cold; is putting on two layers of sunscreen on a depressingly overcast day, in the faint hopes of keeping your cheeks from feeling squeezed right off the bones.

Resentment; is twenty e-mails on Friday, celebrating the very fact that it is Friday, when you are, in (another) fact, working on Saturday.

Incongruous; is being the only girl in a train carriage, standing almost on the midpoint, breathing in (trying not to) the sweetish beery breath-warmed air, surrounded by wife-beatered, be-football-scarfed-and-jumpered hordes of very large, very loud men, and re-reading (heart re-breaking) The Lord of the Rings.

Panic; is realising you are still, inexplicably, typing when you have less than five minutes to leave for work, and

Stopping.

Ode to follicles, and other bodily parts

I am, so tired that my hair literally hurts. A gusty gutsy wind, and the strands seemingly twist in their roots as I imagine rusted rods in ill-fitting holes would – the stinging suddenness of the cold does not help either.

I have been robbed of my autumn, and demand compensation – give me the sun, if only to look at; even sunlight is icy on a ten-degree morning. Chilled clarity, however, is as surprising as a newly-cleaned pair of glasses, long neglected.

As always, working days melt into each other in long, gooey strands of tedium, late nights of shivery waiting on train platforms, and a (shockingly) noticeable lack of any activity other than the fevered punching of a calculator. Some days, however, the figures are figured out, and everything simply flows; days like these fill me with an intolerable self-satisfaction, which, though, never lasts longer than the inevitable tallying of Hours Worked as opposed to Hours Budgeted For.

On less smugly satisfying days, I wish I’d done something eminently more useful to the world, or better yet, much, much more useless. I can dream, and so can you, but it takes a special kind of someone to do it for a living.

Not to mention a very, very large set of cajones – how apt, Fernando!

Lazy hazy daze of Easter

An e-mail I wrote to a friend recently should sum it all up quite nicely:

Last night I dreamt about synchronised travel, a red balloon (where everything else was in shades of gray and sepia), and laughing like I'd never cried before.

And you were there!

I suspect idlethink is giving me idle dreams, in great contrast to working life.

To put it in perspective, every other dream this week has been of numbers tumbling madly over, up, and under, falling off the pages into slithery heaps that slid between files and refused to, haha, stand up and be counted.

I am obviously, very tired.

How art thou?

But not this weekend, because this is the Easter weekend; last Thursday is long forgotten, Tuesday as yet inconceivable, and the Saturday I will be working is to be completely disregarded.

No, four-day weekends should be enjoyed, in the spirit of which Boyfriend and I have lazed away the day doing nothing, with the notable exception of the last half-hour spent squirming around on the floor trying to lick our own elbows.

I suspect I may come to regret the wasted time – I could have shopped! Or danced! Or done laundry! – but then again, probably not.

Happy Easter..:o)

Black scratchy daydreams, wound through with song

I wore an outfit to work today, though not so much outfit as “outfit”, not so much “power suit” as “costume”; black, near-opaque tights under a knee-length gray-black skirt, a gray scratchy-looking cardigan, and a sleeveless charcoal vest, all this and my most sensiblest of shoes (which is saying much indeed, given all my footwear are either flat and covered, or sandals, or the occasional boots to be worn only when no standing is required). Black, of course.

I tripped my way to work feeling like Maria from the Sound of Music, my awkward-lengthed fringe pinned just so that my shadow painted a deceptive wimple on the pavement’s sunny spots, momentary glimpses in which I revelled.

I could not keep stiller, or primmer, on the train; sitting with knees pushed together, hands clasped, and my slip-smooth carryall now carpet in my mind, my lunch bag a well-strummed guitar. I worked with an air of cheery earnestness, and literally felt my face glow; beatifically.

Raindrops on kittens and wild geese with mittens floated through scattered thoughts as I rushed to buy new shoes at Target ($20 – intoxicating frugality!), black (and sensible), with pleasantly sturdy heels, made for skittered limbs and deliciously no-nonsense clicks.

I type this, even now, in said “outfit”, reluctant to let go the dream; I’d burn a candle by me if I had one, and call it a taper; I’d scribble this on my favourite yellowed paper, $1 for a pad at uni. I’d turn off the Simpsons in the living room, and have my window open to catch a night-filled breeze; I’d be beautiful, and wouldn’t know it; I’d sing, sing my heart out and no one would hear me but sheep.

Daydreams are so much more pleasant in twilight, when the night isn’t late enough yet to remind you that there’s a tomorrow which is more crushing than my favourite redhead thinks.

Sounds of unsilence

We are an onomatopoeic people, my friends and I. Living in what sometimes seems like different worlds, with the Australians in the day, and my Malaysian friends in the night, only makes this more apparent.

My colleagues’ stories:

“I woke up last night, because I heard this really loud banging sound..”

“Her dress was pretty, wasn’t it? Slinky..”

“I swear, the dripping kept me up all night..”

And their night-weekend-counterparts:

“Last night, right, wah, there was this bhang bhang bhang on the door..”

“I really like that material mans..so shhhshhrhhrrhh when you walk..”

“WHOLE NIGHT LONG TUPTUPTUPTUPTUP I TELL YOU!!!!!”

It’s funny, and economical – who needs words when you can show people exactly what you mean?