The one with the "Like"

More effort must be made to lie to people about my employ - they must be told that I spend my day arranging corporate travel - something about buying clothes makes people want to tell me about their cysts and/or precancerous lesions when I tell them I'm in cancer care.

To her credit though, she was a very good sales person, and could really pick the stuff I was more likely to wear, when I'd been through the shop and decided nothing suited. A number of things need mentioning here:

• Change Rooms - I understand that curtains are cool, personally I prefer a good door, but I will change quickly behind a curtain. Change rooms however should perhaps not be visible by those people on the stairs, or through the crack in the curtain to the changeroom they are using as a store room, with someone working in. On a side note, even if you're not intending to try on clothes, for goodness sake wear underwear you don't mind being seen in!
  
  
• Don't like pretend everything I say is like the funniest thing you've ever heard. - As I said before, the sales girl was very good, found a lot of clothes that took my fancy. One of her colleagues also took my fancy, her *other* colleague was taken by me. When I went back to pick up my freshly altered trousers he was overenthused to hear about my lunch, and used the word "like" frequently. Now, the use of "like" doesn't bother me that much and normally I would not have noticed.... had I not just read an article detailing how it came into daily usage. And for the record, if you don't know what a BLT is - it isn't likely you're someone I want to get to know.
  
  
• Life is funny, I think had BLT-unaware not been around - his colleague and I would have had a lot more interaction
  
  
• I have two jeans, one dressy jean, one functional jean. Turns out I'm seriously under-jeaned. One sales staff couldn't get by without his 15 jeans, the girl has over 30 and can't imagine life with any less. We can add that to the list of things I'm "Undered"
  

Pivotal Moments

Head demons are enjoying 2007 and my own are refusing to be silent. Foolishly I went back and read a couple of journal articles that I know better than to read and have made me shed more than a few tears. Combined with guilt over not calling my ex my thoughts strayed to how and when we grew apart. One of the defining moments was during 2004 - life had been good, busy and I was battling a dark space in my head - and I found a lump. My entire mind went into overdrive about re-entering chemotherapy and planning on how to combine my life, my work and my treatment. The lump turned out to be nothing, in fact given a couple more weeks it resolved itself completely even though it had apparently been noticed a few months prior - being a practical kind of person I was planning the practical side of treatment, the transportation and the post-chemo care. It was during this time that I had to do some serious evaluation of my partner and rightly or wrongly, I decided that he wasn't someone I could rely on for such an occasion. I feel that from then on I started to retreat from him. I did love him, I still love him. I'm not sure we're right for each other, the growing apart has been done. I'm not sure there is any way to tell him this, or indeed if I even should.

Ce Soir

Earlier this evening the indecision in my life was whether or not to go out for pizza, this was quickly resolved by looking in my wallet - a lack of cash would have required going for cash, then for pizza and clearly a two stage process was beyond me. Problem solved, eat something else.

Now I find myself with a dilema over what to do with trousers and jeans. I can hang them in my wardrobe, but due to limitations in space they need to be folded back over the hanger, or I can fold them and put them on a shelf. I solicited advice from three friends.. "Hang or fold?" Two responses back so far, 1 for hang, 1 for fold (or if I hang, don't fold.)

I wonder what fresh hell Kofi Annan is facing right now?

Rules - a Refresher

A number of weeks ago, and try as I might I can't remember how many weeks ago it was, I had a phone call from the friend of my ex. During the conversation this person asked me how my social life was progressing and I mentioned that I was meeting a few locals around and about and they seemed friendly enough, reminded him that these things take time but wasn't quite prepared for the next question - "No, I mean how is your social life?" The only interpretation was that he wanted to know if I'd shagged anyone since the split - quite frankly - that's not a question he should be asking, and you can all put that down in your book of rules. Thanks

Flirting

The topic of flirting came up recently with someone online. For him, flirting is exclusively reserved for those he wants to have "relations" with - I take the broader definition of the word. Flirting is fantastic, amazing, the sole of exsistence, but for me it isn't about getting the person into bed, in fact, when that's my goal I'll tend to be much more direct about it - "fancy a shag?"

I flirt with women constantly, mostly to amuse myself (a common theme in the "why I do things" list), but sometimes to get things I want. An example is, say, my flight is delayed, and I want to see if I can either get on an earlier flight or get something out of it to my advantage, whoever is behind the counter I'll flirt with, I'll stroke their ego, I'll make them feel like they're completely appreciated in their efforts. Now a hardened professional will spot it a mile off - but in this day and age, most people are most likely to try the "explosive response" of yelling and being the squeaky wheel.

My flirting with heterosexual men is much more subtle, it tends to be those who I am subordinate to, where I'll put an idea in their minds and make them think it's their idea. It should be noted, this doesn't get me anywhere at work, but it does amuse me.

Go out and flirt people, make your neighbour feel good.

Tattoos and Projects

Does everyone in the world have a tattoo apart from me? I look around and I find it more and more difficult to find someone without a tattoo somewhere, are we becoming more and more tribal in this global village?

On an unrelated note, I think I'm happiest when I have a friend in need that I can be around to support.

Number 53 - One Moment, Please, Recalculating

At a recent session with the personal trainer I have a more accurate idea of my body weight.. assuming my height hasn't changed (fairly safe bet there)my BMI is now 25.7 putting me further into the "overweight" range. Sounds fun.

Number 84 - Extra serving of Baba Ganoush.

As I mentioned in the 100 things about me I have quite a penchant for saying "Baba Ganoush." That I'll say it three times but very rarely order the item. Since moving to Melbourne I've discovered something that is just as much fun to say as baba ganoush - it's a suburb, the suburb of Maribynong.

Most of the furnishings in my flat came from Maribynong, each weekend Miss Cathy and I would make a trek from her place to Maribynong using the word as gratuitiously as possible.

Maribynong is the home of the lovely Ryan who sold me my coffee machine, beast - while having the most amazing eyes known to Highpoint, and is very close to Moonee Ponds. For those who haven't been paying attention, Moonee Ponds is the place for Dame Edna Everage Possums with Baba ganoush anyone?

Number 30.

I had an interesting experience last week that I had forgotten until tonight. it deals with number 30 on my list of 100 things. Whatever you are saying to me, is most likely reminding me of a television show or a movie. There used to be a TV show called Dream On, where Martin Tupper had grown up watching so much television that every five seconds (not really five seconds) you'd cut to a clip of a TV show he was supposed to have seen.

I was telling co-worker (I'm yet to anonymise co-workers) that I was becoming this character, that everything she said and did reminded me of a movie or a television show. Her response? "No, I don't think so." What The? No really, it's my head, I know what's going on - I'm not kidding when I tell you I can see a gorilla on a plane doing sign language - bonus points for picking that movie - the link comes at a later date.

Until then, this Martin Tupper wishes you a good night.

So much to tell.. where do I start

I'm in the middle of my week off work, this week I was supposed to be in Philly at a conference, long story, I'm obviously not there, I'm in Melbourne.

Pub Trivia last night, really quite a night, I get a buzz from meeting new people and finding new places. That's part of the reason I love my job and why I've gone well past the traditional burn out point - each day I get 40 people to play with, when one of them finishes treatment, somebody comes to replace them and the dance begins again. Last night at pub trivia was a bit of overload in that regard - left my head whirling for a bit and then a sudden need for sleep.

Everytime I try and think about everything that's going on in my life at the moment I decide that I can't even begin to describe it - it would be this enormous stream of consciousness and terribly non-narrative. Suffice to say that life is good.