Stuff and nonsense

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions unless you’re a smoker (in which you should be using whatever excuse you can to quit) because I never remember the initial resolutions or even take the process seriously. But here’s a list of resolutions I would make if I did subscribe to such pointless (for me) rituals.

In the new year I resolve to:

• Pack my own lunches (nutella sandwiches do not count)
• Not freak out in front of patients, particularly midway through delicate procedures eg. catheterisation, which I bloody well hope I never have to do
• Sleep
• Learn my cuts of meat!
• Find myself another muso to hero-worship. 2006 was the year of John Mayer and Darren Hanlon. I must add to the ridiculously short list of artists I listen to so I can impress friends with my extensive illegally copied and pirated CD collection
• Go out for artistic and culturally enriching outings, maybe with the exception of theatre plays, which the plebeian in me usually finds tedious and incomprehensible
• Find myself a laundry basket…instead of the floor
• Hate myself a bit less, or at least for shorter periods. Stop blaming myself for everything and anything
• Blog?

This is IT. 4 Wiggles in the Wiggle House. Bags not being yellow “orthostatic intolerent” Wiggle, or creepy red one. And I think we all know who’s resident Jeff. Whatever problems our personality clashes, past grievances, future out-of-sync timetables and differing opinions on hygiene shall throw out at me, I will swot them down like flies by…running back home to my parents. Call me for up-to-date goss on person/s most likely up for eviction!

Anyway, I am risking great social rejection with the post below. Who am I kidding, I can take your disdain. Yeah that’s right, all 3 of you.

I am of the opinion that op shops are great. Op shops are fun. Sure they emit that weird creepy smell you can’t quite place, and the clientele look as if they’re the ones doing the emitting. Sure I always have to keep looking over my shoulder in case someone should, god forbid, recognise me. Sure you have to stay the hell away from anything within a 20m radius of the “used underwear” pile. In fact…there are many negatives I could go on about.

But man, are they conscience-saving. I hate how easily disposable this society has become. Where a replacing the whole car door might be cheaper than repairing the dent. I hate the excess, the blatant commercialism. “Buy 3, pay for 2″ when you only want 1 of the item in question pisses me off. The Xmas pressure gets to me. What better way to reduce the junk by rescuing something that would sooner have been added to another landfill?

I like the fact that the minuscule amount I do pay goes towards employing people with disabilities. It’s nice to know that someone deserving is profiting from your purchases instead of fuelling the Westfield conglomerate.

I enjoy the treasure-hunt. When I go shopping I can barely differentiate between shop stock. Everyone copies everyone. For someone who hates most current season trends, particularly the more skimpy, glitzy and impractical they are, finding clothes that I’ll willingly try on is becoming a headache. It’s fun to pair together random bits of op shop rejects together and create something new, or uncover the (good) unexpected. If you doubt the veracity of that claim, I’ve found a silk designer dress in an op shop for the price of lunch.

Of course all of the above was merely a pitiful justification for how much of a cheapskate I’m willing to let myself become. Beware Wiggles – living with me will be like living in The Depression!

THE MOVE

And so the next chapter begins, if only but a natural and probable belated one. Or is it? I feel rushed yet delayed, decisive but pushed. I’ve got one hand in my pocket…and the other one making half of a “whatever” sign (although that might come off more like a “loser” gesture).

After all the stress, explanation to parents, scavenging for furniture which “fell off the back of a truck”, pretending to seriously consider the purchase of a >$4000 mattress, mediated messages, bumming off the favours and fortunes of ever-generous friends/family/family-extended, daily house viewings and more, I know in my heart that it’s in the bag. I will sit back, relax, point my finger and laugh, and everything will either run like clockwork or be an extravagant failure. Either way I’ve done enough worrying to last me the next half year – now shall be the time to collapse on my bulk rubbish collection couch +/- bedbugs and make merry with my 50RM liquor. O Malaysian duty free, how many ways do I love thee!

And with no further clarification as to the long absence of blog entries, I will continue. As action is the enemy of thought, so thought can hinder action. So that I have done. I’m sure such deficiencies in this method will soon make themselves known, if not already.

One of the strangest things happened to me this week. I tuned in to AM radio (this is odd in itself, but not freakishly so). I got to the Ashes commentary and…I understood. What was previously to my ears a jargon language of the fanatics turned into riveting drama. Squish Pardner and Moncheri have taught me well they have. You’d think they snuck a Babel fish in while I drifted off during a long over. I saw part of a documentary today where a deaf woman in her 40s got a cochlear implant. Obviously I’m being completely ludicrous in making such analogies but it sure is an exciting moment when peripheral noise starts to make sense. Maybe the same thing will happen to me whilst I do my stint on the Psychiatry ward, haha.