Because I am too lazy to write something new today, here is an excerpt from one of the old diaries that I uncovered recently whilst unpacking.

'The Tales of Full Time Employment', Part 1: Withams Coffee (Catastrophe Waitress),1999-2000.



This job can't really be classified as 'full time', as it was not strictly Monday to Friday. However, I usually worked there 5 days a week. Four days at the Wynyard store, and one day on the weekend at the Waverton cafe. I had started out at Waverton, but was shafted to Wynyard after abusing a regular customer because he called me 'darling'.

At Wynyard, we had a morning rush which lasted for about 1 1/2 hours, as the station was flooded with suited folks on their way to work. I like to think that myself and my colleague (and friend) Katie, with our outlandish pink hair, colourful clothing, pierced faces and loud soundtrack of punk, hardcore and/or electronica, provided an interesting diversion for them on their way to the office. This morning rush was a period of temporary insanity. Katie adn I would alternate making coffee and taking the orders. I soon became a coffee maching nazi and would guard the machine with fists of iron when it was my 'turn'. This became a sore point between Katie and myself, particularly as I was branching out into the Italian coffee-making method, while Katie adhered to the French method that we had been taught. Coffee wars ensued.

(I remember once setting fire to a tea towel during the morning rush. I left it too close to the grill, which we used to make raisin toast. A customer brought it to my attention. I turned, stared at the budding inferno for a moment, then walked over calmly and threw it in the sink).

The afternoon shift was a period of unbelievable loneliness and boredom. I spent it sitting at the counter, reading, writing, sending SMS messages to all my friends begging them to come and visit me. We would get about 20 customers between 11am, when the morning person would leave, and 5.30pm. And that was on a good day. The only bonus was the CD player and lack of supervision. I listened to a lot of Fugazi whilst mopping the floors and washing up.

I left Withams because the boredom was driving me insane. I didn't realise it at the time, but my colleagues all thought that I was stealing money out of the till while I was there by myself in the afternoon. This wounded me greatly, but I recovered eventually.

Written sometime in 2002.

By the way, does anyone actually read this blog? If so, please indulge my vanity and leave me a comment.

Last night was sleepless and icky. My mind churned with horrid thoughts, ugly images, trying its best to convince me that all is terrible, I've failed yet again, I will ruin anything good that comes into my life, I will eventually go mad. Midnight came and went and I was still awake, alone, despite the warm sleeping person lying next to me. Why is it that lying awake next to a fast-asleep person makes me feel so utterly lonely? They've managed to escape for a little while, sunken down into the world of dreams, gone elsewhere, while I'm still painfully present, wanting nothing more than to be unconscious for a little while. I climbed down from the skybed and made toast in the dark kitchen, ignoring the skittering cockroaches that scattered in all directions when I turned on the toaster. Turned on the TV, flicked through a book, lay on the couch and looked at the patterns on the ceiling. It was probably about 3am when I finally managed to drift off to sleep, holding onto Rob for dear life as usual. I'm a clingy sleeper. Dreams came and went, strange collages fuelled by insecurity and fear. When I tried to give voice to them the next morning, nothing made sense.

On the way to uni today I listened to Simon and Garfunkel, and was briefly transported back to my childhood, as I usually am whenever I hear their music. When Vanessa and I were kids, my father only had one tape in his car: a worn-out Simon & Garfunkel best-of, which provided the soundtrack to most of our trips in his red station wagon. My father always liked driving; sometimes while my mother was at work, we'd go for drives, aimless drives, just to see how far we could get. Always the same songs in the backgound, imprinting themselves in the minds of the two little girls sitting in the back seat. I can still remember all the words to most of their songs. At the end of The Boxer, the tape had become damaged, sending the pitches of the final chorus rolling and wavering. I can't listen to the song now without superimposing these pitch modifications.

My bus was side-swiped by a Woolworths truck outside the Annandale Hotel, knocking the mirror to the ground. This is the third time that this has happened to a bus I've been a passenger on.

It’s relatively warm this morning. Spring is on its way, it seems. My newly waxed legs feel strangely exposed, freed from stockings and jeans for the first time in months. My knees meet the air appreciatively. I’m walking to work, listening to The Tears, holding a giant cup of coffee, extra shot. I’m thinking about the fact that I only have $20 to last me for a week, yet consider a giant coffee to be an essential expense.

I had to buy a large, because the small cups at the café have been turned into advertising space. Not just for coffee companies, but for anyone with the dollars to buy it. (I don’t really have a problem with a coffee company logo being placed on a cup, although ideally coffee cups would just be blank cardboard, or printed with pictures of aeroplanes). Currently it’s the Commonwealth Bank. Buying a small cup of coffee, therefore, would turn me into a walking advertisement for home loans, credit cards, numerous financial products that I wish did not exist.

Things like this bother me greatly. They me want to just stay at home.

1. Ikea