2002-05-16

Its early in the morning, one of most customary times to check my email. I can sit and watch the Carrington morning start. I've noticed that it may well be sunny at 7am, but within an hour a thick fog will drift off the port. So, here I am now, its 8.15am and there is a thick fog over the island despite a spectacularly sunny start.

My work at TAFE has started up again, thank goodness. I'll be coding forms like a motherfucker for the next month or so. Its such a funny culture in there, though. This project is being co-managed (a problem for a start) by two folk with little technical knowledge. So these folk make key decisions based on what-I-don't-know. Since they use their knowledge base terribly (they have two tech ppl working on the project but we don't get much input), and their eyes glaze over whenever I start saying something a bit more advanced that Frontpage-drag-and-drop I have ceased giving them my thoughts. And besides, they ask me how to do stuff and if I tell them I lose work. Sometimes I feel like the info is being teased out of me so they can fuck me off altogether. Well, they certainly don't USE my knowledge. So now, I just nod and take the orders for a great rate of pay. Sigh...

Househunting is ordinary. I've not spotted any good stuff I can afford by myself. Today I meet a girl called Rachel to see if we wanna get a place together. My lovely Carro house is ultimately ghostly, with flatmates now contacting me by phone to talk, the feral pet cat getting feral-er (made my Deanna bleed the other day the fucking fuck) and the echo gettng louder and louder. The landlord never speaks to me know because the house is sold and they also feel guilty about fucking me around. The real estate agent have finished with me, so peace there. This is nearly as dead as the deadest house I ever lived in.

The deadest house I ever lived in was on Alice Street in Newtwon. I'd moved there with two male pals after living with the same nice household for 3 years, I think I wanted a change. So I moved into the front room with a nice boy called Ian and a recurring character in my life tale, Ttam the Ripper. Almost immediately it felt wrong. Ian had a new girlfriend so stayed there nearly all the time. Ttam was a chronic alcoholic, womaniser and rock pig (not playing in bands but doing sound) so I didn't see much of him either.

I started getting dispondant when the kitchen was never set up and all that the loungeroom contained was a biiig TV and stacks of videos - no furniture, stuff or humans. It became clear that no one was interested in setting up a household. I never saw my flatmates and felt like crap. Girls would ring up for Ttam, each thinking they were the only girl in his heart. After a while, I started telling them about the other girls cuz I was sick of them calling daily for a guy who wanted nothing to do with them. God knows what they saw in him, he stank of beer 24-7.

In addition, I was in a love affair that was so fucked up I can hardly imagine. Often, I'd sit alone in that house, going crazy cuz the boy I 'liked' and was 'seeing' was at his house with his 'other' 'girlfriend'. Yeh, what the fuck was I thinking, being knowingly screwed over. I was that chick, theone who knows she's being cheated on, but doesn't SEE it. Pathetic...so, anyhow, this period in my life was the beginning of my big sickness cuz I was being so royally fucked over by the boy and the flatmate who were supposed to be friends.

Though at this stage, I still thought Ttam was a friend.

So I'd be alone in this house all the time and I learnt how to play guitar with my nervous energy. My band Purr was happening at the time, though I played bass. It was in this period I started writing my own songs, music and all. Previously I'd only made up lyrics. The songs written here were morbid as fuck, though do include Purr hit "Train":

I had another trainwreck

She caught the train today

Just to get away

Really, really, really loves the train

She caught the train today

It was her first mistake

Really, really, really loves the train

I despise, I despise you (rpt over and over)

It was during summer that I lived in that house and all I remember is empty rooms and beige carpet, crying in my room and a crappy beige Christmas. I had stayed in Sydney for Christmas, rather than going home to Taree, being the crazy youngster not wanting to hang with the family but having a rad time with my pals. I'd imagined hanging with the boy I was 'seeing' and some pals, fun, y'know.

No. I remember spending the whole day alone almost and crying as I realised that even TV didn't give a fuck, playing Jesus dramas and church services. WHAT THE FUCK WOULD I DO FOR THE DAY??? The boy was hanging with the 'other' girl on Christmas day, punching me in the face by spending Xmas with her and her family. I'd fucking given all that up to hang with him. Pathetic, wasn't I? Cried all day. No flatmates in my big house, but all their stuff around me. Ghostly. Like this, now.

After awhile of this crap, maybe 2 months, I got a letter in the mail form the Sheriff's dept saying that in 3 days they were coming to remove me and my stuff from the premises. Having no idea where this was coming from, I called the agent who informed me we were thousands of dollars in arrears in rent. How could we be?? I'd been giving my rent money to Ttam to take to the....FUCK!!! For weeks and weeks, my good pal (we had been quite close in the past) had been taking my moeny and getting pissed. Not paying rent. I'd heard it told that he'd once offered his mobile phone over the bar at Sleepers at 4am in desperation to get a beer. Yep, that desperate, like a beer junky.

And in a further stroke of evil-genius, Ttam had been able to keep all the real estate threats away from me. Usually one would receive several warning letters about arrears and eviction, but the first I saw was a Sherrif's notcie. Ttam had been intercepting all evidence so I wouldn't find out he'd been stealigng all our money. A fucking mastermind there.

So yeh, one of my best pals ripping me off, along with my 'boy''friend' hassles made me go quite mental. After being alone in this fucking house for two months surrounded by the ghosts of the people I moved in with and then finding that I had to move I wigged out.

I was summonsed to the Rental Tribunal. Ttam did not appear, so along with my perfect demeanour this made my case much stronger (that I had been ripped off unknowingly). The judge gave me decent time to pay back all the money (thousands) and did not record a mark against my name, since it was obvious I'd simply trusted the wrong person.

I feel similarlly abandoned now...

PS: After that house, I moved into the house the 'boy''friend' was living in so I could see first hand how much I was being fucked over. True!