Ouch!

goddam it I'm bored

I hit this wall at about 3.30 everyday when I'm so bored I can't stand myself. Don't get me wrong I have loads of work to do. I just can't. I distract myself several ways. I look at other people's Illustration Friday entries. I email Bruno and tell him I'm bored. I email David and Arron and see if they are alive. I make tea. Sometimes I go and stare at the carpark.

In comparison, in the morning life is SO great. When I wake up I think about the morning work and it makes me get out of bed. I have a coffee, I put on headphones, and I design/code away like a happy chappy. I think that I have to face it - I love that caffine and sugar rush. Sweet magic caffine. The whole day's work is kind of like roaring along a highway in a firetruck only to find myself after a while on a farm road riding a donkey. The momentum just goes.

I can always think about the weekend. This weekend as I was curled in the car with Bruno, one foot on the air vent on the dash board, I realised that one of the good things about going on long driving trips is that you get to spend time with someone. Usually in a relationship you just don't 'hang out' and do pretty much nothing with someone for hours. Sleeping doesn't count. The conversation becomes idle, playful, creative, imaginative, mundane and then far reaching in a lazy loop. I think the best realisation that we both came to this weekend is that travel - even short trips - makes you realise that you can do anything, and that growing and evolving is possible. You think you could become a better person. It's an amazing feeling. The hard work is actually making those dreams come true.

Mogo this weekend was inspiring. I get so happy down there that I want everyone I know to share in the happiness - I want to drag them all down there. Interesting reflection of happiness when to be happy means that you want everyone to share a piece of the heaven you have found. We found a beautiful piece of heaven in Mogo. We rented a beautiful house, with a huge deep verander, and a colourful hammock. We went swimming at Broulee, drying off in the hot sun to get rid of the water. I introduced Bruno to portable oil repositories - potato cakes at the fish shop. A billion stars, good food, good friends, pelicans, spectacular sunsets, it was a good weekend. The kind of weekend you come back from and you feel like you've been away.

Here's a map for you Euro bastards, who may not know where Australia is, let alone Mogo.

Now back to not concentrating.

Predicting the stock market in class

Today we  I sat next to a fiery red head, Christina, who wants to be a singing and drama teacher. She is a total bundle of energy, even if that energy is going all over the place. Anyway, Christina claimed that she was psychic and could always feel which horse was going to win. I started laughing and said I could too, specially the Melbourne cup - and the funny thing was we both did it the same way, by holding our hands over the page. So we're laughing about that, and then this other guy, Peter, a complete accountant type all in grey, got all serious looking and asked us if we could pick anything else. So I laughed and told him I could pick dog races (I did once, so it must be true ;)) (Refrained from the old "I can pick my nose" line.)  I then realised I was being a bit of a devil and not telling the whole truth so I told him that I lost the last 5 Melbourne Cups, but I had had a streak of luck there for a while. (I didn't mention the other stuff because I'd sound like such a wanker.) Christina on the other hand was doing no back peddling, nope, she was a dead set psychic.

So when class resumes we're all sitting around listening to something else very businessy, when Peter's hand slides across the table with a cutout from the paper of todays market shares. Leaning in, he says "Well, which markets do you think are going to are going to go up and down tomorrow?". Leaning in further, very conspiratorially, he said "Just mark them with an arrow – up and down. Be very helpful. Do it with your hands like the Melbourne Cup"

Can you imagine what a dodgy bastard I was feeling? I turned him down.