I’m sitting here in my office, giving myself hell. In philosophy we’re always talking about how people don’t force each other to do things any more, they just make them think they want to do them. This is what’s happening to me.

Just the idea that some narcy button-pusher is reading a list of the sites I’ve visited is making me feel guilty about reading weblogs all morning.

I slept in this morning and now I actually feel worse because of the guilt attached to it.

I feel guilty that I’m going to buy a big, tasty hot lunch instead of making my own prefectly reasonable and inexpensive sandwich.

See? I don’t need anyone to boss me around today because I’m a walking ball of guilt already. This is even worse than the attack of Mondayitis I had on Tuesday. I can’t wait for something to take my mind off things.

Me: I keep forgetting things. I’ve got a bad case of Mondayitis.

P: It’s Tuesday.

Me: That’s exactly what I mean!

It seems I have this same conversation every couple of weeks. *groan*

On Saturday I went for a walk down through Camperdown and the lower parts of Enmore. The houses there are so old they have laneways out the back. One even had an outhouse where you could see the hole in the back for taking out the crapbuckets, that had been bricked up when sewers were put in. I come from a town where the oldest buildings are from the eighties, so everything here is about as ancient to me as castles and tombs must be to regular people. At Camperdown Park I noticed that the soil was actual dirt and not just grey sand. It was a big deal. I feel like I’m in a different country.

On Sunday I tried to take a train out as far into the suburbs as I could. I wanted to see some urban sprawl - preferably with vast expanses of sand where the new estates were going to be. Just like Rockingham. But the only train I could find went to Bankstown, and that wasn’t half way there. The houses were a bit bigger, sure, but there were too many coloured people. The only non-caucasians living in Rockingham are the ones who run the Chinese restaurant.* I’m going to have to go further next time, right to the end of the railway, and then take a bus. I might end up in Newcastle.

*May not actually be true. But you get the picture.

I’m sitting here watching the movie of Matilda and one thing occurs to me - wasn’t Matilda meant to be British?

(In other news, Sydney Weblogger’s Meetup is back on and the next event is Tuesday the 5th. There’s even a Grogblogging night scheduled for May. Sign up at blog.meetup.com.)

Early one morning I was thinking, and I finally realised what was wrong with life, the universe and everything. You know what it is? There isn’t enough credence. There’s billions of people out there, but so little credence that most people hardly get any. Sure, if you’re a famous novelist or a movie star you get stacks of credence - but what about people whose greatest achievement in life is to be able to walk in a straight line without falling over? Where’s their Freddo Frog? Where’s their congratulations? Ha! It’s not there at all. That’s what’s wrong with the world.

I think society should give everyone a medal or something just for being able to tie their shoes. Hell - just for being able to get out of bed in the morning, because sometimes that’s the hardest thing to do in the whole world. Sure, you could make a scientific discovery that wins the Nobel Prize, but you wanted to do that anyway. Give the shiny trophy to someone who decided not to jump off a bridge when they really, really wanted to. The point is, when we think of great achievements, we always think of famous people who did interesting things. But the boring things that people have to do in order to survive are often just as difficult.

Here is a list of things that everyone should get a medal for (or at least a bikkie):

1. Walking and not bumping into things all the time.

2. Getting a job and paying their bills.

3. Meeting friends.

4. Learning to sit properly in a chair without fidgeting. (I’m yet work this one out.)

5. Not hating everything.

So make today Credence Day. Give yourself a pat on the back for being able to do the little things that get you through life, because those things are sometimes the hardest of all.

1. Discrimination based not on race, gender, or religion, but rather on a disturbingly horrible iTunes music library discovered through a school or job network.

Roots from Wesleyan University; refers to the “shared music” feature available on iTunes in which one can browse the various music libraries of the co-workers or classmates in their network. Often requires awkward explanation of why you have “that song.”

Mike accused me of playlistism when I questioned his collection of Color Me Badd b-sides.

from Urban Dictionary

I have been scorned on occasion for my catalogue of Bob Dylan rarities (and for some Culture Club mp3s, the ‘Scatman’ and Michael Jackson’s History). I also know even Robert has been accused of Jet fandom - but what about you? Have you ever been a victim of Playlistism?

Kitta is up to post number 272 on her blog. With this post, I will reach 262. That means I am only ten posts away from the Kitta Limit. I have been waiting for this for the last 150 posts or so, and now I’m so close I can almost sniff it :) I will soon pass across the event horizon be posting at the speed of Hawking radiation. If you Google my site, you will find it contains more quantum information than the entire universe. Laws of thermodynamics be damned, we’re headed for final frontier!

(Though not without some remorse. Kitta was always better than me.)

I have a good reason to eat take-out from now on. Yesterday night I tried to cook vegetables and pasta at the same time on my 2-plate stove thingy, and perhaps they were on for a bit long, or perhaps there just wasn’t enough ventilation, but the whole room filled up with moisture that condensed on the floor and the walls, making everything slippery. The little rangehood whirred away but it couldn’t cope and looked dangerously close to dripping its collected gunk back into my food. Such is the tiny-box-ness of my flat. So I was there trying to get everything cooked as quickly as possible when I noticed something really revolting: the walls were dripping a digusting brown liquid. Ewww. The liquid was dripping qo quickly I had to run and wipe all of it up before it dripped onto anything that I wanted to keep. I figure it must have been tar from someone who had smoked inside that had become stuck to the walls and was now dripping back off with my cooking steam. Straight from the inside of his lungs to me.

Gross.

So very gross.

This is just another case of me wanting to find whoever lived here before me and punch them in the nose. Yeah, you know who you are.

I’m lucky enough to have a job that I feel really passionate about. Reading all the other blogs, I realise things could have turned out a lot worse. Even on the days when I’m not propelled out of bed by the need to go and write down some important ideas, I know that when I get into the office there won’t be any superiors breathing down my neck. I can chatter as much as I like, and if I’m tired I can just sleep in: my perfect way to have the three day weekend that everyone should be entitled to.

But it’s not altogether without it’s difficulties. Sometimes sleeping is the way to take your mind off it. I mean: Today I spent all morning trying to fix one section of my chapter, expanded it by a thousand words, and then deleted all the new stuff after a couple of cheese sandwiches for lunch. Then I had to stay back late and fix everything until it was in a zenlike state of harmony, otherwise the weekend wouldn’t happen. This kind of work is all mad flashes of inspiration, then long hours of trying to make sense out of what’s on the screeen. Worse, in the middle of it all, I have to hope and pray that I’m keeping it real and not just confusing the issue or playing games. So while it’s not a boring job and it does go somewhere, it has a bad habit of taking over your life. At least with me, anyway.

But… there’s only ten thousand words to go before I can relax for a while. It’s not that much, really. In the mean time I’ve decided that I’m going to start writing some more songs now, so if I get a band or just go solo I’ll have something to play. Each song has to conform to a set of reasonable standards:

1: It has to be somewhat boppy. I’d like really boppy songs, but I’m taking it slow.

2: It has to be amusing.

3: It has to contain a reference to the Violent Femmes.

That’s it. I think it’s a good formula though, and if I’m not concentrating on being pretentious and just push the ‘amusing’ angle I should have the first few off pretty soon. Yay!