On the weekend we all went out to Tom’s sister’s birthday party. We started at Mad Monk cafe in Fremantle, which is just awful and overpriced, but then had cocktails at the Sail and Anchor, which was actually not bad. During cocktail time, Tom’s sister and her boyfriend got drunk and went off to yell at each other for an hour or two. We sat and waited for them, but by the time they were done we had to go home.

The next day, I met up with volunteer group who monitor seagrass health down in Rockingham. I haven’t worked with them for three or four years, but they asked me to come and help out with measuring seagrass patches in Safety Bay. When I got there, however, it turned out that they had assumed I wasn’t going to show, and had called up someone else. In the end, they actually had to kick this perfectly nice young woman off the boat to fit me on board. It was pretty embarrassing. Do I have a reputation for flakiness? Maybe. Meanwhile, the actual seagrass research part went fine. I’m going out again with them next week.

This week I’ve just been doing a bit of work at the bottle shop. I guess I’ve become used to the boredom, but now they’re short on staff because they’ve transferred the assistant manager and they’ll probably keep calling me in at short notice. That will bring a whole new level of annoyance. In fact, when they did that at my last bottle shop job, I quit. So maybe I’ll get driven to the point of resigning. That’s something to look forward to. I’d never have to wear that oversized polo shirt again. Or have lunch in the roach-infested staff room. Or ask someone whether they have a PIN for their credit card. Or watch people walk barefoot over all the smashed glass in the car park. That would be sweet.

I’m also looking for relief teaching work. See above.

So anyway, I ran over a tek screw in the carpark yesterday, and get this! I changed my own tyre! It was easy, actually, and I also got the punctured one repaired at a tyre shop. Therefore I am practical and damn manly.

I also helped Eleesha move a couch in my car. Aw yeah!

What else has been going on? School starts in a couple of weeks and it looks like I will be a relief teacher. The best thing about that is that I will have an excuse for showing up to the bottle shop an hour later than usual. Perhaps I can even quit entirely!

No, don’t dream that big. You’ll only get your hopes crushed.

Also, I am writing a poem that rhymes AABA. It’s hard.

So I’ve been thinking about this chick, bearing a strong resemblance to the picture below (that’s below, not Mario and Toad above), this chick who comes into my life very occasionally and makes me a bit dizzy. She’s charming and, like most women I truly admire, is so unattainable as to render any effort futile.

Of course, she isn’t the point of the story. What I mean to say is that, in circumstances like this, I always get slightly embarrassed for myself. I start to wonder why I spend so much time thinking about the most winsome and unfeasible women, while I consistently steer clear of the fairly nice and obviously available ones that sit beside me in class, bag my groceries, or post profiles on dating sites. I try to decide whether I am inept in matters of romance, or just appropriately wary of getting myself into a relationship with someone I don’t really like out of fear of being alone. Of course, there’s nothing to say that it can be both options. And it’s vexing, for sure, but I do at least take some comfort in thinking about all the people I know who have gotten themselves into bad relationships for fear of being alone. At least I don’t have that.

And yes I’m talking about you, suckah.

So that’s that. Now, after getting them wrong when I wrote them down for Kat, I feel obliged to post the entire range of ukulele chords that I know. Here they are:

A: 2100
A minor: 2000
A#: 3211 (move up the neck to get a B chord)
A# minor: 3111 (can move up the neck as well)
C: 0003
D: 2220
D minor: 2230
D# minor: X321
E minor: 0432
F: 2010
G: 0232
G minor: 0231
G7: 0212

Now rip it up, muthafucka!