Is it worth it? Let me work it.

Emma Jane’s most recent post made me feel rather better about the disgraceful state to which my kitchen has reverted since the dishwasher repair man took my favourite appliance away, although I don’t have the excuse of psyche-altering hormone treatments that she does.

Psyche-altering hormones are more generally another matter altogether from dirty sink-benches, as all good readers know. One reason this will never be a video diary is that I have no desire to share my first bloated, then crampy self with you for up to ten days a month. Even my vision is distorted at the moment; approaching a glass door earlier today, I had to avert my eyes at the wide, wobbly form reflected back at me. And alas, there’s no real feeling of moral victory when you feel like yelling at your co-workers and students, but don’t.

Working relationships have been changing around me for the last couple of weeks. I feel as if invisible alliances have shifted, which is to say, I feel more isolated. It’s a pattern of my life and many of the people I’ve known that I seem to learn new ways of looking and doing things from the people around me, then suddenly find I’m further down the road looking back at them, and they’re wondering why I’ve changed. Sometimes I think that, having come out from behind my personal iron curtain of depression in early adulthood, I live my mental life at a faster pace than many people. It’s not exactly time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near, more as if it were coming up behind me and I running to keep ahead. Most people don’t live by the same imperative, therefore at least some of my professional and personal friendships are usually in the process of wearing out. It’s hard, but I’d rather know that than not know.

Hungry Ghost both honours and flatters me with a new note in her profile. I found it this morning on my way to work; it couldn’t have turned up at a more welcome time. It’s a struggle sometimes to remember the life that my job throws up–the admin, the meetings, the difficulty of making myself understood over simple things–is not who I am, but rather the necessary evil by which who I am is able to exist. Those moments in the classroom that aren’t like pulling teeth (and there are many, but not as many as I like), evenings and weekends when I’m writing to create rather than contain my world, mornings waking up in my own bed in a two-dog sandwich–these are the Real Me moments, and if I didn’t have to trek hourly from pillar to post by way of employment at present, they might lodge more firmly in the forefront of my mind.

In this week’s slings and arrows of industrial relations (on which I’ve attempted to gain a more accurate perspective by joining the union’s branch committee) I keep forgetting my weekend plans, which are rather spesh: I am flying up to Wellington on Saturday to see Gillian Welch (and David Rawlings) play that evening. It was when I rang Bill last Sunday to see if he knew about the show and found out he had heard of it some time ago, that I realised I was by no means on his mind (since Ms. Welch is one of our favourite musicians both, and much of our time has been spent praising and discussing her work). It’s a whistle stop with not much time to see friends: Faith is out climbing high places while her knee is up and working and Mariella ensconced with her sailor, but that should leave me time to see the new national pictures exhibit at Te Papa. All my favourites, all in one place, all in different images from my local city gallery to which I have been on about half a dozen field trips this year. Bill Hammond‘s eerie birds and I have a date.

Two days ago the local council released its triennial property valuations. The value of the humble casa di harvest has increased by over forty percent. I now live in a house I couldn’t have afforded to buy. As harvestmother put it, I probably shouldn’t borrow against the new equity immediately, but it’s a head-spinning increase nonetheless. A two-year boom in house prices and the fact poorer families in this town continue to be squeezed out to the eastern outskirts (here in the southwest my childhood was bounded by horse paddocks and state houses, almost all since sold for subdivision or, in the case of the houses, sold and renovated) have changed the ‘hood. I can’t say I long for the days when wise children hid in the bushes when kids from the high school (that became my high school) biked past, but the thought of being upwardly mobile without actually going anywhere is odd.

On Sundy morning, Mariella and I went down to the terrier club show so I could fulfil my committee duties and help set up. Thanks to a Norwich-owning show secretary the Norwiches were near the top of the show schedule. There were three baby puppies in the breed, all from the same litter, all four months old on the day. I know I have vowed no more puppies until Millie is two, but the sight of them was almost too much. Fortunately there has in the meantime been a fair amount of unsolicited document shredding at home (including the top of my London A-Z–now I will never be able to find a hospice if I need one) to remind me of just why I’ve looked forward to her maturity on many occasions this year. But still…