Moment to Moment

Parts of Perth which resemble hell

1. The motor registry office in West Perth. With its serried bank of seating facing a TV screen the size of a teaspoon, queues longer than the Zambezi river and an odd odour of decaying plastics and human sweat, this is one place to avoid at all costs. Of course, if one has any driverly business to attend to, it cannot be avoided, and so it is usually full of other people looking just as hideously unhappy at being there as you are.

2. Perth train station on any hot summer afternoon, especially now they've introduced the new 'smart rider' card that doesn't quite work and all the guards are snarky and all the passengers are stinky. Also, people in Perth have trouble with the concept of standing back and waiting while others exit a newly-arrived train.

3. JB hi-fi in the city. Always crowded, always with throngs of emo kids and teenage boys standing around looking cranky, with no service and no way of moving down the aisles and again, a particularly strange and offputting aroma reminisicent of people who lie in bed all day smoking pot.

4. Northbridge on a Friday or Saturday night. 'Nuff said really. All you'd need to do would be to add a few demons and a bit of torture to the drunken screaming masses and it'd be a dead ringer for a Heironymous Bosch painting.

5. Scarborough Beach Road. Where the wealthy denizens of Perth spend their Saturdays being tasteful furniture and throw-rugs from Ikea/Freedom/Empire et al. All the affluenza you could want, plus a double-dose of traffic rage along the actual road with extra helpings of screaming kiddies.

6. Cottesloe Beach. Controversial, true, but it's an utter hole of a place to be when it's packed full of tanned smoking teenagers putting their best moves on each other, holidaying tourists and lots and lots of seagulls, while up and down the road cruise boys in too-loud cars driving ultra-slow so the girls in the too-small bikinis can admire their spoilers. The strip is also hideously overpriced for food and drink, the eateries are limited and while the view is beautiful and the groyne is a nice spot to swim at it's just so overrated. Of course, it'd be really nice if no-one went there. As they say, hell is other people.

7. Innaloo shopping centre, anytime, day or night. It's evil. It's Westfield. But you can't stay away. And don't even ask about the carpark. 

Precious, precious sleep

For a start, thank you for all those excellent suggestions, I have been trying a few different things, and on Friday night, with no 'I have to get up at 5:40' thoughts in my head, I had a massive 12 hour sleep.

And both nights before that I was asleep before midnight, which was a significant improvement, with only a few wake-ups. I feel like a new person. Actually, I feel like the person I used to be before my sleep got so crap.

So here, so far, are the methods I've tried, and my rating:

1. Journalling or whatever you want to call it. This is something I'm trying to do more as a adjunctive treatment to my overall noisy, overthinky brain problem and it definitely helps. Just writing down the rather ridiculous thoughts I have about not getting to sleep puts them all into perspective, just as writing down my thoughts about my anxiety helps ease that. I give this a 7.5/10.

2. More exercise. Definitely helps. 8.5/10.

3. Phenergen. The good old off-label usage for anti-histamines. As an allery sufferer I've always got a pack of these around. They work, but I honestly don't feel like I've had a good sleep the next day and I do worry about 'relying' on them -- not as a physical addiction but more as a psychological crutch. 5/10.

4. Reading until I feel tired, not just until it's 10pm and I think 'must go to sleep now'. Just picked up my copy of The Solid Mandela for the Patrick White Reader's Group and managed to get through a page before conking last night. 6/10 (only because sometimes I get sucked into a book and the next thing you know it's 3am).

5. Listening to the meditation music thing. I downloaded this 'Tibetan gong thing' which is just that: gongs. It's okay and so far I've listened to it once. It definitely distracts me from thinking, which is the trick. I've got some suggestions for less naff music of this sort -- thanks Audrey and Dean, especially for the Brian Eno suggestion -- and I already have some Mum and Sigur Ros and Boards of Canada and Dirty Three which could do the trick, so I'm going to keep my iPod by my bed with a 'sleep happy' playlist for emergencies. 5/10 so far but we'll see.

6. Booze. A glass of wine at dinner is pretty relaxing but anything more than that tends to disrupt my sleep later in the night. 4/10. I get a hangover after anything more than three standard drinks in an evening so that's a no-no (yes, I am that weak, no need to point it out, especially you Mr Devil Drink).

7. Restricting computer time in the evenings. This is a big one so I'm giving it 8/10.

8. Along the same lines, giving myself adequate 'wind-down' time. I've been trying to work until 9:30 some nights and be in bed by 10pm. This just isn't helpful. I need time to read/knit/let myself calm down and relax. 8/10.

8. Counting down/relaxing muscles when I'm lying in bed, with the lights off. This works, so long as I don't sort of wander off mentally and find myself circling around the subjects which cause me anxiety, ie, thinking about work and making lists of things I think I should be doing and so on. 8/10. I guess this sort of thing counts as meditation, and I think it's pretty helpful.

9. Sex. Without going into too many details nor knocking rooting as a enjoyable and valuable pasttime, it is not so helpful as a sleep aide, as for me it just means more wakefulness and less actual snoozing.

10. Yoga. Which I used to do a while ago but haven't done for ages, so no rating until I give it a go.

*I mentioned a while back I'm using cognitive behavioural therapy to tackle this particular problem of mine and it's helping, I think. Actually, I know it's helping; but you don't go from being a jittery worrier with depressive tendencies to a beacon of calmness and sanity overnight.

Of course having full-time work has made me much happier -- I can't even tell you how well the job is going, and how much I'm enjoying the work and being in a social environment with lots of people. It's interesting and fun and I'm being paid to do what I like doing: writing.

The downsides are of course that I am scared I won't do a good job, and that I am anxious about learning all the new things I have to learn, that I'll be revealed as a fraud if I make a mistake. The usual stuff. And it's this which is preying on my thoughts when I try to sleep. So addressing this silly thinking is important, and trying to disentangle my sense of self-worth from 'what I do' is another thing I'm working on.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and enjoy the company of my fiance before he goes to Karratha for six weeks.

Help me hive-mind-kenobi, you're my only hope

Insomnia.

It's not every night but since I started the new job it's become much more frequent than the once-in-a-blue-moon sleeplessness I used to suffer from. In fact, I'm currently having a couple of nights a week where my sleep is pretty badly disturbed.

What usually happens is, I'm tired, I go to bed. But then I can't go to sleep -- my mind is whirling, and I can't stop thinking about things, and then I start to worry about not getting enough sleep and how crappy I'll feel the next day. It doesn't help that I have to get up at 5:40. Last night I felt like my heart was pounding it's way out of my chest and I finally got up and read a book for about an hour until I felt sleepy.

I usually feel tired when I go to bed, sleep for 30 minutes or so, then wake up and have trouble falling asleep until about 2am. (2am to 5:40am is REALLY not enough sleep.)

It's obviously an anxiety thing, worsened by the fact that I'm stressing about getting enough sleep as well as all the other things going on in my head at roughly the speed of light.

So, I'm trying to make some changes so it doesn't become a permanent thing, more exercise, less computer time in the evenings, warm cup of milo instead of anything boozy/caffeiney, and so on.

My question for you all is: any tips?

I was thinking about trying some *wincing* meditation music or podcasts. I've downloaded one and I'm going to listen to it on my iPod tonight. Has anyone tried anything like this? Did it help? Are they naff and will they want to make me plug my ears with blu-tack? I'm willing to put up with naff if it stops my ridiculous overheated anxious brain from keeping me awake.

(I'm also considering doing yoga as people who do it are all centred and stuff and never have humungous bags under their eyes or almost cry when they can't have their morning coffee because there's no milk at the office.)

I'm sure there's a plus side to being anxious and stressy, some evolutionary advantage, but right now I just want to find a way to relax and shut off the damn incessant noise, at least between the hours of 10pm and 6am. Work with me here brain. It'll be better for both of us.

Note to self

Do NOT leave your wallet on the knee-height brick wall surrounding the shrubbery at the train station, for then you will be f*****.

And you will be 45 minutes late for work, and then you will have to cancel all your cards.

But then, an angel of mercy in the form of a good bloke called Steve will ring you to say he has your wallet and you can pick it up from his house tonight before he and his wife go out for Valentine's Day Dinner.

So the story will end well, even if it leaves you feeling like a dill.

(This is the first time in your life you have ever lost your wallet, though one time you did drunkenly put it in someone's bag and forget where it was the next morning, leading to all sorts of hungover shenanigans.)

Howard bashing

In other news, I hate John Howard. First of all for the whole 'no link between climate change and human activity' asshattery (later retracted, but hah to that), and secondly for admitting that he could have brought David Hicks home but has chosen not to.

I don't generally engage in Howard bashing. I don't like him, his government, or their policies. Obviously. But I generally try to keep the bile and venom to a minimum, because I think that being abusive is mainly counter-productive, and by being nasty about Howard one risks looking like a freak and alienating the swinging voter, etc. Polite and reasoned argument being better than name-calling and abuse, and all that.

But right now? If I saw that nasty lying conniving rat Howard on the street I'd... I'd say something really impolite, along the lines of "You, sir, make me ashamed to be Australian."

And then I'd walk away.

Actually I'd probably run away, as fast as I coulds, so the security guards wouldn't get me.

For fuck's sake. Hicks has been in jail for over five years. No charges. Solitary. Enough said. If you treated a dog like that the RSPCA would have you arrested.

And climate change? Even companies like Rio Tinto (no offense to anyone I know who works at Rio, should you read this) are pushing for climate change measures to be put in place. I read one analyst today who attributed such measures at least partly to companies trying to avoid potential future litigation once the whole thing really gets going. It's an interesting thought.

Our government has been so woefully, painfully, obstinately opposed to any sort of humane treatment for Australian citizens, or measures to actually do something about global warming.

I don't need to tell you that, dear readers, but sometimes it feels good to state the bleedingly obvious.

And lo, on the ninth day...

... the sick being (me) did arise from the depths of her misery and torment (being sick with associated mucus issues) and she did attendth to her blog, for it was sad, and it withered (sat there looking all samey) without her tender and still mightily germ-covered ministrations (writing shitty posts eagerly awaited by three or four loyal readers).

So how have you been?

In sickness and in health

What's the most logical thing to do at 4:00 am on a Wednesday morning when, after going to bed with tickly throat and a mild headache, you wake up with a burning fever, a stiff neck, and the sensation of having just eaten a sandpaper sandwich?

Get up and google meningicoccal meningitis, of course. (Checking your whole body for a rash is also an acceptable answer.)

Just for the record, I am fine. JW was not terribly impressed with my early-morning googling, but he did go and buy pho for us for dinner on Wednesday night when I was too sick to cook, and he has also put up with my dreadful carryings-on, moaning, fretting, and all-round hypochondria for the week, for which I think he should be canonised.

I am not a good sick person. I do not soldier on bravely. My preferred method of dealing with any illness is to take to my bed with several novels, but given the whole new-job situation, plus the heat, such a course was denied to me.

Anyway, according to the doctor, I have either a bacterial infection or a virus. Which narrows it down rather considerably, I must say.

In other news, I went shopping for new work clothes yesterday, thinking I was well enough to handle the strain. Alas, I was not, because I cannot escape the impression that the manufacturers of 'work' style clothing seem to think wommyns should be constantly flashing their boobs at whoever is unlucky enough to sit across from them, and not just that, but that teeny weeny little shorts are appropriate wear for meetings and suchlike.

While I find nothing inherently disturbing about either boobs or legs (funnily enough) I do quite like to keep those parts of myself pretty much under wraps at work, not just because the average Australian office airconditioner is usually turned up high enough to freeze the nether regions of a penguin, but also because I generally think it is hard to take anyone seriously when you're worrying about getting a glimpse of their nipples. (Or vice versa.)

Anyway, I finally found a shirt and a dress/tights combination that worked and didn't make me look 17 or pregnant or cleavegy. But I had forgotten how hard it is to find office wear that isn't soul-destroyingly conformist or stupidly sexual or, and this is the clincher, hideously expensive.

Sewing machine (and house of Target), here I come.